At some point in your life, most of you have probably played a sport, and felt stressed or overwhelmed. Athletes have a lot of pressure on them to perform well, and have high goals for themselves. With pressures to perform in a game, as well as in the rest of their public lives, being an athlete can be incredibly challenging for a person’s mental health. Student-athletes have additional pressure to maintain their classwork and grades on top of practice and games. Trying to balance academics and the pressure to perform well in sports as a student-athlete can lead to feeling overwhelmed with life, but encouraging students to seek assistance can help prevent more serious mental health issues from developing. Mental health is an important topic …show more content…
Suicide rates among college athletes have doubled from 7.6% to 15.3% over the past twenty years. Many struggling student-athletes don’t have mental health professionals to visit, and that leads athletes to feeling unheard, or struggling in silence. 92% of colleges fail to deliver mental health support to athletes. Madison Holleran was a standout soccer player and track runner. Madison committed suicide in 2014 during her 2nd semester at University of Pennsylvania, due to pressures with college life and expectations of the track team. Madison is one example of many student-athletes who committed suicide. One college that provides mental health support for student-athletes is Penn State. They discuss managing expectations of athletes and managing what they think others' expectations of them are, and also help them understand that self-care isn't selfish. If more colleges had easier access to mental health professionals for athletes, suicide rates would go down. As a student-athlete myself, I have played sports for my whole life and experienced burnout, mental blocks, anxiety, and depression. Since I was little, I figure skated and had a lot of potential to make it …show more content…
None of my coaches or parents knew how I felt, and I think if I had someone to talk to about it, things could have ended differently. Now, I run track, cross country, and also play volleyball. Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed with everything going on and school work on top of that. By trying to keep up good grades and turning in assignments on time, that can lead to stress, causing depression and anxiety. Running and volleyball are two sports that are very mental, and sometimes I struggle with being in my head too much, which impacts how I perform. There have been times where I wanted to give up on everything because it got to be too much mentally. Many athletes do not seek help because they don't want to show their weakness, and I can say that I am one of those many athletes. Burnout happens to a lot of athletes and it is important for people to know how to prevent or treat athlete burnout. According to a New York University review, 45% of youth athletes quit sports because of burnout, and 70% of kids quit sports by thirteen years old due to burnout. It is important that coaches and parents know that athlete burnout can happen to anyone, even at a young age, so it is important to not overtrain them and put too much pressure on
Stress Induced Suicide Julie Scelfo’s “Suicide on Campus and the Pressure of Perfection” first appeared in The New York Times magazine on July 27, 2015. Scelfo discusses the pressure that family, society, and the individual places on themselves to be perfect. This stress ultimately results in college- age students taking their own lives. “Nationally, the suicide rate among 15- to 24-year-olds has increased modestly but steadily since 2007: from 9.6 deaths per 100,000 to 11.1 in 2013.” Scelfo uses an anecdote, statistics, and expert’s observations to successfully portray her stance on this issue.
...colm, D., & Scott, A. (2012). Suicide, Sport and Medicine. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 46(16), 1092-1093. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2012-090974
Everyone has experienced some type of stress in their life. Whether it has been from work, school, or troubles at home, stress is stress. If anyone had played sports in high school, you know the challenge of balancing school and sports. Imagine that stress, then multiply it exponentially. Everyone knows that college is a much more rigorous version of high school. The only reason some athletes made it to college is due to scholarships for their performance on the field. If they don’t perform well on the field, that scholarship might get cut. This makes practicing the athletes main priority. However, college athletes have to concentrate on their grades so they don’t drop out of college. These athletes know they may not make it to the pro’s, so they know they have to have a back up plan. This back up plan is called a college degree. So college athletes have to concentrate both on sports and classes. Sounds kind of challenging. This is why I believe student athletes should be allowed to miss classes occasionally due to their sport. Athletes are under much more stress, are required to attend practices and classes, and complete their homework. This is simply impossible to do, at least for a human. I believe that this is an important topic because it affects all college athletes.
1 in 4 people will be affected by mental health issues at some point in their lives. Depression affects 20-25% of Americans ages 18+ in a given year (CDC.) Student athletes are students who go to school but participate in athletics at the same time. Student athletes are at a higher risk due to having different stress factors that normal students don't have to go through during their college or high school athletic careers. Major events would be the death of Madison Holleran.
