1st Tee Nerves Out of Control? Calm Your Golf Nerves Down and Manage Them to Your Advantage
Banishing first tee jitters would be a big help to a lot of golfers both amateur and pro alike and there are many interventions possible that can and do work.
As with most things in life not all of the techniques work all of the time for all of the people.
In actual fact I think deep slow breathing works for just about everyone as relaxing breath work is a natural "trigger" for the body to slow and relax, the problem is how strong are the nervous reactions you are getting? Do they overpower relaxation breathing? I mean if an angry bear is charging at you with the intent of tearing you to bits then taking a few deep breaths, holding the air and then slowly exhaling...
Now my guess is that the 1st Tee isn't quite that serious but if it is you may want to consider direct contact with a good NLP Practitioner.
(Neuro Linguistic Programming) First things first though.
Have you tried relaxation breathing? If not then here is the really simple version that works for me.
You can look up diaphragmatic breathing for more detailed versions but personally I don't want complex, I want the result in the simplest quickest way possible.
The physical breathing work is very simple, here it is.
1) Breathe in through your nose.
Fill your lungs completely and allow your stomach to expand.
In other words breathe low down as if your stomach is filling with air.
Do not rush the intake of air, keep it filling at a comfortable pace for you.
Personally I take 3 - 4 seconds to inhale a breath.
2) Hold the breath for a few seconds, again only hold it as long as you feel comfortable.
3) Now allow the breath to release through your mouth.
Expel it slowly and comfortably as your stomach contracts again.
Summary - Breath in through nose, hold, breath out through mouth.
Slow, deep comfortable with stomach expand/contract.
Repeat as many times as needed.
OK here is the very important bit! Make sure you do this next part if you want great results in the long term.
Practice this exercise everywhere you can even if you don't particularly need it, just practice and see how much more relaxed you can get.
Notice that I did not say how many breaths to take and that's because I have no idea how many will be needed for the individual so the rule is you keep doing the breathing UNTIL you feel you are relaxing.
Even if you just notice a tiny relaxation, celebrate because its working, and all you need to do is keep building it.
For example it may take you twenty breaths in the beginning to feel a difference - or it could take you one - but as time goes by you will be able to do less and less as your brain is a wonderful thing! Your mind will begin to associate the mere act of taking one breath with relaxing the mind/body system and may even begin relaxing you at the mere thought of doing your breathing exercises.
In other words you will have taught it a trigger (trick) that it knows to relax you when you think and/or do this on the Tee.
(or wherever you need it) Here is some more powerful stuff.
Practice at night before you go to sleep and when you are seriously relaxed, gently squeeze your thumb and forefinger together for a few seconds and as you feel the gentle pressure between the thumb and finger, feel and enjoy the relaxed state your body is in.
You are developing a physical trigger and if you do this enough you will be able to gently squeeze your thumb and finger together on the tee as you take a breath and you will immediately start to relax.
You have trained your mind to associate the finger/thumb squeeze with relaxing.
Now here is the kicker.
As you are lying in bed breathing, relaxing, I want you to imagine watching the first tee at the golf course.
I want you to watch as a person who looks exactly like you walks onto the first tee, looking really calm, confident and relaxed.
Watch them perform perfectly, just like you would love to and really admire this exact twin, who looks like you, acts like you, dresses and even uses the exact same equipment as you.
Watch them teeing off time and time again, relaxed, calm, and confident and then I want you to float over to them and merge.
Now really feel and experience for yourself what it feels like to be confident and relaxed on the first tee.
Let these feelings absorb throughout your body and really experience them first hand in your body - as your unconscious mind can remember to encode these emotional controls for you and allow you to use them when-ever you need them.
Work on these techniques and you WILL begin to get great results.
It is not a matter of if but when as long as you KEEP DOING THEM.
Modify them a little to suit yourself if you wish.
Read this article many times so you really learn the techniques.
Remember that nerves are there for a reason, to remind you that you are doing something exciting.
Imagine you could take all those butterflies and instead of them flapping around uncontrolled, what if you imagined taking them all and organising them into perfect patterns that you can control? Remember the great players have said that they don't want to get rid of their nerves; you just want to have control over them and be able to manage them now.
