A Mental Health Overview

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.

Mental health is very important when it comes to living a happy life. There’s many things people do to keep their mental health good but my favorite is sports. Sports are my escape and many others escape as well. “Studies have shown that 20 to 30 minutes of exercise each day can make people feel calmer.” Playing sports gets my mind off of other things that I shouldn’t be thinking about. For example, bad things that happened in my life. It gets my mind off of everything and generally makes me happier. If I’m stressed about something I’ll go play sports and I’ll feel much better afterwards.

The sport I play is soccer. Soccer is the main reason I got through most of my struggles, by training to be better every single day. With soccer I am always trying to become a better version of myself. Training hard and then it paying off in the end is one of the best feelings in the world. Training really makes you feel better when things aren’t the best. Soccer also highly benefits me physically. Running around doing sports boosts your mood and makes the day easier. “Indulging in physical activity triggers the release of chemicals called endorphins and serotonin. This chemical makes you feel happy and reduces stress”. All that training will always pay off.

Competing was one of my favorite things about playing soccer. Going to tournaments and trying to be the best. I had many accomplishments when it came to soccer but I have one that means the most to me. I was about 12 years old when we got a chance to go to a tournament to win state. We trained very hard for this tournament. We had the quarter finals and we honestly thought we would lose against this team. We had a week to train and prepare for playing against this team. My coach put us through one of the hardest training of our lives. A week later it was game day. The drive to the field was one of the most nerve racking feelings ever. We got to the field and started warming up. I looked around and everyone’s demeanor changed so much. The kids that I knew as enthusiastic were quiet because of how nervous they were.

The game started and we started off very weak. The other team scored twice and it was already half time. It was 2-0 and we had one half to come back. We went to the sidelines to rest and got yelled at by our coach. He was telling us ways to be better and ways to beat them. After hearing him talking to us we were all ready and motivated to go into the game. The second half starts and we score in the first 10 minutes. The score is now 2-1. That goal motivated us so much but it also made the other team try even harder. We battled most of the game and we had 3 minutes left of the game to score. My teammate got a chance to score inside the box and got fouled. The referee blew the whistle for a penalty.

We had 3 minutes left of the game and we had a penalty. We all sat there nervously watching my teammate about to take the penalty. The whistle blows and its time to take the penalty and my teammate scored. We just tied the game in the last 3 minutes. The opposing team lost all hope. We went to overtime and scored in the first 10 minutes and won. That was only the quarter finals.

A week later the semi finals came and we flew by and destroyed the team we went up against. We won 4-0. By far the easiest game of the tournament. Then finals came. We were up against a team that we lost against very badly. We lost against this team 5-1 in a previous game. The game started and we scored in the first five minutes. We started playing the most defensive we ever had. We did not attack a single time. We defended for a whole hour. There were many times where the ball literally rolled across the line almost going in. We finished strong and won the finals. We were now the best ones in the state for our age. Winning that tournament honestly helped my mental health out so much because it helped me realize there’s more to life than being sad and stressed all the time. I felt like I finally made my parents happy and they were proud of me. Making them happy was one of the best feelings ever. I learned a lot from soccer when it came to mental health. To this day it still helps me cope with mental health.

I am very grateful for sports because they got me through rough times. If it wasn’t for sports I wouldn’t be as happy as I am today. There are many ways to improve your mental health and that is my favorite way of doing it.