The game of golf can be stressful. How can we expect to play our best golf if our body’s stress response is constantly activated?  From the first tee jitters with all eyes on you as you tee off, to having to deal with the inevitable bad shots regardless of your skill level.

Breathing matters in golf because it gives us more control over our state of stress. By controlling the breath we can influence the autonomic nervous system. We set ourselves up for success when we step on the green in a calm and focused headspace.

When we think of breathwork, we often think of guided meditation practice. Perhaps a room full of tapestries and crystals, and a soothing voice telling us to breathe in and out. While this type of meditation can be beneficial for the mind and body, the concept of breathwork goes beyond the fluffy images of mindfulness and meditation.

We refer to our breathwork training as precision breathing. When we talk about precision breathing training, we’re talking about how to breathe in a way that maximizes efficiency and gives us control over the autonomic nervous system (i.e.your fight or flight response). Speaking of your autonomic nervous system, remember that your heart, lungs and brain are all communicating and working together to help you perform at your best, but also to make sure that you are safe and secure.

The relationship between the way we breathe and how our autonomic nervous system responds is a two-way street. While the autonomic nervous system can influence how we breathe, how we breathe can give us a measure of control over the autonomic nervous system and the way we respond to the environment around us. We can learn to activate these two competing responses by changing our breathing.

By bringing awareness to the breath and utilizing precision breathing training, we can work to bring about a desired response. In regard to golf, we want to minimize that fight or flight response so that we can focus on our swing and maintain a calm and composed state when we hit a good shot or a bad shot, or our round is just not going the way we’d like it to.

As part of our precision breathing training, we dive deep to teach you the fundamentals of breathing such as breathing structure and pace. Then, we take it a step further and apply these concepts in various situations on the course.  Our program and training is being used by many of the world’s most elite golfers and all levels of amateur golf alike.

Start Precision Breathing Training for FREE when you download the Neuropeak Pro App.

Zaccaro, A., Piarulli, A., Laurino, M., Garbella, E., Menicucci, D., Neri, B., & Gemignani, A. (2018). How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12(September), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00353

Tipton, M. J., Harper, A., Paton, J. F. R., & Costello, J. T. (2017). The human ventilatory response to stress: rate or depth? Journal of Physiology, 595(17), 5729–5752. https://doi.org/10.1113/JP274596