Ultra Endurance events are a real challenge; that's often why we like to take them on. Part of the challenge often includes continuing when we would really like to stop, not just because of fatigue, but because things start to hurt. If we can divert attention away from what hurts this can help us focus more on enjoying the event and completing it. The skill 'Intrinsic Anaesthetic Mind can help us do that.
Intrinsic Anaesthetic Mind is a psychological skill that you can use to help you focus on the enjoyable parts of your event rather than the more painful aspects.
Whilst it's always sensible to scratch if you are going to cause yourself serious injury, we cannot expect to finish an ultra distance event without some discomfort and having a way to deal with this can help keep you motivated when things get tough.
It works by tapping into a skill we all have of 'intrinsic anaesthesia' which is our brain's natural way of shifting focus to more important things. This way we can shift focus away from the discomfort of a hard session or event and onto the enjoyable aspects.
It works best if you learn the skill and then practise it regularly in harder training sessions.
It should not be used to keep you training and racing through serious injury that will cause long term damage.
Here are the steps to learn this skill.
1) Think about your brain's own natural anaesthetic capabilities and how you use this every day.
For example, think about the watch you wear on your wrist; you might be aware of it when you put it on first thing in the morning, or after a shower, but there will be hours and hours of the day when you do not feel it at all even when you use it to glance at the time.
Think about the shoes you wear on your feet. You will be very aware of how they feel when you first put them on, but there will be long spans of time throughout the day when you do not notice or feel them at all, even though you experience some relief when you take them off at the end of the day.
This is your brain's intrinsic anaesthetic mind; you can choose to focus on the important things and become completely unaware of anything other than the important focus of the moment.
2) Now think about the important things to focus on when you are hitting a difficult point in training and or your event; things that will help you complete your event successfully.
These might include:
Whatever are the important things to you that contribute to a successful event or session.
4) Now practise using your intrinsic anaesthetic mind whenever you can in training where it starts to get more difficult.
This technique is often best learnt during a guided session with a qualified professional. If you would like to find out more about how we can help you with psychological techniques you can book a free 20 minute consultation with no commitment to see how we can help you.