Have you seen the focused look of Olympic Gold Medal winners like Michael Phelps, just before a race in the Olympic Pool? They look down, avoiding the confusion 'outside' the mind ... maybe listening to rock music or a gentle relaxation tape, or to The Holosync Solution for instant meditation - - avoiding the large screen, the crowd, the cameras.

The energy level remains controlled low. They stare down the pool at the target wall perhaps 50 meters away. They are focused like a zen monk, barely raising a hand or arm when their name is called. These are the super focused sports performers - - the gold medal winners.

Sports psychology is now a science incorporating elements such as thought control, attitude training, hypnosis and positivity. It is equally as important for peak performance as the physical aspects of sleep, nutrition, exercise and muscle training and development. Ask Michael Phelps or Libby Trickett, Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, Natalie Coughlin or Leisel Jones. You won't get their most closely held secrets, but you can sure observe them.

The autonomic nervous system is both friend and foe. While it prepares you for 'fight or flight' it can also over react and we experience this as anxiety, panic, fear and sweating. An Olympic event, especially a gold medal competition, may trigger such an over-reaction and that's a powerful reason why meditative relaxation, music and focus are essential preparation for an olympic athlete

But there are more reasons for improving mental focus just prior to taking action. Reasons of energy efficiency. Creatively visualizing the goal, filling your mind with the target are excellent ways to stay focused and to focus valuable energy on the optimal performance. These are actually built-in abilities we all have. To unite with the target, becoming one with it. Even before we reach it.

There are many excellent ways of achieving deep relaxation: yoga and meditation, music and hypnosis. While in a meditative (focused) state - silently naming the main parts of the body and focusing the consciousness on each part. While doing this you should be aware of any tension in any part of your body. The trick is to then mentally visualize releasing this tension. Creative visualization is highly effective in this way.

Brain wave entrainment is a form of scientifically accelerated meditation, and an example is The Holosync Solution. Did you know that entrainment is a principle of physics? It is defined as the synchronization of two or more rhythmic cycles. These principles are universal, and appear in chemistry, neurology, biology, pharmacology, medicine, astronomy and more. Listen to this: While working on designing the pendulum clock in 1656, a Dutch scientist found that if he put two unsynchronized clocks next to each other, they would slowly synchronize to match their rhythms. In fact, the synchronization was so precise that even mechanical means couldn't calibrate them any more accurately. A clock is a simple example of a system responding to entrainment, but the same rules apply to more complicated systems - like your brain and body.

Core Sports Performance: Hypnosis is offered by The Hypnosis Network, by way of a pre-recorded CD. It explains how world sporting champions like Tiger Woods, and many others in the sporting arena use hypnosis for their sports preparation. In fact, Tiger understood mental focus from the ripe young age of six!

Hypnosis is probably, in this writer's opinion, the most cost-efficient way of delivering superb sports event preparation. Audio CDs are easily duplicated and that keeps the unit cost very low for a high quality product. After a brief period of training, the olympic athlete becomes an expert at self hypnosis and auto-suggestive self control. Just observe them a little more...