Pilot study on the evaluation of the effectiveness of psychocorrection methods that include EEG-training and VR headset in athletes involved in extreme kinds of sports

Objective: to evaluate the effectiveness of psychocorrection based on the methods of self­regulation in athletes.

Materials and methods: the effectiveness was evaluated on 104 male athletes who had an optimal level of psychoemotional state of the body during a background examination by electroencephalography (EEG). The subjects were randomly assigned to three groups of psychocorrection: control, EEGtraining, and VR­therapy. Mathematical and statistical processing was carried out in Statistica 7.

Results: the average values of the wave intensity index (WII) after psychological correction using the following methods: EEG­training and VRtherapy showed positive EEG dynamics in athletes of the second group (EEG­training) 65,6 % (21) and the third group (Vr­therapy) 73,8 % (31) of the subjects, respectively. Whereas in the control group, self­healing was recorded in 9 (30 %) athletes without psychocorrection procedures.

Conclusion: the quantitative criterion of WII is a universal informative indicator of the functional activity of the brain for evaluating the effectiveness of psychocorrection aimed at optimizing the psychoemotional state. Psychocorrection of athletes using EEG­training and VR­therapy provides efficiency in 73.8 and 65.6 % of cases, which significantly softens pre­start tension as a result of reducing anxiety and restoring the psychoemotional state of the body to an optimal level by involving the psychological reserve.

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