The Performance-Boosting Benefits of Showing Yourself a Little Kindness
Shutting down your negative self-talk and showing yourself more compassion can reap physical benefits, such as more energy and a lower heart rate and sweat response, according to a new study in the journal Clinical Psychological Science.
Treating yourself kindly can have training benefits as well, helping you push through the rough patches and come out stronger.
It’s easy to be critical of yourself after a ride or workout that didn’t go as well as you’d hoped or expected. Thoughts like, Why aren’t I fast enough? or I’m so weak tend to cycle through your mind. But according to new research out of the University of Exeter and Oxford University in England, this mentality isn’t only hurting you mentally, but it may be taking a physical toll, too.
The Clinical Psychological Science study included 135 University of Exeter students who were divided into five groups. Study authors measured each student’s heart rate and sweat response-or how much they were sweating, something that is influenced by feelings of threat or distress-and then asked them to answer questions such as “How safe do you feel?” “How likely are you to be kind to yourself?” and “How connected do you feel to others?”
Two of the five groups then received an 11-minute audio recording that encouraged them to be self-compassionate. The remaining three groups received an 11-minute audio recording that was created to prompt a critical inner voice.
As it turned out, the groups who listened to the self-compassionate audio recordings had more energy, a lower heart rate, and a lower sweat response than they did before the experiment began. And those who listened to the self-critical audio recordings had a higher heart rate and were sweating more.
“Our findings suggest that being kind to oneself switches off the threat response by reducing the heart rate and sweat response, and puts the body in a state of safety and relaxation, which we can see by an increase in the heart rate variation,” study coauthor Hans Kirschner, Ph.D.(c), a graduate fellow in the University of Exeter’s Mood Disorders Center, told Runner’s World.
This heart rate variation, Kirschner said, is related to our ability to regulate our emotions, which is important because many mental and physical health problems are associated with chronic stress that can weaken our immune systems as time goes on.
Meanwhile, being self-critical activates your body’s threat system, according to Kirschner, which explains the participants’ bodily responses of a higher heart rate and sweat response.
So what does this all mean for cyclists? While the study didn’t directly address athletes, Kirschner posits that treating yourself kindly during a particularly discouraging or distressing time in your training, rather than talking yourself down, might help you find the state of mind to continue on with your training.
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Having self-compassion “can counter the often paralyzing and discouraging inner critique, and helps to regulate negative emotions and problem solve in a more effective way.”
The bottom line: Instead of getting angry at yourself after a bad ride, tell yourself that you did the best you could and that next time will be better. Your mind-and body-will thank you.
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