Recently, several top athletes, as well as coaches, have revealed that mindfulness can be regarded as a type of psychological training to optimize performance. Indeed, results of studies in clinical psychology, as well as neuroscience, suggest that mindfulness might be an effective strategy to promote concentration, emotion regulation and state of flow. However, the empirical evidence in the context of sport is rather sparse. The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based intervention in athletes. In a randomized controlled trial with 22 participants in the experimental and 24 participants in the control group, the effectiveness of the Berlin Mindfulness-based Training for Athletes (BATL) was tested and compared to a classical sport psychological intervention. The results of an analysis of covariance with repeated measures indicate that the intervention group significantly improved mindfulness as a trait compared to the control group. It can be concluded that BATL is an effective strategy to increase mindfulness in athletes. However, further studies are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention in improving performance and to be able to examine its effect mechanisms.

Attention is a key success factor in elite sports. Mindfulness training is suspected to be a determinant of attention. The present study was a wait-list controlled investigation of the effects of a mindfulness-based sport psychology program on sustained and selective attention in young elite athletes (n = 137) and the effects of mindfulness training dosage on improving attention scores. In addition, long-term effects were examined. Selective and sustained attention were assessed in a pre–post design using the Frankfurter Aufmerksamkeits-Inventar 2, a go/no-go task. The results of this study indicate that the Berlin Mindfulness-Based Training for Athletes improved both sustained and selective attention in young athletes and that more training in the same amount of time resulted in higher scores in the assessment. The data also indicate that students who continued to practice independently after the intervention had higher scores in the long-term measure.

Zusammenfassung. Diese Studie untersucht den Einfluss von Achtsamkeitstraining auf die Emotionsregulation von Sporttreibenden. In einem Prä-Post-Kontrollgruppendesign mit insgesamt 68 Versuchspersonen wurde getestet, ob ein Zusammenhang zwischen Achtsamkeit und dem Einsatz adaptiver (maladaptiver) Strategien der Emotionsregulation besteht. Das verwendete Programm (BATL, Berliner Achtsamkeitstraining zur Leistungsoptimierung) steigert die Achtsamkeit signifikant und nimmt dadurch einen indirekten Einfluss auf die Emotionsregulation von Sporttreibenden. Es wurde ein genereller, signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen der Ausprägung von Achtsamkeit einer Person und deren Tendenz zum Einsatz maladaptiver Strategien gefunden. Je stärker Achtsamkeit bei einer Person ausgeprägt ist, desto seltener setzt diese maladaptive Strategien ein.

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Integrating extensive sport psychological interventions into the daily routine of young football players poses a problem. This case study aimed to describe the implementation of an app-based blended mindfulness intervention in a German Bundesliga youth academy to improve goalkeepers’ (n = 6) attention. A mindfulness app was combined with regular group workshops. The study included an outcome evaluation based on pre- and postintervention assessments of attention performance and process evaluation based on recorded training time and collected qualitative data. The results showed an improvement in the players’ Frankfurt Attention Inventory-2 L scores and K scores. The training time with the app was low (M = 30.51 min), but high (M = 200.00 min) without the app. To implement an app-based intervention successfully, the results imply that players need more assistance with the app, and time management and informal training should be incorporated into sport-specific exercises.