When I interviewed Wyatt I asked him a couple questions, but consistently he seemed to be in a similar boat to me. Very confused.

When I asked him Do you miss your sport? He responded with….

“ Yes and no. The structure that the sport provided was nice. I miss the bus rides and being part of team. However, my mental health while being in a toxic sport environment was terrible, and I do not miss feeling overwhelmed and anxious.”

A group of German students studied the Mental health in sports students – a cohort study on study-related stress, general well-being, and general risk for depression They found in a 2015 study that not only the stress of academics, but also the stress of physical education makes students feel overwhelmed and anxious. They also mentioned that “stressors for sports students, such as the fear of forthcoming or physical stress associated with their training program.” This is on top of the other stresses that just a typical student tends to have now-a-days, between maintaining astronomical grades, doing community service, being involved in clubs, and competing at an impressive level in sports. In fact, it shows that people in sports tend to have less well being in life, than just the typical students. “To date, depression in sports students has been investigated in two studies (Boath et al., 2013; Demirel, 2016). Demirel (2016) showed that sports students had higher depression scores than students of other subjects.” It is not only the physical activity that is straining but also the stress of dealing with the drama and stress from just being on the team.

Pressures of wrestling can exacerbate mental health issues

(click title to veiw full article) By: McKenzie Pavacich

"When Ryan Millhof woke up in the emergency room at Tempe (Arizona) St. Luke’s hospital, he was groggy, confused, and being closely monitored by a slew of doctors. But, he was not alone.

The smell of antiseptic burned his nose as he slipped in and out of consciousness. Each time he woke, it was to a new face sitting beside his bed. No one would ask the question, but each of his visitors’ faces spoke louder than any of the words they could have uttered. Why?

On Jan. 21, 2019, the Division I All-American wrestler downed a cocktail of anti-anxiety medication and muscle relaxers in an attempt to take his life.

After experiencing nearly two decades worth of the highs of victory, the disappointment of defeat, the years of sacrifice and countless injuries caught up, and it seemed like the only way out to the then 23-year-old Millhof who wrestled for Arizona State.

“When you take a bunch of medication or try to hurt yourself or whatever it is that you do, your world seems very, very small,” Millhof said.

“You’re focused on all of the negative aspects and the negative identities you associate yourself with. When you come to, and you’re in the hospital, you see the world around you and you grasp the magnitude of the situation.”

The magnitude of the situation is significant. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one in every five Americans will suffer from some form of mental illness at some point in their lives.

But Millhof is more than a statistic. He and an inexhaustible number of athletes within the sport of wrestling are living examples of the reality of the systemic shortcomings of mental health in athletics.

A study found that collegiate athletes have a 10%–15% chance of developing a mental illness severe enough to warrant counseling, which is 2% higher than their non-athletic counterparts.

According to the NCAA, there are more than 460,000 student-athletes currently participating in 34 different sports.

If those numbers hold true today, then the population of current student-athletes who will battle a mental illness while juggling the demands of being an athlete would fill nearly any MLB stadium: 46,000 people, give or take a few.

With an issue as complex and individualized as mental health, it’s difficult to identify a singular problem or simple solution. When a stigma becomes socialized and so ingrained in how we function as humans, it’s difficult to separate the assumptions associated with a stigma from fact.

But, the facts are simple: student-athletes are suffering, at a shocking rate, from mental illness —  and oftentimes, no one notices until it’s too late.

“You’re focused on all of the negative aspects and the negative identities you associate yourself with. When you come to, and you’re in the hospital, you see the world around you and you grasp the magnitude of the situation.” - Former Arizona State wrestler Ryan Millhof

Kristin Hoffner is a principal lecturer at Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions. Her research areas include sport psychology, coaching behaviors, team cohesion, performance psychology, and self esteem, among a number of other areas related to sport.

“When we look at NCAA Division I athletics, specifically, I think most people can immediately understand the high level of training, the high commitment,” Hoffner said. “With that can come very high levels of staleness, which is the precursor to burnout.”

Burnout is the term used to describe the psychological and physiological issues associated with the high-level demands of athletics with little opportunity for recovery. Often, a lack of recovery leads to an injury or performance slump.

“Performance slumps can then be wrapped into anxiety, attached to fear of failure,” Hoffner said. “They can start to manifest in depressive episodes because, for a lot of Division I athletes and really all athletes, it’s a big piece of their identity.”

Preserving this identity, in many cases, is a principal factor when considering the success of the athlete.

“When your identity starts to suffer, that can consistently kind of pull up the same kinds of things that are associated with depression and anxiety,” Hoffner said."

This is the most important part of the article for what i want to talk about.

What we can see and try and model in our own lives from this article is know when to draw the line for yourself. Learn to say no, and do what you need to do to take care of your body. As a person myself that enjoys pushing myself, even sometimes too far, you have to be able to recognize when you cannot take anymore. Now, when i say this, this doesn't have to mean quit your sport that you have been perfecting your whole life. But, talk to your coach, see if you can take a week break for your mental health. As athletes we tend to push ourselves past what we should because we are afraid we are going to fall behind, but you have to listen to your body and do what it tells you to first and foremost because you only have one of them.