Sports and Mental Health
Mental health for athletes is no different than mental health for ordinary, hard-working people. Tragic circumstances, abuse, and daily stresses can impact a person when they are not aware and have too much friction and pressure on their shoulders. Additionally, when you do not know how to reduce stress and give your mind, body, and spirit time to recover, all of the responsibilities can add up. The reality is we are often faced with unforeseen circumstances and forces to respond correctly on the fly to situations that may have been out of our control.
The goal is to improve your overall quality of life first, and the result will be improved sports performance over the long haul.
7 Ways to WIN: Mental Health For Athletes and Coping with Emotional Pain
#1 Exercise
Exercise is an incredible stress and pain reliever. When you exercise, you release neurochemicals like serotonin & dopamine, which may help alleviate feelings of depression.
#2 Turn the negative into positive
Learning to take criticism, negative situations, and obstacles and appropriately using these as fuel to propel you to your dreams, goals, and desires is a powerful skill. Work on developing this skill. Simple areas to start: if you desire to work out at 6 pm but a co-worker attempts to get you to go to happy hour instead. Honor your schedule, your goal, and your plan. Go work out…overtime; you will start listening to your internal voice instead of all the external disturbances. Music – Trying listening to uplifting music. Instrumental music is excellent, or you can try music from your favorite artist. But only if the topic is uplifting and encouraging. The right type of music will calm, refresh, and rejuvenate you. Music has a vibration that communicates with the soul. Loud, obnoxious music with curse words may not be so beneficial for your mental health. It may excite you up or create a particular sexual atmosphere, but it could be extremely harmful to your mind.
#3 Hope
years ago, I used to drive to San Francisco to walk the streets with an organization called the DREAM CENTER. This organization would walk the mission district and feed the homeless and hand out roses to the prostitutes.
This one particular Friday night, I met this handsome brother, he was about 6’5″ beautiful dark skin, he was articulate and stunned and thankful to see me. We spoke for a while, and he talked about how he used to be an aerospace engineer and had an incredible life and family.
I was affected by him and this conversation because I could see myself in him. When I looked at him, I saw greatness in this person. I asked him one question, which was, “what happened?” The homeless man stared me in the eyes and said, “I lost hope.”
Beloved when you lose hope that is a dangerous place. What that says is that you never think things will be different than THIS MOMENT in time and will stay like that indefinitely. Losing hope is the biggest lie you could ever tell yourself. Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
#4 Forgive
Whenever we deal with something difficult, be it a loss of a person, relationship, loss of a job, but more specific matters of the heart, it can be challenging to let go and sometimes even more challenging to forgive. We want to hash it out, talk about it, figure it out, and understand every detail.
But most often, this won’t happen, and it’s just not reality. Life can sometimes leave us with questions unanswered. But the ability to forgive not only the other person but yourself is vital. One of the ways I find it easier to forgive myself, others, and the world I see is when I choose to judge myself as harshly as I may judge everything else, even when they have wronged me.
When you can do this, you may find that we are all human, imperfect beings. This doesn’t mean that you forget, nor does it mean you let things continually happen. It says it is time to let go of the circumstance and come to the conclusion that sometimes we are unable to control and determine everything that happens to us because we are imperfect, and those imperfections result in imperfect situations.
It may not be what we want to accept, but acknowledging our flesh or the humanity in us allows us to be vulnerable with ourselves while at the same time taking each circumstance and situation as a moment in time when things were not the best. Forgive yourself and others so you can move on to the REWARDS of life.
#5 Be thankful
be thankful for right now that we have this moment to be better than we were yesterday. Be grateful that you can recognize your pain, that you can change it. That you can mourn with someone else. Be thankful that you’re here right now, and you have the opportunity to create your future.
Romans 12:12 “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
#6 Only communicate with trusted, qualified friends
It is healthy to talk about what your feeling and going through. But only do this with those people that you believe and those that have the wisdom, insight, experience, and compassion to provide a healthy environment for you to do so.
