Athletes Must Get Serious About Their Mental Health
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By Keith Edmonds
Fort Wayne Ink Spot
Being an athlete is something that many of us take for granted. We look at the extremely talented men and women that we see on television and just assume that they are just blessed with God-given talent to perform at near-superhuman levels. However, athletes often battle the mind, including anxiety and depression. If not properly addressed, mental illness can affect even the most physically fit athlete at any point in their career
As someone who has been a successful athlete, as well as a coach/trainer of athletes who perform on a regional and national stage, I know what it takes to keep a body functioning in such a way that it allows one to be a fine-tuned machine. Athletes spend hours in the gym, watching film, and on the field getting ready. Yet, there’s too little time for mental preparation or mental health checks. For one there are often stigmas about discussing mental wellness, much less actively seeking help. Athletes treat it as they would a physical pain – work through it, according to a recent article.
“For most athletes, (especially professionals) the majority of their world revolves around being a professional player. That’s their job, and it’s extremely demanding. To compete at a high level, the athlete has to have a level of inner tenacity. Without this intense drive, they likely wouldn’t have made it to the pro level in the first place. They have to work regardless of how they feel, while maintaining or exceeding the level of excellence that is expected of them. This is embedded in them as mental toughness.” (Athlete Mental Health, December 2020)
If this statement is true, then where does the athlete go to find solace when they are underperforming? They know or have a clear understanding of what they need to do but for some reason cannot reach the pinnacle of success that they have consistently reached, and now they’re depressed.
Athletes must understand that there will be times when for whatever reason you “just don’t have it” that day and learn from it. It’s normal. They also need to understand that in the “court of public opinion,” jurors don’t appreciate or respect the countless hours of preparation. They want wins, or, in some cases, value for the $200 that they just dropped for the family of four to attend a game or event.
Athletes must be able to “step away” from competing and refresh physically as well as mentally and teams need to allow for this kind of stability. As more and more prominent athletes i.e., Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, come out about their fears of mental breakdown, anxiety, and stress, you see that in many ways, absent from the money, that they are not much different from the average person. They need to be given a safe space to retreat when their fears are realized and can be addressed. Creating emotionally safe spaces for athletes is a huge component of mental health and wellness. And media members and fans who clamor for information need to respect that there ought to be a boundary between understanding an athlete’s actions on the field and outright bullying.
We saw the perfect example of this recently with Naomi Osaki and her decision to withdraw from the French Open. While this may have been a very unpopular decision in the public’s eyes, I applaud her decision simply because she had the heart to say “Hey, I need help, and I’m taking a break to refresh and regroup if I’m going to be the player that I know I can be and that my fans expect me to be.”
One of the best methods that have been found for assisting an athlete's awareness is to practice mindfulness and meditation. It allows you to slow down, breathe, let go, and deepen self-awareness. Self-knowing, allows you to understand your feelings by acknowledging them rather than judging them. In doing this, one is able to understand things that make you tick, how to respond rather than react, and being able to know what you need when you need it.
Young athletes – with the support of their parents and coaches – need to be taught that asking for help is not about being soft, but rather a smart way to become a better player in the long run. By listening to the mind like the body, an athlete can be assured that peak performance is a balancing act between the physical and the mental.