Holy Sh!t: I Got Hypnotized to Ride Better and It Actually Worked!
For two long mountain bike rides in a row, I haven't cursed on the trail, gotten weepy, yelled at my poor boyfriend, sulked afterward in the car, or been tempted to hurl my bike off a cliff. I’ve been smiling, barreling over (small) logs and powering through rocks, stopping to go back to retry trail obstacles—while actually taking advice from Peter, the aforementioned boyfriend—and ending the rides sitting in the car, grinning.
It’s like I’ve become a different cyclist.
A few months ago, I was feeling frustrated with my mountain biking. If I rode alone, I’d end up walking anything that scared me (logs, rocky sections, drops) for fear of crashing solo, and when riding in a group, I’d panic on technical sections, worried about embarrassing myself (hint: not trying is more embarrassing than crashing). After one particularly painful ride, I was mad as hell and couldn't take it anymore. “I should just get hypnotized so I’m not terrified all the time,” I told Peter, mostly kidding. But the thought kept bouncing around my brain: What if I could change how I ride, from the couch? I started looking for a hypnotherapist in my area with some expertise in sports therapy.
When I chatted with Mary Battaglia, a certified clinical hypnosis practitioner in Oradell, New Jersey, she was intrigued. She usually deals with golfers and basketball players, but cycling, she thought, would be similar. The goal of hypnotherapy, she says, is to address whatever is blocking you from your best performance, whether it’s a fear of competition in basketball or a fear of a rock drop on a trail.
Walking into my first session, I quickly realized she wouldn't be swinging a watch in front of my eyes. “Stage hypnosis is entertainment,” says Battaglia. "It’s nothing like what I do. We focus on relaxation and interior work. With sports hypnosis, it’s about being able to be calm and focused on whatever sport you’re doing.” While hypnotherapy aims to influence your subconscious, you’re conscious the entire time. It’s a combination of guided meditation and therapy. Think meditation-lite: You focus on relaxing, but if you can’t clear your mind completely, that’s fine.
Three 90-minute sessions later, I wouldn’t say I’m cured—what would I be cured of, anyway?—but I have become a more confident cyclist. While not everybody will feel comfortable relaxing so deeply with a total stranger, I’d encourage just about any cyclist to give hypnosis a try, especially if you feel like you’ve hit a cycling plateau. Here are six lessons I learned from the experience.
Keep an Open Mind
The first rule of hypnotherapy: You have to believe it will work for it to work. So even if you’re skeptical (I definitely was), at least try to keep your mind open. If you fight it, you won’t get anywhere, Battaglia says. "You have to be open to making changes in your life.”
Think Positive…
My biggest problem was my negative thinking, and that’s what Battaglia and I focused on for most of our time together. Because I didn’t believe I could make it over an obstacle, I was bailing out long before I needed to. And the first obstacle I couldn’t get over would set the tone for my ride—it was all downhill from there. But through hypnotherapy, I started to see mountain biking the way I used to: It’s a lot of freaking fun. And yes, I’m still timid on the trails. But instead of feeling upset about it, I’m enjoying the process.
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… And Beware Negatives in Disguise
Battaglia pointed out that even when I was trying to be positive during a ride, I’d often introduce negative language without realizing it. Instead of saying, “I’m doing great!” I’d tell myself, “I don’t suck at this!” Rather than saying, “I can ride this log,” I’d think, “I won’t crash.” Try to keep your self-talk 100-percent positive.
Do Your Homework
The ultimate goal of hypnotherapy sessions is to empower you to help yourself. "With self-hypnosis, every day you can get into that deep, relaxed state,” Battaglia says. “Everyone has stress and anxiety in their lives, but if you can get to that calm state, you change how you react to things.” It’s not as kooky as it sounds: Giving myself a couple minutes before a ride to mentally prepare has helped me a lot. Try this: Take long, deep breaths while focusing on an object (any object—the point is just to focus your mind). After a few breaths, close your eyes, and think about exactly how you want the ride to go—for me, that means being able to ride the rock garden, but it could be how good it will feel to crush that hill you hate to climb.
RELATED: Get More out of Cycling With Pre-Ride Meditation
Battaglia also encourages keeping a ride journal, like this one developed by Bicycling. "If you’re not mindful about what’s going on or how you reacted to things, it’s hard to realize you need to make changes,” she says. Plus, “when you journal, you’re in an almost meditative state.” Now I spend a few minutes at night writing about my ride. I don’t treat it like it's an assignment, or even anything I'm going to re-read. It's just a way to vent, to get thoughts and fears off my chest, and learn a lot about myself and my riding.
Keep Calm and Ride On
Unsurprisingly, one of the most important things Battaglia had me do was simply get out on my bike. Part of the reason I wasn’t improving, we realized, was that I just wasn’t riding as much as I needed to, largely because I felt uncomfortable in my own riding skin. But she encouraged me to go at my own pace, stay calm, and find the joy in riding again. We worked a lot on my internal motivation for riding, and included it in my daily affirmations: phrases like "I am a skilled mountain biker," and "I can confidently ride on trails and over obstacles” were in there, but so were phrases like, "I love riding my bike and I wake up every day excited to ride."
Click Your Heels
Near the end of "The Wizard of Oz," Glinda the Good Witch tells Dorothy, “You’ve had the power all along.” Well, hypnotherapy is sort of like that. It’s not that I magically got better at riding over obstacles because I was hypnotized. My riding ability was there: I’d practiced, attended clinics, worked with coaches, and I was capable of riding most obstacles. And I knew that the bike could handle it—my full-suspension mountain bike has plenty of travel for rolling over most things. I was just paralyzed by fear. We worked on the fears, not the skills, and that’s what made a big difference.
I do quack like a duck at the weirdest moments, though. Kidding!
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