#7 Most important is Prayer
When we acknowledge that there is something bigger, more powerful, forgiving, compassionate, all-knowing, all-accepting, and consistent working on our behalf, it does something for the soul. Spending time in prayer, focusing on what we have, where we have come from, and where we can go has been proven to eliminate stress and reduce problems.
When Your Mind Is Not Right, You Tend To Procrastinate
When you are overstressed, and your mind is focused on too many things, you tend to overthink instead of taking action. So if you are finding it hard to concentrate or you seem to achieve goals that you set, it is likely your mind is overloaded and unable to focus long enough to accomplish essential tasks.
Defeating procrastination is easy when your mind is sharp and ready to give energy towards tasks that propel you towards your goals.
Key To Defeating Procrastination: Get Your Mind Right
Defeat Procrastination
Stop waiting to do the work. Get to the gym, start eating the right foods, eliminate negative people. Lastly, reduce social media if it is causing you to become a fan instead of a person of action.
What is Your Why? There are five types of people, those who encourage, those who wait, those who observe, those who criticize, and those that take action. Those that wait and criticize usually become envious, those that watch typically write about those that take action; those who encourage traditionally get to ride the wave with those that do.
And those that leap reap all the rewards of having faith in themselves and taking a chance despite the challenges, criticism, and obstacles. We all know alcohol in high doses slowly kills the body internally, we know cigarettes will kill you, and sugar-glazed donuts can’t be healthy every morning.
Pathway to Procrastination – Be Aware of How Much Time You Spend In Fron of The Computer
Sitting in front of a computer screen all day without regular exercise will result in weight gain and reduced quality of life. But despite knowing these things, many of us will continue to indulge in these vices regularly. Yet and still, most people do desire better health but need a little extra push to get beyond the years of bad habits.
Before athletes make the changes necessary to defeat harmful habits, they must first define their WHY?
- You desire to have more mental clarity
- You want to improve performance
- The athlete would like to improve performance so they can take care of their family
Once you create the why, and if the why is strong enough, you will ultimately change how you think about your actions. Becoming conscious about your mental health is a start, and this new consciousness will bring you to the information needed to take action.
The “Why” Needs to Be Stronger Than The Reason To Procrastinate
To make a lasting change, you must first answer why I must make this change, is it worth it, is my career worth it, is my family worth it, is my lasting legacy worth it? Why? For some, the answer is evident and straightforward due to a need to lose weight or address an immediate and pressing health issue.
But for other athletes, it may be a personal, intimate question that requires some deep thought. Why must I choose a healthier lifestyle? This why results in items that will be answered.
- Will I have a more productive professional athletic career
- What’s the benefit to me?
- Help me get a scholarship?
- Allow me to enjoy all that life has to offer?
- Will better mental health benefit my family
- Help my athletic, persona, family and community legacy
- Will I live life running the race or watching the race from the couch?
Consequences of Waiting Too Long
I’ve personally witnessed two co-workers die within six months. They died from preventable diseases caused by poor diet and sedentary lifestyles. Perhaps if they would have taken action just a few months earlier, they would still be alive today. This is not to point the finger…
But let us all try to do better. As I am writing this right now, I am thinking about areas that I can improve. I spend too much time in front of the computer writing articles and working!
Your health is too important to put on the back burner. My father always told me if you have your health, you have everything. When healthy in mind, body, and soul, you can change your existence with strategy, will, and energy.
What would you do if failure was not possible, if you were guaranteed to win simply by taking action? The positive news is that optimal health is a result of you merely taking action today! Life gets better from here.
Your mental health as an athlete is not only crucial for sports performance but the quality of life.
At some point, the athletic career will stop and you will be faced with new challenges. You, as an ex-athlete, will need mental health, clarity, endurance, and intelligence to navigate this new phase in life.
Thank you for reading. Feel free to reach out with questions.
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