Why Mental Health is Important for Student Athletes.
Why is Mental Health in High School & Collegiate athletes a top priority for us today? Mental health is very important, not just in a regular person, but the most overlooked mental health is the ones in high school and collegiate athletes. Just because they are on tv doesn't mean they don't have their own struggles in life. Good mentality for high school and collegiate athletes has dwindled and has become a bigger issue, as soon as one's confidence and everything they have built up gets destroyed by one little setback, or injury, they can never seem to get out of that mental state they have fallen into.
People have struggles throughout their daily lives, and when it comes to being an athlete
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Although it is common for college students to feel overwhelmed with their class load, studies show that signs of depression are considerably higher in college athletes. A National College Health Assessment reported about 31% of male and 48% of female NCAA student-athletes reported having depression or anxiety symptoms each year the test was issued in 2008 and 2012 (Moreland, 2018).” With the stress that comes with grades and skill level it can be very hard to make sure you stay on track. With the stress being placed onto them student athletes tend to end up with some level of anxiety or depression. This stress only grows if you decide to continue your sport in college. Many people think it'll be easy to go to college and play a sport, but in reality it is one of the toughest things someone can experience. Playing a sport in college will put a dramatic strain on your mentality, if you truly think playing in college is something you wanna do then you need to make sure your mental toughness is at its best. “Sixteen percent of the women's sports participants said they felt very lonely constantly or …show more content…
Along with this, we need to be prepared to have some options or solutions for the athletes that fall into that bad mentality. “Coaches and athletic administrators must invest in their athletes’ mental health just as much as they invest in their physical well-being. Some effective implications could include: Prioritizing mental recovery by emphasizing proper sleep and implementing off-days. Avoid placing unreasonable amounts of pressure on individuals. Using positive reinforcement rather than negative emotions to motivate.” Coaches and players need to focus on these points. Prioritizing your mental health is an incredible smart thing to do and it will help you as you grow up. Coaches can help with not placing so much pressure on their players, and by doing this it will give the athletes a chance to enjoy the game instead of dealing with the constant stress and anxiety. Sometimes the best thing to do for coaches is to build a bond with the layers and talk with them in a positive tone to motivate them but every once in a while you will get a player that needs a harsh push in the right direction. “As a society, we must make time to develop well-rounded humans, not just athletes. Be able to provide encouragement, support, and suggestions to athletes who are struggling (Purcell et al., 2019). “However, playing sports does not make athletes immune to
College sports are a major part of American culture. College athletes devote hours upon hours a week to their sports training, but unfortunately, sports can take up a lot of time and distract from other important activities. This can harm academics, as athletes have to balance sports and academics, especially at a college. Participating in sports is almost like working a part-time job and having to balance school too which can be difficult to do, and focus may be rendered on one task and not both. Furthermore, athletes will be on scholarships too, which is why college athletes should not be paid.
Athletes struggle with all kinds of mental health disorders, but the following are the most popular: anxiety, depression, social, and body. These athletes are asked every single day to compete at the highest level and compete for their fans. However, the pressure builds up on athletes and causes them to fall apart. In today’s world, you are seeing more athletes stand up for mental
For many years, people have been debating about whether sports teams for kids should have selective tryouts. Although some parents claim that their child has felt so defeated by an unsuccessful tryout that they don’t want to continue with the sport, this is not always what happens. I believe that exclusive tryouts should be held for children because they are extremely good for their mental health in three ways: tryouts teach kids humility, in that they aren’t always going to be selected, they help kids learn to work harder, and they boost kids’ confidence. The first reason why tryouts should be held is because they teach kids how to be humble, and that they are not always going to do everything as well as they want.
An article from Trine University states, “It is not uncommon for student-athletes to feel intense pressure to do well in both school and sports. As the pressure to win increases, athletes and coaches spend more time training and feel more stress, which sometimes leads to overtraining and burnout” (). With a huge amount of stress to do well in both school and sports, student athletes often feel exhausted and
Stressed out people block off their basic communication skills and become unreceptive to ideas, suggestions and even tender, loving care”(Sydney). Stress is unhealthy; the negative effect stress puts on the body can affect how an athlete’s perform. When athletes are performing at their peak it makes for a much more exciting game, which essentially would lead to colleges making more money. Athlete 's from any sport, at any level of play put their bodies on the line time after time. Too many colleges view the athlete 's body as an asset, a way for them to make more money.
