Youthful Energy & Better Health from Golf
When your told you look young it is taken as a compliment.
However would you exchange this for youthful energy ?
Hopefully you would since it means so much more.
Having the energy both mentally and physically of our youth only becomes apparent as we age and lose it.
How do we recapture it ? Can we recapture it ?
Fortunately this is a YES YES
The cells of our body can renew themselves but at different speeds affected by our lifestyle. Stress, inactivity and complacency are just a few of the vampires of our cell renewal and energy. Therefore stress reduction, more activity (exercise) and new challenges serve to enhance our renewal abilities and energy levels.
Golf can be a gateway to fighting the energy vampire. Appreciating the outdoors, breathing outside air with the exercise of walking, swinging, climbing hills and every round of golf is different with new views and challenges. This scratches the surface of how golf provides a gym for all these and more!
Golf for Mental Health
1. Present-moment awareness: Golf requires you to be fully present and focused on each shot. You must let go of distractions and thoughts about the past or future and attend to the current shot at hand. This helps cultivate mindfulness by training your mind to focus on the present moment only and the task at hand.
2. Mind-emptiness: Golf provides many opportunities for practicing non-judgmental observation. When you hit a bad shot or make a mistake, it's important to observe your thoughts and emotions without an inner critic to exagerate negativity . Even better practice one of the most valuable qualities of a good golfer:
“Bad Shot Amnesia”
Instead of getting caught up in negative self-talk, you can choose to observe your thoughts and emotions with acceptance and without judgement. This practices positive mental healthiness.
3. Body awareness: Golf requires a high level of body awareness and coordination. By tuning into the physical sensations and movements of your body during your swing, you are practicing mindfulness of the body. This helps develop a greater connection between your mind and body and can enhance your overall exercise awareness for golf skills.
4. Emotional regulation: Golf can be an emotionally challenging sport. It's common to experience frustration, anger and disappointment when things don't go as planned. When this occurs practice “mindemptiness” You learn how to react to bad shot in a balanced and disarming way. Mindemptiness helps you reduce anger and frustration then manage emotions to maintain a more positive mindset for the rest of the hole and your game.
5. Golf is a game that requires patience and acceptance. Not every shot will go as planned, and there will always be ups and downs during a round of golf. Therefore your game is the gym and can help you strengthen patience and acceptance of these inevitable challenges and setbacks. It can teach you to respond to difficult situations on the course and beyond the course with resilience and a calm mind.
A golf game provides a unique opportunity to practice both mindfulness and mindemptiness. These skills can be applied both on and off the course.
By cultivating present-moment awareness, non-judgemental observation, body awareness, emotional regulation, and patience, golfers will enhance their life habits and improve their overall well-being and energy 24/7/365.