The Effectiveness of 6-week Mindfulness Training on Shooter's Salivary Cortisol Concentration and Sport Performance

Background Little research has been conducted on the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions on Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) axis response and sport performance. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of 6-week mindfulness training on salivary cortisol concentration as a reliable physiological marker of shooter's competition stress and their sport performance.
Methods & Materials This study was a quasi-experimental study by pretest-posttest design with a control group. Statistical group comprised all men shooter athletes with an age range of 17-22 years in Yazd Province. To do this test, 16 male elite shooters were randomly allocated into experimental and control groups (8 in each). We used salivary cortisol kit (Germany IBL company model RE 52611 model) to evaluate amount of precompetition stress and special forms to evaluated sport performance. We used the Independent t test to compare performance score and repeated measure of ANOVA for comparison of salivary cortisol concentration in experimental and control group. The results were analyzed with SPSS 20.
Results The findings showed significant reduction in salivary cortisol concentration and significant increase in sport performance in experimental group in comparison with the control group after 6 weeks of mindfulness training.
Conclusion The results suggest that mindfulness training can be uses as a new and promised method in reduction of shooter's precompetition stress and enhancing their sport performance.