Athlete Mental Health

The negative impact mental health has had on student-athletes is a continuous problem across the globe and has been a topic of interest in the research world for many years. The stigma behind mental health have lead to symptoms of depression and anxiety, reluctance to seek help, the sense of helplessness and loneliness and many more. In a student-athlete, these stress levels are brought upon the individual for multiple reasons. For example, student-athletes have to accomplish a certain degree of success both on the playing field and in the classroom (A.P. , Deitrick, J.M. , & Reynolds, E. (2016). Maintaining a required average and playing time can become not only physically but mentally exhausting. This literature review will discuss the barriers and facilitators to mental health in student-athletes and how the stigmatization of those student-athletes who suffer from a mental illness have an impact on their everyday life.

Some hypothesize that moderate levels of exercise will decrease the symptoms of mental health conditions (Blumenthal et al., 2007; Diaz & Motta, 2008; Motta, Kuligowski, & Marino, 2010; Rosenbaum, Nguyen, Lenehan, Tiedemann, van der Ploeg, & Sherrington, 2011) and therefore be used as an alternative or complimentary treatment option for mental health (Libby, Pilver, & Desai, 2012).

Are you at more risk to develop a mental illness if you are a professional athlete?

A growing epidemic in America is depression. Physicians are able to prescribe drugs to help with the symptoms of depression, but other therapeutic methods have been studied and show great results in recovery. Therapeutic Physical Fitness has shown to reduce depression and anxiety. Ihas been confirmed through experiments that physical exercise can be as effective as antidepressant drugs and some cases suggest that it better prevents symptom recurrence.

Millions of Americans suffer from clinical depression each year. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (2017), 322 million people are affected by depression around the world. Concerning industrialized Western world countries, it remains as the number one psychological disorder affecting its population (WHO, 2017). Most clinicians begin primarily with prescribing either pharmacologic or psychotherapy interventions. With billions of dollars spent in revue on treating depression (Chisholm, Sweeny, and Sheehan, 2016), exercise used as treatment in reaction to mental illness is often overlooked by mainstream health care professionals. However, it has been proved by recent research exercise acts as both a preventive and reactive

Since 1990s, many scientists agree that exercise has positive impacts on people’s physical health and mental health (SIME WE, 1987). From Morgan and O’Connor’s research, people can reduce stress and state anxiety by doing physical activities; also gain emotional pleasure from the process (Morgan and O’Connor, 1988). Later in 1997, Landers states that physical activities can reduce people depression after weeks of regular and routine exercise. In addition, people can benefit from more

The athletic realm is more competitive today than it has ever been. As the years have passed more and more studies have been done and attention have been drawn to creating the elite athlete and training has become more efficient and challenging on the athletes body. I’m sure that we have all heard the phrase “more is better” but this is not always the case when it comes to preparing to compete. Coaches and athletes who think this way increase the likelihood of their or that athlete’s experiencing overtraining syndrome. Overtraining syndrome (OTS) is defined as a condition of fatigue and underperformance, often associated with frequent infections and depression which occurs following hard training and competition. Overtraining syndrome is the

Collegiate athletes are one level lower than professional. Many of these collegiate athletes have to balance academia and their sport they are participating in. Usually, they will go through a full loaded day during the season. Including, practice in the morning, classes throughout the afternoon and a final practice during the evening. Therefore, these athletes have to continue to be on top of their game at all times, physically and mentally. However, athletes may not always be one hundred percent holistically health. One major concern is the increased risk and diagnosis of clinical depression. This may be due to the fact that there are not enough resources available for the athlete when troubled with clinical depression or the build up of

To reach peak performance athletes, tend to ignore pain because they feel they need to continue to train. This often leads to incomplete recovery from injuries and illnesses. In addition, during training athletes may also control their body weight using extreme methods. Studies have been done where they see these actions in young athletes. Taking part in sport-specific risky behaviours at a young age can lead to chronic physical damages or lasting psychological problems. This may be eating disorders or depression that will affect their health and athletic performance in the future. This is because at the young age one is not physically nor psychologically mature to know what is good or bad. They look to others and want to perform just like

This report aims to determine the efficacy and benefits of exercise in the management of depression, which is classified by the World Health Organisation as a mood disorder. In order to place exercise therapy into context, conventional methods for treating clinical depression are discussed. A personal meta-analysis is then undertaken, summarising the findings of studies that have explored the clinical significance of physical exercise as an intervention in treating depression. The advantages and disadvantages of such an intervention are described, and

Jeffrey B. Kreher represented by the National Institutes of Health, is the “maladapted response to excessive exercise without adequate rest, resulting in perturbations of multiple body systems (neurologic, endocrinologic, immunologic) coupled with mood changes.” According to the New York Times, about 60 percent of competitive athletes have overtrained while managing their hard-working lifestyle. Overtraining can cause muscle growth to stop completely and actually promotes muscle loss: it involves adrenal dysfunctions and the imbalance overtraining causes in hormones. The other major symptoms of overtraining are fatigue, mood changes, anger issues, altered sleep patterns, higher risk of injuries, depression, and even the loss of competitive desire in any aspect. According to a study by Rice University, testing on athletes with overtraining syndrome had a lower exercise performance, a decreased mood state, and some showed an increase of cortisol, or the stress

There are a wide array of benefits aligned with physical activity and exercise. Exercising can impact a person’s mood and psychological personality as well as improve their immune system and overall wellbeing. Throughout the essay, the psychological benefits of exercise, the benefits of exercise on the human body and the recommended level of physical activity for an average sized adult will be investigated and explained. Exercise is a vital aspect of a person’s daily regime and should be included within all lifestyles.

Sport and exercise in today’s society can have many positive benefits. Sport may cater for all through both individual based sports and team based sports. The benefits of playing sport include, positive mental health, combats obesity, satisfaction, self-esteem and reduces cardiovascular disease. Although sport has many positives there can also negative factors to. Examples of this would be pressure to perform or pressure to win. Many people take part in Exercise for their own benefits, people will have different goals, some will participate in exercise just to keep fit whereas others will set targets to reach different levels of fitness. When it comes to motivation in sport there is two different types,

They found that an exercise training programme could be an alternative treatment for MDD. Although antidepressants had a more rapid response than exercise, after 16 weeks of exercise the effectiveness in reducing depression was equal to the anti-depressants. A study also found that a single bout of exercise could result in substantial improvements in mood, which shows that it’s not just duration and frequency. However, it may be that the improvement in mood is only temporary (Dimeo et al., 2001). Lawler and Hopker (2001) stated that effectiveness of exercise on depression couldn’t be determined due to lack of quality research based on clinical populations. They also wrote that the explanations of the results may have been that depressed patients who did regular exercise could have got positive feedback from other people and a sense of self worth, which may act as a diversion from negative thoughts. Physical activity was found to be linked with less coexisting depression, which remains the same after controlling for gender, age, and race. The results of the study showed that physical activity is helpful with medical problems, life stressors and quality of sleep (Harris et al., 2006).

Exercise may be one of the most important influences on your overall health to date. While the only benefits that are mainly focused on are the physical benefits, significant psychological impacts can also be linked to exercise. Although some of these benefits aren’t viewed with much enthusiasm, studies have proven that exercise can actually improve one’s quality of life greatly by increasing not only their physical health but their mental health as well. It is because of this that exercise is a