The mathematical athlete

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With so much talk about mind and body - and somewhat stressing that there is a separation between the two - I like very much to remember that being a mathematician is very much like being a professional athlete:

  • Both need to consistently train and practice (yes, do not try to train for the Olympics or prepare for an exam just one week before).
    • In both cases, you cannot take shortcuts.
    • You have to build good foundations and go from there.
  • Both are constantly pushing the boundaries of what they are capable of doing, which requires feeling comfortable with being challenged and out of their comfort zone. And because of pushing these boundaries, we may feel "pain" (physical and mental).
  • Improving requires transforming the muscles for one and transforming the brain for the other (new neural pathways have to be built)... I guess that is why sometimes there is pain.
  • It needs a very specific and well-defined training program (how to exercise/ how to study).
  • Both require high
    • focus,
    • intensity,
    • precision.
  • For one, muscle memory is important as it automatizes some parts of the performance so that the athlete can focus on other parts. For a mathematician, this is equivalent to the assimilation of ideas, which reduces the semantic energy needed to understand something (if some part is known, we can focus on the new part).
  • Both need proper mental training to deal with all these challenges, in particular, psychological challenges. Professional athletes count on personal psychologists; mathematicians count on... their colleagues, I guess.

It would be nice to have some mental training for mathematicians.

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