Visualisation: the free 7-minute brain workout that can improve your fitness, relationships and work

Manifesting schmanifesting. Now everyone from CEOs to those with a fitness goal are using visualisation to achieve their dreams. Once the domain of elite athletes (there is sturdy evidence, including this American Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Innovation study, that visualising success can lead to improved performance), it’s going mainstream. More of us are realising that visualisation techniques might help us with issues at work, in our relationships and our health.

Maya Raichoora is the author of Visualise: Think, Feel, Perform Like the Top 1% (Rider, £13.59) She came to the practice after being diagnosed with painful chronic condition ulcerative colitis aged 15, and credits visualisation with easing her symptoms so her credentials are more intuitive than academic. “I am not a neuroscientist, nor do I have a PhD,” she says. “But my personal experience became a professional obsession.” And it’s paid off. At 27, the Londoner has been appointed Nike’s first global mental fitness and visualisation trainer, and her Ted Talk on Why Mental Fitness is the new Mental Health has nearly 60k views.

She says visualisation differs from manifesting because it’s more of a skill. “A lot of people start manifesting at the beginning of the year, and then never do it again,” she says. “Whereas visualisation is neurological training used by the best athletes in the world. They’re not manifesting medals. They’re doing it to train their mind. It’s a performance tool for mental fitness. Manifestation is more of a concept.”

She has used visualisation for everything from managing a breakup to releasing stress. Some of her clients have used it for binge eating or improving focus. “We’ve unlearned focus because there are so many distractions, but it’s a skill that we can retrain,” she explains. “Focus is like a torch. Where are you choosing to shine it? Visualisation points the torch at a particular task, which tells your brain what to focus on.”

Want to give it a go? Maya has news for you: you’re almost certainly doing it already. Let’s take public speaking as an example. “Right now, your brain might associate it with anxiety or stress, so you’re probably already rehearsing things going wrong,” she says. “You’re seeing yourself go blank or people judging you.” Clearly, this kind of negative visualisation is not going to help you give your best performance, so why not turn it around and make it work for you?

As for fitting it into your life, she recommends visualising every day. “You can literally do it anywhere, so you could start in bed, just before you go to sleep or when you wake up,” she recommends. “Repetition is important, so doing it for one hour a week is less effective than two or three minutes daily. I say seven minutes a day, because everyone can find seven minutes. And be consistent because, if you keep changing your visualisations, then the repetition isn’t happening. Just try it for 30 days and, if you don’t feel any difference then fine, maybe the technique’s not for you, but I really doubt that.”

Maya has identified five visualisation techniques, for different situations.

1 Process visualisation to ace public speaking

This is mentally rehearsing a task to improve performance. “Public speaking is a big fear for many people,” says Maya. “So mentally rehearse the process: walking on stage or into a room in front of people, and then practise exactly what you will say, how you will say it and even what your hands will do. Once you repeat it multiple times then, when you’re actually doing it, your brain and body are more comfortable because it feels as though you’ve been there before.” It can be used in many situations – Tiger Woods used it for his golf swing – but it’s specifically about rehearsing the process.

2 Creative visualisation to manage emotions and pain

Making a feeling tangible helps with managing emotions and reducing pain. “Emotions are the language of the body, they need to be felt,” says Maya. “So, if you’re feeling anxious, close your eyes and ask yourself: where do I feel the anxiety? Then picture what it looks like, which might be a shape, a colour or even a character. For one of my clients, her anxiety was this red spiky ball. Then what we do is we really feel it, and sit with it for a while. Then, using your mind, how can you start to make this object smaller? For my client, she took sandpaper and sanded all the spikes to make it a smoother ball, and then she just popped it. The effects are can be pretty immediate.”

3 Negative visualisation to better understand consequences

This technique shows how different visualising is to manifesting, because it’s all about picturing the worst-case scenario – something that is actively avoided when manifesting. The idea is to help you feel more prepared and motivated, and there are many different forms. “One example is the deathbed visualisation,” says Maya. “Let’s say you’re trying to change job, and you don’t know how to make a decision. If you visualise yourself on your deathbed, it gives you a perspective that will make the decision a lot easier.” This type of visualisation can also be useful for breaking a habit. “If someone is a smoker, I would take them through a visualisation where we go 20 years in the future and ask them: ‘If you kept smoking every day, what would your life, your health and your relationships be like?’ And the fear of that can be what they need to stop.”

4 Explorative visualisation to boost creativity

This is where there is no specific goal or outcome. Instead, you are using your mind like a whiteboard. “It’s great for problem solving and thinking of new ideas,” says Maya. “You can try this if you don’t know what you want to do with your life, or if you’re trying to make a decision, and see where the visualisation takes you. This technique was used by Albert Einstein, Walt Disney and Nikola Tesla.” Right now you might be thinking, ‘Er, if I close my eyes, all I can see is my to-do list’. But Maya says it’s about getting in the zone. “Take a few deep breaths, find a moment to calm the brain and then give yourself a prompt by asking yourself a question,” she suggests. “Our brains like being creative. As we get older, we either use our imagination in the wrong way, or we dampen it. There’s a quote: worry is the misuse of imagination. It’s so true, most people visualise things going wrong, which creates more worry. Kids can imagine being an astronaut because they’re limitless. We can do that, too.”

5 Outcome visualisation to reach your goals

This is mentally rehearsing the results in advance, which is different to process visualisation. “It’s not about how to do something, it’s about building the belief that you can do it,” says Maya. She uses the example of a client who repeatedly visualised herself crossing the finish line of a marathon. “She’s a great runner, but she didn’t have the belief that she could do it. If you show your mind what’s possible, then you’re giving yourself the best chance to make it happen.”

Visualise: Think, Feel, Perform Like the Top 1% by Maya Raichoora is published on 27 March