We’ve all hit bad shots on the golf course, but it’s how we deal with those shots that separate the average golfer from the great.

The scenario usually goes like this:

You hit a bad shot and mutter something nasty to yourself. Your heart rate begins to climb. You get distracted and can’t focus on the shot in the moment. You start to feel tight and tense. Even your brain feels restricted. You can’t stop moving. Your mind gets fidgety and thoughts of “what the %$@! is happening” begin to swim through your head. You hit another bad shot and resign to the fact that you’re a bad golfer, and that this round is as good as over.

Oh, and you haven’t even completed the first hole.

Maybe I’m leaning a little too far to the melodramatic? Either way, you can’t be “Cool Hand Luke,” or any kind of cool for that matter if you’re losing your mind on the golf course.

Believe it or not, the simple act of breathing can help combat all of this before it even starts.

What effect does breathing have on you?

Breathing isn’t just a way to survive. It’s also a way to cope. It delivers much needed oxygen to your body and mind, which physiologically affects the nervous system leaving you calm and alert.

There are two specific areas in the autonomic nervous system that are the most involved in proper and improper breathing. The sympathetic nervous system initiates the fight or flight response in our body during a perceived dangerous or stressful situation. A bad shot can trigger this system to release hormones that increase our blood pressure and heart rate.

The parasympathetic system triggers hormones to decrease blood pressure and heart rate and to put the body in a relaxed mode. Deep and conscious breathing stimulates this part of the nervous system and relaxation can be achieved, even after a bad shot. But it’s best to initiate it beforehand so a bad shot is less likely to happen and less likely to affect you, mentally and emotionally.

Deep breathing can help with:

• Relieving tension, which in turn helps keep you calm.
• Feeding your brain and muscles with oxygen, which promotes energy and alertness.
• Keeping you in the present to help you focus.
• Distracting you from the monumentally bad shot you just performed without somehow giving yourself a hernia (melodramatic?).

Proof that it works

Breathing isn’t just for the yoga types. It’s being employed by the Navy SEALs to combat stress in life or death situations.

SEAL Command Psychologist, Commander Eric Potterat, has found that the “Mental Toughness Technique” taught to a SEAL can be taught to any willing person. If applied, this technique would increase an individual’s performance under stress levels where most of us would just shut down.

Imagine being able to shake off the negative side effects of a horrendous shot in a matter of 42 seconds That’s all it takes! Then you can coolly and calmly approach your next shot with a level head and hit the miraculous recovery you’re capable of hitting.

How to breath properly when it counts

It sounds simple, just breath, right? Well, kind of. Here’s how to do it:

Inhale fully (for a count of six) down into the depths of your belly, hold for two counts, and exhale (for six counts) fully emptying all air out of your lungs. Do this three times.

A tip to make sure you’re breathing into your belly is to put a hand on your chest and “feel” your breath get sucked down underneath it, while at the same time making sure your chest doesn’t rise up towards your chin.

This instant stress relieving technique is something that can be practiced everyday.

Try it and you may find that you’re becoming more resilient and a little bit more of a “calm warrior” in your golf game.

Now Cool Hand Luke was no SEAL, but a SEAL could definitely pass for Cool Hand Luke.