We all know that to be a great athlete it’s important to take care of our bodies by eating well, exercising and taking care of injuries properly, but a less common acknowledgment is that to perform well in sports, you also need to take care of your mind.
Mental health is incredibly important for athletes because most sports have both a physical and mental aspect. This is why almost every professional sports team now has sports psychologists on their payroll.
It’s easy for athletes to get in their own heads about their performance. It happened to myself when I competed in track after an injury; every time I stepped up to the starting line, I was filled with so much anxiety and negativity that I could not perform well.
A study by Cindy Chang in the Journal of Sports Medicine supports this, as Chang found that low self-esteem, as well as mental health issues, could impede athletic performance.
It’s also important to note that being overly stressed can lead to higher rates of injury for athletes. Chang also found that mental illness could be tied to higher rates of injury but felt more research needed to be done on this.
This may be because as explained by a report conducted by an expert panel for The American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine. Excessive stress increases muscle tension, which can increase injury likelihood in athletes.
There have been several cases of professional athletes’ crediting a focus on mental health as a big reason for their successful careers.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady credits mental health awareness for being a huge part of his career success, saying,“to me, football is so much about mental toughness.”
New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge has also worked hard to strengthen his “mental game” and he is constantly working to improve his mental conditioning.
“The mental game is what separates the good players from the great players. So anything I can do to get that mental edge to help me stay my best, I’m gonna try and do it,” Judge said.
Sports psychologist Richard Coop, who has worked with professional golfers Nick Faldo and Ben Crenshaw, explains that he thinks mental health plays a huge role in performance.
“I try to help athletes identify and get rid of interferences that limit their success. Performance equals potential minus interference,” Coop said.
While mental health has begun to be taken seriously at the professional level, mental health services for athletes are still extremely lacking for high school and college athletes. This may be because these services, in general, are lacking in American education systems, so the athletes don’t have access to general therapists and psychologists, let alone sports-specific ones.
Overall, athletes need to care for their mental health as much as their physical health. This needs to start with coaches teaching their athletes the importance of mental health and working with schools to get proper mental health personnel available to their athletes.