Discover the untapped superpower of your subconscious mind and learning in a relaxation state
Anna Katharina Schaffner | Psychology Today
This article was originally published on 03 March 2025 on Psychology Today/The Art of Self-Improvement
Most of us are happy to regularly train our bodies to become fitter and stronger. We accept that this is a process that takes time and commitment. Why don’t we think about our minds in the same way? And why has the notion of “mental training” never really gained much traction?
It is odd, given that so many of us believe passionately in inner work, personal growth, and self-improvement. But for some reason, we don’t associate inner work with patient, regular training, the benefits of which will compound. Instead, we hope for quick fixes, miracle cures, and transformative insights or believe that just dwelling in the problem space and talking about it will change us for the better.
Mental training involves directing our attention to specific areas of our lived experience, and learning to harness the power of our imagination and our subconscious mind in addition to our cognitive faculties. It remains a curiously undervalued and often neglected component of personal development. Even in professional sports, where marginal gains can determine the difference between victory and defeat, athletes devote far more time to perfecting their bodies than to attending to their minds. Too often, attention to our psychological state is treated as something that is only necessary when problems arise. But what if we treated mental training as an essential practice for optimizing performance, well-being, and growth?
What if we considered mental training as the key to unlocking untapped potential, not only in sports but in every aspect of our lives? There is of course an ancient tradition of mental training that is already well-established: meditation. However, meditation also requires a form of discipline and commitment with which many of us struggle. Although we may dream of reaping the benefits of mindfulness meditation, such as inner calm and serenity, many of us don’t manage to stick with a regular practice.
Luckily, there is another, much easier way regularly to train our minds and to reach states of deep, restorative relaxation that are similar to those experienced by meditators. And, even better, this particular form of mental training is, in fact, effortless.
The Pillars of Mental Strength
Common psychological obstacles that hold us back in life include negative self-talk and mental chatter, lack of confidence in our abilities, crippling perfectionism, fear of failure, and an inability to direct our attention to where it needs to go—inside, outside, or both at the same time.
When we are stuck, exhausted, or overwhelmed, we often attempt to solve our problems through analytical effort. But frequently the solution lies not in staying in the problem space but in changing our state. Allowing our bodies and minds to shift into states of deep relaxation and heightened focus provides us with access to resources that are already within us but remain untapped due to stress, overthinking, and rumination.
For mental training to be truly effective, it must become a regular practice. We can think of it as strengthening mental muscles. These mental muscles include:
Our motivation muscle: This is the driving force that sustains our effort and commitment over time. To stay motivated, we need to have a clear, compelling vision of what good looks like to us.
Our confidence muscle: The belief in our abilities, cultivated through experience and mental reinforcement. To feel confident, we need to be able to remember what we already know and can do and have done in the past.
Our metacognitive awareness muscle: Our ability to notice and observe what we are thinking and feeling and not become completely immersed in it. Noticing and naming our thoughts, feelings, and recurring stories is a true superpower.
Our focus muscle: The capacity to direct and sustain our attention in high-pressure environments. Being able to resist distraction and control chatter and to direct our attention inwards, outwards, or both at the same time is essential for being effective.
Our presence muscle: To be fully present and alive in the moment with all our senses activated. Being present means not constantly dwelling in the past, traveling to the future, or getting lost in our phones.
Each of these mental muscles can be systematically strengthened through targeted mental training techniques.
Practical Tools for Subliminal Mental Training
Mental training is not just an abstract concept. It is a tangible discipline with concrete techniques that can be practiced daily. You can find many great tools and products for mental training out there, or you can design your own workout programme, focusing on what you know you need to improve most. And here is the good news: Mental training can be highly effective at a subliminal level. It doesn’t have to be arduous and effortful. In fact, it is at its most effective if it is delivered in a state of deep relaxation in which the body is fully relaxed but our attention remains hyper-focused.
If you are curious about effortless mental training, you can also have a look at the range of science-based mental training audio recordings I have designed to promote deep relaxation, reduce mental chatter, and enable effortless subliminal learning. They aim to induce increased alpha (8-12Hz) and theta (4-8 Hx) brainwave activity. (Theta-wave dominance enhances calm, creativity, emotional processing, and problem-solving.) They recordings can help you to reach a state similar to those that experienced meditators reach. But you can hopefully get there much easier, just by listening.
Mental Training for the Digital Age
Mental training is more crucial than ever in an era where our attention is constantly under attack by digital distractions. We all navigate in an overwhelming digital landscape filled with technologies designed to hijack our focus, outsmarted by algorithms that curate for outrage and envy. To live well in the techno-capitalist world, we must also train our minds to resist distraction and to learn techniques for silencing the siren call of our devices. Mental training can help us to cultivate resilience in the face of digital overstimulation, and keep our focus in an era of endless choice and information overload.
Making Mental Training a Daily Practice
Incorporating mental training into our daily life does not require enormous time commitments. Just as physical fitness can be maintained with short but regular workouts, mental fitness can be developed through brief but consistent practices. The benefits are immense: Even 10-20 minutes of focused mental training a couple of times a week can lead to changes in your resilience to stress, your sense of inner calm, and your confidence, optimism, and overall well-being.
Image: Ann Danilina @Unsplash