Invisible Inspiration

It's not just the strength of your muscles that brings sporting success – it's the strength of your mind too. Psychology plays a key role in helping athletes achieve their goals and they will often use visualisation techniques, such as imagining what will happen during a race or crossing the finish line, to spur themselves on the way to victory. But these visual tricks don't have to be overt, as shown by a neat demonstration of the subconscious mind over matter. Positive subliminal messages – active words like “go” and “energy”, or happy faces – flashed up on a screen for a fraction of a second can stimulate cyclists to exercise longer and harder than those shown sad faces and inactive words. Perhaps one day these inspiring messages could be combined with mobile display technology such as 'smart glasses' to give athletes a subconscious boost over the competition.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

Writer

Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image by Recon Jet
• Originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Research published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, November 2014