Hello Everyone,
It has been a while since I have posted, but it is time to get this last phase of research underway. I am prepared with my positive attitude and ready to work harder. So here it goes…
The topic that I have selected for my research project is “mindfulness.” Since I have a strong background in yoga and meditation, I am a believer that mindfulness is a benefit to athletes. According to the literature, mindfulness is, “traditionally touted in the East for its ability to reduce stress and increase perspective (Dayton, 2015).”Throughout the last few years I have brought this type of practice into the daily training environment with my athletes, and it definitely makes for a more peaceful and motivated atmosphere. It seems that there is an effect on the performance of the athletes, but to what extent does mindfulness play into performance?
This year I used our research methods class to dive further into the literature in this area, and was able to start to wrap my head around the concept of developing a research question. Mindfulness is a topic that I am interested in. Currently, there is more research being developed and it seems that there is a benefit beyond sports application
Research Question:
What effect does mindfulness intervention have on the performance of athletes? How can we measure this? How can the intervention be delivered to coaches and athletes, so that they are receptive to the desired effect? Will this enhance performance?
Once I dove deeper into the library, and the literature, I was able to identify the main measurement tools that exist so far; MAC, MSPE, and MT. These are interventions that are delivered in several sessions over a few weeks. In the literature, Carraça, Serpa, Palmi, and Rosado provide a summary of mindfulness interventions with athletes. They look at all the literature from 1985 to March 2017 in the field of mindfulness practice and performance. They claim, “MAC and MSPE programs as effective on enhancing elite athlete’s sports performance (Carraça, Serpa, Palmi, and Rosado, 2018).”In this article they evaluate the MSPE and MAC interventions.
Over the next few weeks this idea is going to become more detailed, as I work through the Annotated Bibliography and Literature Review.
Wish me luck while I strive to complete my project and find an answer to my question.
Toby Ng
September 9, 2018 — 9:43 pm
Hi Jesse,
Cool topic and I do with you the best of luck in finding an answer to your research question! I think mindfulness is definitely picking up in many places and has definitely been on the rise in the West, at least in pop psychology (or maybe it’s just the internet ads when I click on a book about “Mindfulness” just once).
But of course, I can definitely be mistaken and I’m definitely curious to see how far back the research goes on the subject!
Again, good luck with the research and looking forward to reading your updates!
david hill
September 19, 2018 — 6:53 am
Jesse, thanks for the blog. Be sure to write a few more reflections so that you can catch up on submission. I like the direction you are going and eager to read some of the research. I was curious in the blog above what the acronyms were for the different mindfulness interventions.