Mind > Matter

I'm sure every college athlete can agree with me when I say we are under-appreciated, overworked, and quite frankly, very unaware of just how deeply this affects us. When you think of an athlete, your mind runs to their physical traits: height, weight, numbers of wins and losses, injuries, maybe even physical therapy. But how often do we genuinely ask ourselves about an athlete’s mental health? Maybe what we should be emphasizing is depression, anxiety, loneliness, and real therapy, as opposed to physical therapy.  

As athletes we are held to an extremely high standard no matter what level we play at. We are expected to meet these standards, and anything less will result in punishment, or even worse, termination from the team. These expectations can cause major issues relating to mental health and identity. While researching about mental health in sports, I found that athletes differ from the general population in personality traits such as narcissistic tendencies, perfectionism, and competitiveness. These unusual negative traits come from the constant pressure that athletes are forced to endure on their own in order to make it through the season.  

As an athlete myself I have experienced this pressure first hand, many times letting it get the best of me. But, over the years I have devised a few coping mechanisms that I think all athletes should be aware of. I have listed some of these crucial steps needed to fight back against these mental health battles and stigmas.

Fighting Burnout

It is important to keep in mind that athlete burnout is a super common occurrence. With intense training and competition comes both emotional and physical exhaustion, and consequently, feelings of fatigue. This lack of motivation creates a sense of reduced accomplishment with increased feelings of dissatisfaction and incapability. This is when athletes begin to doubt themselves and their level of talent, thereby decreasing their physical performance within their sport.  

There are many signs of burnout and they differ from person to person. Some of the most noticeable or common symptoms are anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and reduced performance in your day to day life. After interviewing a total of six Mount Marty athletes I found that one hundred percent of them reported experiencing burnout at least once every season. Three of the six athletes were football players, who reported spending at least 7 hours a day in workouts or thinking about football. Two of them said they are burnt out by the second game of the season and the other said he is burnt out before the season even starts. The last three athletes were women's basketball players who all agreed that their burnout begins around month 1-2 of the season and lasts through the last 3-4 months. Their symptoms consist of anxiety, irritability, lack of appetite, and lack of interest in their day to day life. Overall, burnout is a very common experience for college athletes around the world. It's something that we have collectively normalized, and been taught to “push through”, rather than take the rest we need. A few ways to recover from burnout are listed below, but it is important to keep in mind that getting rest is the most effective practice to reduce burnout symptoms. 

• Sleep 7-8 hours a night / stay hydrated 
• Keep your space clean and organized  
• Know your body and set boundaries when necessary 
• Create a strong relationship with your coaches and express your needs  

Find Your People

Finding your people is all about forming a strong support system. Surrounding yourself with the right people can be an easy way to accelerate your success. What I have learned is that there are two different circles you need to create to be successful. I will call these two circles your “supporters” and your “army”.

• Supporters: These are your family and friends. Those whom you know will always be there to emotionally support you at your lowest. They will approach you with a comforting word rather than with a logical assessment. Your supporters are important because as athletes we don't always need solutions to our problems, many times we need to feel understood.  
• Army: Your army needs to be built from a strong base. These people are not always your friends nor your family, but people you know you can depend on. Your army will be there to provide logic and solutions when necessary. They will push you to the best of your abilities, even to the point where you may become upset with them, but you must understand that even when you may not believe in yourself, they do.  

Twitter Fingers

While social media can be a distraction for most people, it has many additional negative ramifications for athletes. It’s addictive qualities trap us into scrolling for hours on end. Not only does this take up time that we could spend doing something more beneficial, but it causes us to compare our own performance to those of professional athletes or content creators. This comparison is extremely dangerous to our mental health because we begin to create unattainable goals, leading us down the spiral of negative thoughts. Although we may be unaware of the effects, these feelings of unworthiness and jealousy can also weaken our performance within our sport. 

Here are a few simple ways to eliminate or at least limit our social media fixation. 

• Log out of specific social media apps during the span of your season 
• Set time limits on your phone for specific apps 
• Unfollow people who post unrealistic/negative content that makes you question yourself
• Follow more pages with content unrelated to your sport, in order to broaden your horizon, and take some much needed space from whatever sport you participate in 

Take Back Your Life

Amid the hustle and the havoc that is a student athlete's life, slowing down may seem impossible at times, but imagine if you learned to invite this balance into your life. As athletes we have crazy schedules, there are times when I have five classes and two different workouts to attend in one day. This adds up to five hours of school, at least three hours of physical activity, and inevitably a few hours of homework by the end of the night. These hours are mandatory, and as athletes we will make sure they get done. We prioritize school and sports but when it comes to taking just one hour out of the day for ourselves, we believe it is “too much”, or a more popular excuse, “I don't have enough time”. So, the real question is, how do we overcome these poor attempts at ignoring our mental health?

The answer to this question is simple. You must take back your life, make it yours again, and stop pretending as though self care is an option. We invest into our physical health everyday by eating right, working out, attending physical therapy, and much more, but when given the time to indulge in our mental health we choose to politely decline. A few quick and easy ways to enhance our well being are journaling, setting goals, and engaging in socialization. Building relationships with others and remembering not to isolate yourself is a huge key to success as far as our mental health. When journaling we allow our mind to work through underlying anxiety and anger, but overall, it is important to put yourself first by consistently working towards a goal and standing on your boundaries. 

Staying positive and trusting yourself throughout this process is one of the hardest experiences you will ever endure, but as my professor Jim Reese said, “College athletes are already more equipped than the normal person, they are learning dedication and discipline…They need more credit than given and should be proud of themselves no matter what level they play at”. 

Sources

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.781177/full 

“These Researchers have argued that athletes differ from the general population (e.g., Reardon et al., 2019) in, but not limited to, personality traits (e.g., narcissistic tendencies, perfectionism, and competitiveness” 

About Kaela Martinez

Kaela Martinez is a Junior at Mount Marty University, currently seeking a degree in English Education while competing on the women's basketball team. When she’s not on the court, she enjoys reading and writing. She is from Sioux Falls, South Dakota and plans to continue writing while returning to her hometown to teach and coach at the high school level.