To add to this “ student athletes sacrifice a social life”(S2P3). Social skills are a big part of succeeding in the real world. This goes to show that if colleges keep making their athletes suffer they are failing them later on in life. If colleges expect
In the rat race of today, every one seems to only focus on winning. They forget the main goal of playing is to establish the concept of teamwork, sportsmanship, and collaboration with the fellow players. I believe that the truly alarming fact is the extent to which parents are in favour of these kinds of sports activities that they ignore the health issues their children will face. They put an enormous amount of pressure and expect nothing but the best from them. This causes a lot of mental health issue when little children fail to come up to the desired expectations.
Thomas Taaffe 4/8/23 The Cost of Being a college athlete Sports and education are two aspects of student life that are often seen as being in conflict with one another . As a college athlete, sports can provide students with valuable physical and mental health benefits, as well as opportunities for personal growth and character development. Some student athletes may struggle to balance their athletic commitments with their academic responsibilities.
“The culture of college sports may inhibit some student-athletes from seeking help to address issues such as anxiety, depressive symptoms, burnout, the stress of team or individual expectations, and the everyday stress of dealing with relationships, academic demands, and life away from home” (McQuade, 2021). The demand on student-athletes is tremendous. The need to perform in front of hundreds of thousands of people in order to bring success to their school’s name does not allow much room for relaxation. These sports teams require many hours throughout the week to practice and prepare for games that will be nationally televised. This extra time commitment causes student athletes to lose study and social time.
Social involvement presents a large amount of stress on college students, but also largely on student-athletes. Student-athletes have a solid base of friends, their teammates. They are with their teammates almost every day for extended periods of time. Between workouts, practice, travel time, hotel rooms, and competitions, the majority of their time spent, is together. Although they have a solid base of friends, student-athletes tend to struggle in other social
Athletes who play football or basketball are at a higher risk of career ending injuries. These two sports are the hardest on an athletes body. Only one out of twenty-five college athletes go pro, so why put your body at risk when you don’t receive anything for doing that and your chances of going pro are slim? A lot of these student athletes are stressed out because of schoolwork participating in a college sport. This is just another reason that these athletes deserve to be
Some people use sports to get away from stressful situations. In the article Pro/Con: Academic eligibility requirements, author Phillip Allen states, ” What if, hypothetically speaking, a student suffers from abuse at home and cannot focus in school? Sports may be one of the few constructive outlets for this student. But then again, how can they be expected to consistently maintain their grades in such a hostile circumstance?”(Allen 2). In a classroom, children sit all day and don't get exercise.
Children experience more harmful negative impacts, rather than beneficial positive ones, such as being at a constant risk of severe injury, wanting to opt out of sports early, and being under high levels of stress and anxiety. These impacts could lead to children being injured for an extended amount of time, children being inactive and unfit later in life, children dropping out of school, and many other catastrophic circumstances that children should not have to put up with. The opposing side suggests that children who participate in competitive sports experience positive impacts, such as staying healthy and in shape, and having positive psychological benefits. In some instances, these impacts may be true, however families with a child athlete opted for fast food, ready-made meals more than those of families who did not have a child athlete. Also, while competitive sports provide some psychological benefits, it has also been proven that they can cause stress, anxiety, and ultimately, attrition for the young athlete.
“In the U.S., about 30 million children and teens participate in some form of organized sports, and more than 3.5 million injuries each year” claims Stanford Children’s Health. It’s definitely true that competitive sports can cause all sorts of injuries from big to small. The media teaches people simply that sports leads to horrific injuries and can cause stress, but what the mainstream media hardly discusses are the great benefits of competitive sports. While there may be some negatives to competitive sports, that’s just life, and to add on to that; there are plenty of benefits which are sure to override to media’s facts. Kids should play competitive sports because competitive sports teach children powerful life lessons, contributes to their social and mental stability, and because of the physical gain competitive sports provides.
You feel relaxed when you're with your friends, and when you're doing something that you enjoy doing. However, one side reasons why sports bring many together and connect is maybe they might want the same goal at the end to win a event or make a meaningful memory with others. By participating in a sport, or multiple sports, it can have a positive impact on one’s