Meditation in high performance sports: a systematic literature review

This article analyzes the evidence in observational studies that have evaluated the athletic performance of individuals in meditation programs. The research was carried out on scientific bases such as Lilacs, Scielo, Pubmed and Medline. The evidence was evaluated according to the PEDro scale, where the protocols used for training, sports modalities and meditation ef-fects were systematized. We analyzed 13 studies that showed a positive correlation between meditation and increased athletic performance. Among them, behavioral approaches and the evaluation of cognitive predictors of individual athletic performance predominated. Despite the positive outcomes, the used meditation protocols have demonstrated to be inconsistent according to the sports training fundamentals.