Great players can be friends with their nerves you know but then I have also known golf beginners that learnt to be friends with their nerves and co-operate together.
As with most things in life not all of the techniques work all of the time for all of the people.
In actual fact I think deep slow breathing works for just about everyone as relaxing breath work is a natural "trigger" for the body to slow and relax, the problem is how strong are the nervous reactions you are getting? Do they overpower relaxation breathing? I mean if an angry bear is charging at you with the intent of tearing you to bits then taking a few deep breaths, holding the air and then slowly exhaling...
Now my guess is that the 1st Tee isn't quite that serious but if it is you may want to consider direct contact with a good NLP Practitioner.
(Neuro Linguistic Programming) First things first though.
Have you tried relaxation breathing? If not then here is the really simple version that works for me.
You can look up diaphragmatic breathing for more detailed versions but personally I don't want complex, I want the result in the simplest quickest way possible.
The physical breathing work is very simple, here it is.
1) Breathe in through your nose.
Fill your lungs completely and allow your stomach to expand.
In other words breathe low down as if your stomach is filling with air.
Do not rush the intake of air, keep it filling at a comfortable pace for you.
Personally I take 3 - 4 seconds to inhale a breath.
2) Hold the breath for a few seconds, again only hold it as long as you feel comfortable.
3) Now allow the breath to release through your mouth.
Expel it slowly and comfortably as your stomach contracts again.
Summary - Breath in through nose, hold, breath out through mouth.
Slow, deep comfortable with stomach expand/contract.
Repeat as many times as needed.
OK here is the very important bit! Make sure you do this next part if you want great results in the long term.
Practice this exercise everywhere you can even if you don't particularly need it, just practice and see how much more relaxed you can get.
Notice that I did not say how many breaths to take and that's because I have no idea how many will be needed for the individual so the rule is you keep doing the breathing UNTIL you feel you are relaxing.
Even if you just notice a tiny relaxation, celebrate because its working, and all you need to do is keep building it.
For example it may take you twenty breaths in the beginning to feel a difference - or it could take you one - but as time goes by you will be able to do less and less as your brain is a wonderful thing! Your mind will begin to associate the mere act of taking one breath with relaxing the mind/body system and may even begin relaxing you at the mere thought of doing your breathing exercises.
In other words you will have taught it a trigger (trick) that it knows to relax you when you think and/or do this on the Tee.
(or wherever you need it) Here is some more powerful stuff.
Practice at night before you go to sleep and when you are seriously relaxed, gently squeeze your thumb and forefinger together for a few seconds and as you feel the gentle pressure between the thumb and finger, feel and enjoy the relaxed state your body is in.
You are developing a physical trigger and if you do this enough you will be able to gently squeeze your thumb and finger together on the tee as you take a breath and you will immediately start to relax.
You have trained your mind to associate the finger/thumb squeeze with relaxing.
Now here is the kicker.
As you are lying in bed breathing, relaxing, I want you to imagine watching the first tee at the golf course.
I want you to watch as a person who looks exactly like you walks onto the first tee, looking really calm, confident and relaxed.
Watch them perform perfectly, just like you would love to and really admire this exact twin, who looks like you, acts like you, dresses and even uses the exact same equipment as you.
Watch them teeing off time and time again, relaxed, calm, and confident and then I want you to float over to them and merge.
Now really feel and experience for yourself what it feels like to be confident and relaxed on the first tee.
Let these feelings absorb throughout your body and really experience them first hand in your body - as your unconscious mind can remember to encode these emotional controls for you and allow you to use them when-ever you need them.
Work on these techniques and you WILL begin to get great results.
It is not a matter of if but when as long as you KEEP DOING THEM.
Modify them a little to suit yourself if you wish.
Read this article many times so you really learn the techniques.
Remember that nerves are there for a reason, to remind you that you are doing something exciting.
Imagine you could take all those butterflies and instead of them flapping around uncontrolled, what if you imagined taking them all and organising them into perfect patterns that you can control? Remember the great players have said that they don't want to get rid of their nerves; you just want to have control over them and be able to manage them now.
Great players can be friends with their nerves you know but then I have also known golf beginners that learnt to be friends with their nerves and co-operate together.
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