Article + Reflection

Mental health and overall well-being are an important component in the athletic world and life of each individual athlete. Positive and competent coping skills to maintain a healthy mentality allow for more efficient performances. The top three mental health concerns amongst all athletes are stress, anxiety, and depression. Athletes frequently disregard taking care of these three concerns to remain focused on their academic and athletic obligations. Stress is known to be a cause of higher injury risk due to less awareness. Anxiety causes a lot of athletes to lose their “executive function”, where they can’t remember and make sense of drills and tactical information. Depression becomes a cause of cognitive dissonance in which an athlete’s attitude and thoughts are compromised and hinders their commitment to their performance. Below are excerpts from an article produced by Montana State University on these three mental health concerns.

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