sixth sense
The sixth sense is strange to me because I associate it with the power of your mind rather than a spiritual premonition or adrenaline-based instinct. I think of it more as how aware you are of yourself in relation to everything else around you. I think that undefinable tingle or unexplainable all-over feel we get in our body is the physical reaction to something that our mind has realized. Sometimes I even associate it with the feeling of deja vu, like when I read a mantra that I haven't seen but feel like I've heard before.
Sometimes, I even think I experience something close to the 6th sense when I'm in a game. There are moments where I feel like I am so focused that I can see what happens before it does. This might just be from previous experience or quick logic, but there's something to be said for the way you feel when you perform actions in a game so quickly that you don't realize or think about what you're doing until you come out of that "in the zone" feeling. The sports psychologist that works at Wheaton actually helps student athletes meditate their way into this zone feeling that allows them to perform at their optimal level; sports psychology seems to teeter close the edge of what defines a feeling of 6th sense because of the synchronized agreement between mind and body that allows us to achieve athletic feats that maybe didn't seem so feasible. Star athletes that break records and push their bodies to such an aggressive limit undoubtedly have a great deal of mental fortitude, and I think in the moments that sports history is made and someone makes an unbelievable catch or goal defensive maneuver, there is a glimpse of that mind and body 6th sense coming together to push your self to a new, heightened level that our other 5 senses can't be responsible for.
Sometimes, I even think I experience something close to the 6th sense when I'm in a game. There are moments where I feel like I am so focused that I can see what happens before it does. This might just be from previous experience or quick logic, but there's something to be said for the way you feel when you perform actions in a game so quickly that you don't realize or think about what you're doing until you come out of that "in the zone" feeling. The sports psychologist that works at Wheaton actually helps student athletes meditate their way into this zone feeling that allows them to perform at their optimal level; sports psychology seems to teeter close the edge of what defines a feeling of 6th sense because of the synchronized agreement between mind and body that allows us to achieve athletic feats that maybe didn't seem so feasible. Star athletes that break records and push their bodies to such an aggressive limit undoubtedly have a great deal of mental fortitude, and I think in the moments that sports history is made and someone makes an unbelievable catch or goal defensive maneuver, there is a glimpse of that mind and body 6th sense coming together to push your self to a new, heightened level that our other 5 senses can't be responsible for.
I would never have connected the 6th sense to sports in this way, because I did not know sports psychology was even a thing that existed. It makes total sense though - the way our minds have to be tuned with our bodies.
ReplyDeleteI really like the point you make here about the sixth sense's connection to athletics. This heightened experience is essential for a lot of athletes to be able to make fast mental decisions in how they move their bodies. These decisions require speed that the sixth sense may play into more than we know.
ReplyDeleteI love how you connect the sixth sense to sports. That idea is so abstract and so true at the same time. I never thought about connecting those two completely different idea, however, it made out to be a perfect connection for a blog post. Found this post to be incredibly insightful.
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