Sports offer so many benefits that it’s hard to understand why a person wouldn’t want to get involved. The first thing a person thinks of in terms of health benefits revolve around physical fitness. But there are plenty of other benefits, including the positive impact sports has on emotional health.
How Sports Improve the Quality of Relationships
Children learn social interaction through a variety of activities, but one of the best activities is sports. Starting your child in team sports at a young age is a great way to teach them how to cooperate with teammates, play fair against opponents, receive instruction from coaches and team leaders, and how to be a good sport through wins and losses.
Sports Boost Confidence
Children can get a sense of belonging from team sports, and this level of interaction with other kids can boost their self-esteem. Shy children especially have a lot to gain from the social aspect of team sports. In one study by the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, researchers studied high school students and found that shy children who participated in athletics over time reporting significant decreases in anxiety.
Some children need the structure of a sport to bring them out of their shell. They need the external motivation and a logical reason to interact. Some kids are content to play by themselves for hours, even when on a playground full of children. You can encourage them to interact all you want, but until they have a viable reason–such as getting the ball to the right person to score a point–they may be uninterested in playing with others.
Additionally, the regular exercise that comes with playing sports will help children maintain a healthy body weight as they mature, improving their body image. As they develop strength, skill and stamina, they will be physically empowered and gain confidence in their ability to achieve.
Sports can Give you a Goal to Strive For
The habit of setting and achieving goals that is intrinsically built into sports helps wire kids with a healthy understanding of accomplishment. When you are consistently setting a goal–even the most basic goal of scoring a point to get ahead–your brain begins to understand this need and will transfer it over into other non-sport activities.
The human brain is always seeking ways to solve problems, and research shows that exercise helps improve cognitive function with both the physical act of stimulating blood flow, and also by training the brain through competitive sports. A study conducted by researchers in Switzerland, Germany and London showed that participation in team sports had a direct corrolation with improved grades and school behavior.
Sports create opportunities to strive for wins and suffer losses together. So people who participate in sports become more inclined to work as a team in both work and social situations.
Sports Help you Practice Dealing with Adversity
All athletes deal with adversity; it’s a part of the game. Kids must learn early on how to lose, or they won’t last long in the sport. In every sport, there are challenges to overcome:
- Baseball players may strike out
- Swimmers may not beat their fastest time
- Triathletes may have to compete in bad weather
- Motocross athletes have to deal with mechanical problems
- Gymnasts may stumble their landings
If you let every setback stop you, you won’t ever make it to the next level. Kids learn this quickly; they learn to adapt and overcome. Practicing this over and over builds resilience. It teaches the brain to find another way to overcome.
If you listen to athletes in post-game interviews, you’ll often hear them say things like:
- “I got a bad start, but I just kept pushing and in the last lap I finally got my breakthrough.”
- “The last few games were pretty rough, but we were determined to get past the slump and we did it.”
- “We had to battle a lot of injuries this season, but we focused on developing past our weaknesses and kept fighting.”
These statements reveal a lot about overcoming adversity. Athletes who make it to the pro level have mastered this art.
How Can Physical Activity Improve your Emotional Health?
When exercising, the brain releases chemicals in the body called endorphins that make you feel good. When the brain regularly releases these chemicals, it helps reduce anxiety and depression, and naturally boosts your self-esteem. Physical activity also helps you maintain healthy levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, making you feel calmer. Exercising regularly can help you fall asleep faster at night, and it can improve your sleep quality, as well. When you get good sleep every night, you naturally feel better during the day.
Another study by Harvard Health Publishing showed that regular cardiovascular exercise can actually boost the area of the brain that controls verbal memory and learning by helping to deliver oxygen and much needed nutrients to the brain. When you exercise regularly, you can think more clearly and concentrate better.
Sports Can Limit Exposure to Bad Influences
One of the best ways to keep your kids from falling into laziness, drug use, or falling into the “wrong” crowd is to keep them busy. If you can identify early on what sports or activities your child enjoys, tap into his or her passion and get them signed up for a sport they’ll enjoy. You may have to try multiple sports until you find one they like, but once you do, you shouldn’t have to work too hard to motivate them to go.
Kids need routine. We are all creatures of habit, and without a purpose or positive goal, we can fall into bad habits. Eliminate bad habits by setting good habits early.
Additionally, when you sign your child up for a team sport, you are likely going to find other parents who have a like-minded vision for their children. This is a very intentional way to put your kids in a positive environment. In school you have little to no say as to who is in their classroom and with whom they will spend the majority of their day. But by putting them in sports, you increase the chances that they will be spending time around other kids whose parents are also being intentional about exposing their children to something positive.
Sports Promote Excellence
When a child finds a sport he or she loves, they develop a natural desire to become the best at it. They will practice for hours on end, eventually seeking out techniques and drills that will improve their game. In this way, the child is developing an attitude of excellence. He or she learns that self discipline leads to excellent performance.
The “practice makes perfect” mantra helps kids with the repetition required for mastering their sport of choice. But with the right coaching, athletes will not focus so much on perfection, but rather excellence.
What is the Difference between Excellence and Perfection?
The difference between perfection and excellence is that perfection is rigid and can lead a child to be overly hard on him or herself. When an athlete strives for perfection, he or she may ultimately end up giving up because the goal seems impossible to meet.
Excellence, on the other hand, means focusing on always doing something better than you did it before. It means learning how to master the nuances of technique–so the focus is less on whether or not you won the race, and more on whether or not you improved your starting technique, which in turn helped you beat your personal best time.
Focusing on excellence means keeping expectations in check, considering all possible outcomes and preparing for whatever may occur. It helps the athlete to take an external perspective, become more objective and not become overwhelmed with unrealistic expectations.
Ultimately, we all want to find ways to maximize our potential in all areas of life. Success is not truly success if only one part of life is good and the rest is suffering. Sports can be a great way to improve our potential physically, mentally, and, yes, emotionally, as well.