The difference between the concious and subconscious mind

I conducted a sports psychology programme for student athletes recently and many of them did not realise the superb powers of the subconscious mind and ways to use these powers to their advantage in various situations, be it their sporting aspirations or even their schoolwork. Here's a very simple yet clear description on the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind.

The human brain possesses two very distinctive functional characteristics – the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The two are separated by specific attributes and abilities, yet work harmoniously together to achieve a common goal. Some people are familiar with these terms, but many are confused about the individual roles they play.

The conscious mind is your rational thinking mind that acknowledges the outside world and everything around you. Its primary function is to process and validate the accuracy (or truthfulness) of new information that's continually being received from all your bodily senses, whether external senses (i.e. sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing) or internal senses (e.g. stomach butterflies, chills etc.). The conscious mind does this by comparing the new information against all your stored facts, beliefs and memories from past experiences. Once a true or false perception of the new information is reached, it’s passed to the subconscious to be actioned - and it all happens in just milliseconds.

The subconscious mind on the other hand has no reasoning ability, but is purely goal orientated. It regulates and controls all of your body's involuntary physical and emotional processes according to your mental database of facts, beliefs and memories. When new validated information is received, the subconscious takes two primary actions. It updates that information as a new fact or belief, and then it generates the body's physical and emotional response to that new fact.

A champion athlete using sports psychology, Tennis Legend Roger Federer

Review of the improvement experienced by the participants
- 90% saw an improvement in their timing/distance in their sports event after just 4 weeks(6 days a week, 20 minutes each day) of mental imagery!


For the other 10%, they would probably need a little bit more time as certain people might have a lot of 'hidden problems/ideas' that would take time to eliminate.


Please feel free to email me at bodypulse@ymail.com for any enquiries/feedback. Enjoy your weekend!