However, what this argument does not take into account is that athletes have an abundance of pressure put on them that most non-athletes don’t ever experience. Hence, the saying, “go hard or go home”. A recent study emphasizes this fact as McClatchy notes, ”The researchers monitored mood levels of 465 collegiate athletes over three years and found 6.3 percent of the athletes met the criteria for clinically significant depression and 24 percent were considered ‘clinically relevant’ “ (2016). Studies like these prove that athletes are not blind to the idea of depression, but rather experience this disorder themselves. Anxiety has a huge role in depression. As sportsperson, there is constant effort to become an awe-inspiring player. As the stakes of the game raise, so does the anxiety. Some want a scholarship, some want to show off what they offer to a team that got a scholarship, and some are professionals. Regardless of whether it's grade school sport or a professional sport, failing at personal goals one set is down right depressing. Kearns and Hwang state that, ”While it’s not clear whether the source of challenges to a student-athlete's mental well-being is the same as those non-athletes, collegiate athletes are known to encounter unique stressor that the general population doesn’t have to deal with, such as the demands, relationships with coaches and missed scheduled classes” (2014). Pressure is something everyone experiences. However, athletes experience some of the same pressure that of non-athletes and then some. Being on a sports team is demanding to time and the idea of being “superior”. In athletics, coaches are everything. For example, If a coach likes how a person attributes as a team player, then that person will get a chance to shine. However, if the coach is not very fond of one, then the chances of opportunities are not very
All college students sitting in classrooms today face challenges that can impede their success. A challenging course schedule, competing demand for the student’s time, and college readiness are all factors that can hinder a student’s performance in the classroom. Moreover, these challenges also have the ability to impact the student’s overall student development. While most students share a common set of stressors, there are certain groups on campus that face pressures and challenges that are not shared by the majority of their peers. Student athletes are such a group. Joshua Watson (2005) noted the positive benefits of participating in intercollegiate activities, but also noted that such participation can lead to issues of “maladjustment, emotional illness, and psychological distress” (p. 442).
“All I have to do is pass: A discursive of student athletes’ talk about prioritizing sport to the detriment of education to overcome stressors encountered in combining elite sport and tertiary education.” Psychology of Sport & Exercise. Mar 2014, Vol. 15 Issue 2, p180-189. Web.
Student involvement and integration within the campus should matter to professionals in higher education because they can negatively or positively impact a student's experience (Garndy, Lough, Miller, 2016; Tinto, 1997). As an academic advisor, one must know the student-athletes strengths and weaknesses. An idea of what a student-athlete wants to accomplish makes it easier for an academic advisor to do their job. Advisors can create individualized plans based on their needs and goals. Athletic-academic support services are generally utilized to help student-athletes manage college athletic and academic demands (Jordan & Denson, 1990; Judge et al., 2018).
...ompetition environment. There is increasing recognition by the sports community that supporting athlete mental health is a vital aspect of competitive performance, and is as integral to success as the athlete’s physical abilities. The profession of sports psychology provides a very meaningful contribution to help facilitate athlete wellbeing and maximize the psychological skills required to compete at the highest level of competition.
In the past 35 years the suicide rate for college campuses has tripled (Oswalt 1995). This shows that there is a clear need for something to be addressed within the college community. The recent surveys show that about 10-15% of college students are depressed (Lindsey 2009). Depression can be a debilitating illness especially when many students attend college away from their close friends and family. This could result in students with more suicidal thoughts and attempts at suicide. In fact, the number of students with suicidal thoughts has tripled over the past 13 years as the number of students seeking help for depression doubled in the same span (Lindsey 2009). Depression can effect these teens in other areas of their life as well. The students who reported that they were depressed also reported that they considered their health fair or poor (Lindsey 2009). In their cases, depression not only effects them psychologically but also physically. Depression is also known to impair psychosocial development and academic success (Lindsey 2009). With all of these factors put togethe...
Suicide, it's not pretty. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's the
A young anonymous college freshman tells a story of the depression she faced throughout her first semester of college, through the transition and her roommate issues. Not only did it occur during her first semester, but through her second as well. Unfortunately, the depression overtook her life to the point of her desire to commit suicide. Luckily, she changed her mind in the last second and saved herself (Reachout.com). This young student is not just one of few depressed college students, but she is one of many. Colleges must take more responsibility of mental health issues, like depression, by researching the causes and effects while discovering beneficial treatments that promote the students’ overall well being.
Several researches have revealed that physical exercise has relieved many people from symptoms of anxiety and depression. During physical activity and exercise, the body produces a type of chemical called “serotonin”, a chemical that aids while dealing with anxiety, stress and depression. Studies also have shown that people who participate in sports results in higher self- esteem and a more positive self- image. Many studies made conclusions that adolescents and students who take part in sports and physical activities tend to have positive and higher self esteem than students who do not play sports and often tend to result better in academic performances at school.
In the article, “Athletes and Coaches Report Mental Health is Slightly More Important Than Physical Health in Overall Performance; Both Agree That More Communication is Needed to Address Mental Health Concerns.”, the Minds in Motion Depression Awarenes Campaign conducted a survey and found that the athletes and coaches believed that “mental health shares an equal, and/or slightly greater role than physical health, in defining peak athletic
Suicide has become a critical, national problem and the extent of this is mind-boggling. Suicides have been proven to be one of the leading causes of death among college students. According to Webters dictionary “suicide is the act killing oneself on purpose”. It derived from the Latin sui, meaning “self”, and caedere, which means “to kill”. But this is just a definition, because an actual suicide holds different meanings to people such as tragic, shocking, a relief, a cry for help, a shame, heroic, the right choice, punishment, revenge, protest, anger, a mistake, desperate, hurtful and many more. But why do people, like college students who have their entire future ahead of them, simply give up hope and turn their heads away from life and commit suicide. There are several causes of suicide, recent incidents of suicide on college campuses, warning signs from a suicidal. I blame the Constitution and the United States law for not taking any hard initiative on the subject of suicide. I also impose the choice of the media, which is reflecting and portraying suicide towards a wrong direction. However most important questions remain: can the growing epidemic of suicide be solved, what are communities doing about it and what can they do to help?