Patrick Collins (pictured above) is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Transformative Coach based in Horsham, West Sussex. He specialises in anxiety, addiction and performance issues. He also plays padel three times a week and has absolutely no intention of stopping!
I should probably start with a confession: I’m an addict. I am also a clinical hypnotherapist. I specialise in anxiety, performance issues, and — how embarrassing is this in this context? — addiction. I really should know better.
I’m completely hooked on padel and have been since 2018.
The irony is not lost on me. But here’s the thing I’ve come to understand, both as a player and as a practitioner: understanding the mechanism doesn’t make you immune to it.
And padel is a beautifully engineered dopamine loop.
Why padel hooks you so fast
Every time you hit a good shot, your brain rewards you. Every rally you survive longer than expected. Every point won against a better pair. Lucky shots get the same applause as a well-timed pop-out and, more often than should be, claimed as intentional. Instinctive get-out-of-jail moments are enormously satisfying. Even the sound and feel of ball on padel racket delivers its own small hit.
This is what I mean by a multi-level reward loop. Multiple, simultaneous small rewards, frequent enough to keep you coming back. The sport difficult enough that you keep actively improving. Social enough that connection with your partner and opponents adds its own layer.
It’s the same variable reward schedule that makes slot machines compelling, social media scrollable, and certain substances impossible to put down.
The difference — and it’s an important one — is that padel’s loop is attached to something genuinely good for you. Exercise. Social connection. Fresh air. Measurable improvement over time.
Addiction isn’t always destructive. Sometimes the subconscious latches onto something that serves it well. For most people, padel is one of those things.
But “most people” is doing some work in that sentence, and for some padel comes with some unwanted side-effects including pressure to perform, anxiety and the yips.
The yips: why padel is uniquely susceptible
The yips are defined clinically as a psycho-neuromuscular impediment — a breakdown in fine motor skill execution under pressure. Most associated with golf, they occur anywhere that a highly practised, technically simple movement suddenly becomes impossible under scrutiny.
Padel, I would argue, is disproportionately fertile ground.
The sport rewards touch and finesse over power. The shots that win points are often delicate — a soft chiquita into the corner, a perfectly-weighted volley, a lob under pressure. These are fine motor skills. And fine motor skills are exactly what the yips target.
The enclosed glass court removes all ambiguity. In tennis, a missed shot disappears into open space. In padel, it bounces off a wall in front of three people standing close enough to hear you exhale. There is nowhere to hide. The goldfish bowl amplifies all feelings and emotions.
The doubles format amplifies this further. You are not just observed by your opponents — you are observed by a partner who is relying on you. Research consistently identifies fear of negative evaluation, perfectionist tendencies and performance anxiety as the primary drivers of the yips. Padel puts all three on court simultaneously.
And then there is the serve. The padel serve is underarm. Technically, one of the simplest actions in any racket sport. A beginner executes it without thinking. Which is precisely why, for some experienced players, it becomes the site of something close to paralysis.
The yips thrive in exactly this space — where an action is simple enough that there is nothing to blame if it goes wrong, visible enough that failure is acutely embarrassing, and repetitive enough that the conscious mind has started interfering with what should be automatic.
I have watched competent players double-fault on a serve they could execute perfectly 1000 times in other circumstances. I have spoken to players who dread the serve more than any other part of the game.
The shot hasn’t changed. What has changed is the weight of attention placed on it.
Of course, the more you try to consciously control a movement, the more you disrupt the subconscious process that was executing it perfectly. Thinking about it doesn’t just fail to help — it actively makes things worse and thinking becomes overthinking very quickly.
The treatments that work for the yips are the same ones that work for performance anxiety more broadly: reducing self-focused attention, rebuilding automatic motor patterns through low-pressure repetition, and addressing the underlying fear of negative evaluation. Working, in other words, at the sub-conscious level where the pattern actually lives. Where hypnotherapy operates best.
After the match: when the loop continues
Something that doesn’t get discussed much is the drinking culture that has grown around padel. Even down to the Spanish beer brands that have been associated with padel. This is not unusual, but an entirely normalised, socially ritualised thing that characterises many sports at club level. The post-match drink is part of the padel experience in a way that feels almost inseparable from the sport itself.
For most players, this is entirely benign. A social reward. A pleasant way to decompress.
But I observe something else. The post-match drink is doing more work than at first appears. Alcohol performs multiple functions in this context by not only providing social lubricant, but by extending the dopamine loop. Softening the edge of a match that didn’t go as well as hoped. Quieting the inner critic that spent 90 minutes apportioning blame.
In other words, it’s working in the same way as the first glass of wine after a difficult day in the office. Not simply social. For some people, medicating something.
But the last thing padel should become is a source of stress or poor self-care. So the question worth asking occasionally is: are you having a drink because you want one, or because not having one feels uncomfortable?
The positive case — and it is genuine
I want to be clear that everything above is written by someone who loves this sport.
The physical benefits are real — cardiovascular fitness, coordination, joint-friendly movement that makes the game accessible well into later years. The cognitive benefits are significant too: padel is a problem-solving sport requiring rapid spatial reasoning, anticipation and real-time adaptation. That kind of engagement is genuinely good for the brain.
The social benefits may be the most important of all. The doubles format means you are always playing with someone, always in conversation with someone. For many players — particularly those from high-pressure professional backgrounds — padel provides a form of genuine human connection that is harder to find than it should be.
And there is the simple fact of presence. Padel demands your full attention in a way that is, paradoxically, a form of rest. While you are on court, you cannot think about the email you haven’t sent. The ball is coming. That is all.
A final thought
The subconscious mind runs on patterns. It doesn’t distinguish between a padel court and a boardroom, between a missed serve and a missed target, between the relief of a post-match drink and the relief of a drink after a difficult meeting.
The mechanisms are the same. The outcomes depend on what those mechanisms are attached to — and how consciously you’re engaging with them.
Padel, at its best, is one of the most joyful things you can do with an hour and three other people. I say that without reservation.
Patrick’s full article — including a deeper exploration of the yips, the psychology of the serve, and the neuroscience of the reward loop — is published at sussexhypnotherapyclinics.com. If any of this resonates beyond the court, he can be contacted there directly.
