Can we Imagine our Way to Success?
The art and science of visualisation
I came into the world of mental and emotional health through some pretty woo pathways. I worked through my depression and addiction issues drinking plant medicine in a jungle community and singing mantras around a campfire with other barefoot woo-sters, then went on to study transpersonal counselling — a diploma that included shamanic journeying, past-life regressions, and dream circles. After becoming dissatisfied with the whole anti-mainstream reality-denying mentality I was increasingly exposed to, I went on to study psychological science to balance it out.
Getting literate in science is like being given the key to a huge locked storehouse of information. Some woo is solidly backed by science and some not so much, and today I’m taking a deep dive into the research around imagination and visualisation to answer the question: Can we actually improve aspects of our lives by sitting around thinking about them?
Sporting Technique
Twenty-three-time gold medalist Michael Phelps does it. Golfer Tiger Woods does it. Tennis star Billie Jean King was doing it back in the 60s. In fact, most successful athletes undertake some form of mental rehearsal. When you imagine making a physical movement, the same parts of the brain are activated as actually doing it, so you strengthen neural pathways just by thinking about your perfectly aligned golf swing or dunk shot. It won’t give you the same results as physical practice or replace it, but useful when you’re bored on the bus or have a touch of insomnia.
Conclusion: Science says ‘Yes’
Musical Training
Famous concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein learned music by reading scores on trains, and Fritz Kreisler, a well-known concert violinist famous for hating practice, claimed to have learned entire concertos without picking up his instrument. In 2013, a study was conducted where expert pianists were taught a sequence and placed in three groups — actual practice, mental practice, and no practice. Whilst the mental practicers did not learn the sequence as well as the actual practicers, they did a whole lot better than the control group.
Conclusion: Science says ‘Yes’
Muscle Gain
Can you get buff by lying on the couch and thinking about lifting? One study showed that after a 12-week training program, a physical training group improved their finger strength by 53% with the imagined training group scoring an impressive 35% — without lifting a finger, so to speak. The cohort also included a group that increased their bicep strength by 13.5% just through visualisation. In another study where athletes either did physical exercises for their hip flexors or listened to a guided visualisation about it, the physical group improved their strength by 28%… and the CD-listeners by 24%! Results also showed similar reductions in heart rate and blood pressure in both groups.
Conclusion: Science says ‘Yes’
Weight Loss
A recent study prompted media reports that thinking about your goal weight could boost your weight loss by 500%. And well, there is some truth in that claim, but the original study (always read the original study) shows that the visualisation — whilst useful — actually helped the listener to adopt behaviours that led to weight loss, i.e. diet and exercise. It didn’t magically melt away. Similarly, this study in 2010 showed that people who imagined eating food before actually eating food felt satisfied more quickly and ate less as a consequence. Visualisation can be a powerful tool for creating and maintaining new behaviours that lead to weight loss, but unfortunately, I found no evidence of a direct effect.
Conclusion: Science says ‘Kind of’
Immune Response
It’s well known that mental states like stress and depression can have a negative impact on your immune system. Does that mean we can improve it also? A number of studies have been conducted with people recovering from major illness, and research suggests fairly conclusively that guided imagery can reduce unwanted symptoms like pain and nausea, and can also lower stress and depression, thereby reducing any negative stress-related effects on the immune system. A number of studies like this one and this one show that guided visualisations can result in an increase of white blood cells, but scientists warn that this process is complex and temporary, and we should use imagery as an adjuvant treatment — never a replacement for medical treatment.
Conclusion: Science says ‘Yes, but’
Stroke Recovery
After a stroke, people often undergo rehabilitation to regain lost strength and movement, and may try mental rehearsal to help them recover. Whilst mental rehearsal activates movement centres in the brain, evidence of improvements in actual movement is mixed. A 2015 study says mental rehearsal can be helpful in conjunction with physical therapy, another 2011 study indicates it isn’t, and this review of the literature says it probably is, but because the interventions studied are all so different, more research needs to be done on what is actually working.
Conclusion: Science says ‘Maybe’
Attracting a Partner or Dream Job
If you’ve peeked into such books and learnings as The Secret or The Law of Attraction (and who hasn’t?), you’d be forgiven for believing you can conjure up your heart’s desire just by thinking about it. And who wouldn’t want to believe that? Like much pseudoscience, it has some basis in evidence. If you believe you are worthy of a great partner and they’re coming, that confidence will shine through and make you more attractive. If you believe your dream job is certain, you’ll be more willing to look for it and work for it, and your belief in yourself will convince others to employ you. Positive people who have positive expectations will attract more opportunities, have better relationships, enjoy better health, and get what they want more often.
Conclusion: Science says ‘Yes but not magically’
There is a veritable Everest of good-quality evidence that demonstrates how we can use mental rehearsal to cultivate and improve psychological states such as happiness and confidence, and I won’t go into that here — perhaps it’s a topic for a future article.
One thing to note is that the studies examined in this story have been conducted on people who are already good at their skill. If you’re not already fairly good at playing the clarinet or swimming, you’re unlikely to be able to mentally rehearse it effectively since you’ll have limited experience of what it looks, sounds, and feels like. You’re not going to become a master figure skater by thinking about skating if you’ve never tried on a pair of skates!
Mental imagery can be challenging to study since it’s a subjective and internal experience, and there is still so much we don’t understand about human consciousness. However on the upside, it is easy, accessible, and free to use, so you’ve got nothing to lose by giving it a go.
What would you like to imagine into your life?
