When you learned to eliminate excessive physiological activity, you learned that you were unable to focus on two different things at once. It follows then that in the presence of painful sensations you need only to focus on something different for the sensations to disappear. Depending on the specific situation where the pain occurs, skilled athletes can choose any one of a number of different focus points.

For example, imagine that you had a bad headache one-half hour before basketball practice. Some athletes would skip practice or muddle through it in low gear. Neither of these responses would serve to improve performance, if anything, they would help lower it.

A more appropriate response would be to assess the situation and outline a solution. The assessment is simple. "I have a very strong headache."

Since most headaches come as a result of excessive muscle tension or cognitive worry, the solution is simple as well. Simply sit or lie down and take a few deep breaths while saying the word "RELAX" silently to yourself. If the headache is particularly severe you might use your mental imagery to visualize a situation where the headache could not exist. For example, you might visualize yourself lying on your favorite beach soaking up the sun's rays. Or you might imagine yourself shooting the winning basket as time expired in the league championship game. The more clearly you are able to visualize these positive, happy events the more quickly will your muscle relax and your blood vessels shrink thereby causing the headache to disappear.

While relaxed you can then take a few brief moments to concentrate on building up energy and motivation and finally mentally rehearsing what exactly you want to accomplish during the upcoming practice.

The result of this will undoubtedly be an excellent, goal oriented pain free practice where your performance stands a far better chance of improving.