Using Meditation to Help Your Chess Game
If you’re a chess player who wants to use your brains and
knowledge at peak levels and win more games, matches, and
tournaments, this article is for you.
You don't have to achieve satori or enter nirvana, nor do you have
to learn how to levitate or develop your ESP. Meditation doesn’t
have to be something mystical or mysterious at all. It's simply an
empirically tested and proven way of helping your mind to function
at its best, which is what you need for your mind to do to win chess
games.
To further clarify the matter, meditation is also not about
thinking. It’s not even about thinking over your next chess move,
much less remembering your first kiss, worrying about your job, or
pondering the meaning of life. That’s called contemplation.
Now that we’ve covered what meditation is not, we’ll talk about what
it is. It's about relaxing and focusing your mind so that your
brainwaves are basically cycling at the alpha rate or lower. In
contrast, when thinking, your brain waves are busily cycling at the
beta rate.
Many years ago, using an EEG machine, brain researchers found that
the electrical impulses in our brains cycle at different wavelengths
depending on our state of consciousness. These wavelengths were
named alpha, beta, theta, and delta. Most people operate in beta
except during sleep, when the brain goes into a theta rhythm, and
deep sleep, which is indicated by delta. Alpha indicates a state of
relaxation with a rate of about 7 to 14 cycles per second. Alpha is
a relaxed, dreamy state in which you can easily visualize and yet
stay awake concentrate your attention.
You can practice entering the alpha state simply by relaxing and
closing your eyes, or by looking up at a 45-degree angle and slowly
counting from 100 to 1. You can sit in a comfortable chair or on the
floor, or you can even lie down if you wish. The disadvantage to
lying down is that once you’re relaxed, you might fall asleep. This
is fine if your purpose is to fall asleep, but to meditate you want
to stay awake. You want to be both relaxed and alert.
With practice, once it’s easy for you to enter a meditative state,
you can reduce the count to 20 to 1 and then 10 to 1. You can also
take live courses, or courses on CD, to learn how to meditate. Today
there are many aids to learning meditation and many different
methods. You can buy CDs that will help induce a meditative state by
actually guiding and entraining your brain waves.
Once relaxed and in alpha, what do you think about? Nothing, that's
the point. Well, almost nothing; thoughts will pop up, but you don’t
need to think about them; let them pop up and let them go. You don’t
need to push them away; instead of engaging with them, just let them
come and let them go. Focus your attention on one thing, such as
your breathing or a mantra. A mantra is a sound such as “OM.” Or you
could simply turn your attention to your breathing. Take long, deep,
relaxed breaths. You can also turn your attention to an image, such
as sitting on a tropical beach, feeling the sun on your skin, seeing
the blue sky above, and hearing the waves crash nearby. You can
imagine yourself in any place you find relaxing, whether it’s out on
the desert, high upon a mountain, in a luxurious palace, in a space
ship, or floating on clouds.
After about 20 minutes of meditating, stretch, get up, and go about
the rest of your day. Or you could go to bed. Meditating just before
you go to bed is a great way to prepare for a night of sound sleep.
You can pursue the mystical benefits if you wish, but even if you
don’t, the regular practice of meditation will improve your ability
to think, concentrate, and relax under stress. It teaches you how to
quiet your mind and helps you become more open to insights and
intuitive impressions. Being more open to the inspiration of
insights will help you in all areas of life, including playing
chess.
As soon as you slip into the alpha state, touch the tip of your
thumb and the first two fingers of your right hand together. Once
you've done this a few times, you’ve linked the alpha state with
this gesture. You’ve trained your mind to go straight to the alpha
state whenever you put these three fingers together. You could even
use a different gesture, such as touching your knee or ear lobe. The
point is to associate the alpha state with a physical gesture, or
trigger, so that you only need to use the gesture to put you in the
alpha state. This method was most recently developed by a discipline
called neurolinguistic programming.
The beauty of this method is that you can then put yourself into the
alpha state any time you want to be relaxed yet alert. You can use
this method during a chess game to stay calm and be open to insights
regardless of the pressure. If you allow yourself to get tense and
worried, you are not going to play your best game of chess.
Chess requires the ability to concentrate and focus. That's
concentration and focus, not tension and worry. When you are tense
and worried, you aren't in the right mental state to receive
insights. You can’t focus on the pieces and the game because you’re
too worried about trying to figure things out. Even world champions
make stupid moves when they’re tense.
When you catch yourself worrying about how much time you have left,
how your opponent is glaring at you, or how much you need to win
this game, put your three fingers together, take a deep breath, feel
the relaxation coursing through your body, and let go. Then focus on
the board in a calm frame of mind, and you’ll be able to really see
the pieces and their relationships and what your next move should
be.
Whether you're playing chess or involved in a business deal, knowing
how to meditate will help relieve stress and improve your mental
functioning.
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