Better Sleep for Better Golf

Have you noticed how much better golf you play after a good night's sleep? Well I hadn't, but a couple of articles I read recently made me think about it more closely. And yes I think that's right. n Now one of the beneficial side effects of almost every hypnotherapy session is that the client reports sleeping better afterwards. What's more, my clients also tell me that they wake up on time, feeling refreshed and eager for the day ahead. This seems to happen whatever we're working on. And that includes golf hypnosis.n So why is that? Well, according to a recent article in New Scientist, medical experts have long associated bad sleep patterns with psychological problems ranging from depression to full blown mental illness. It's only recently that these same experts are beginning to realise that the psychological problems are often caused or aggravated by the bad sleeping patterns and not the other way around. To quote the article, nn"Take anyone with a psychiatric disorder and the chances are they don't sleep well. The result of their illness, you might think. Now this long-standing assumption is being turned on its head, with the radical suggestion that poor sleep might actually cause some psychiatric illnesses or lead people to behave in ways that doctors mistake for mental problems."n What does this mean for golf improvement from better sleep? n I can well remember times in my past, before I discovered the world of NLP and Hypnosis, when I was really worked up the night before the Club Championships or some other important game. I'd wake up many times throughout the night and struggle to sleep at all after about 4am. These days, I just use self-hypnosis to relax myself and I wake up in the morning feeling relaxed and positive. More importantly, I played better golf and enjoy my golf more.n Did you notice how relaxed Retief Goosen looked at the start of his round last Sunday before winning the Transitions Championship on the PGA Tour? Despite the pressure of almost 4 years without a win, he didn't look like he'd missed a wink of sleep the night before. n How different from Rory McIlroy before his first win at the Dubai Desert Classic a month or so ago. He looked completely out of sorts all day, despite starting the final day 6 shots ahead, and really gritted his teeth on that last hole to win - it was magnificent. He certainly didn't look like he'd had a restful night's sleep.