Rehearsing success and programming the reflex brain
Rehearsals develop patterns of thinking and patterns of motion that can shift brain function into the frontal lobe and take cognitive control over your workout or race. If you mentally rehearse these often enough, you will get into a groove to deal with the problems that occur while staying focused on the goal for the day. In a challenging situation, you don’t want to have to think about the stress or the challenge. If you have rehearsed a successful plan of action enough times, you can move from one step to the next—almost automatically. Each of these mental rehearsals is a cognitive workout in which the conscious brain sets up a format for a series of actions, edits and refines it based upon the challenges and opportunities, and then goes into action when in the situation itself.