Why is mental health important in sports?

More and more teams and athletes are incorporating sports psychology to help athletes achieve comprehensive development in all aspects during their professional careers, including their mental health.

During the last week of March, news broke of the passing of Konstantin Koltsov, the romantic partner of the world’s second-best tennis player, Aryna Sabalenka. Just days after the announcement, many people began criticizing the Belarusian tennis player after observing her train and compete in the Miami Open, questioning her grieving process.

All this issue sparked a conversation that perhaps isn’t often discussed, bringing to light a term unfamiliar to many: sports psychology as a fundamental part of an athlete’s mental health and its impact on the performance and development of professional athletes.

What is sports psychology and why is it important for mental health?

As its name suggests, it’s a branch of psychology that aims to understand the behaviors of athletes and coaches in order to cultivate mental stability, providing individuals with the necessary mental and emotional tools they may need during the process of achieving their goals and objectives.

Sports psychology encompasses professionals dedicated to strengthening players’ minds so they have the motivation, performance, and concentration that, combined with their physical aptitudes, aid them in practicing any sport, particularly when it comes to high-performance athletes.

It’s becoming increasingly common and essential for sports teams or individual athletes to have a psychologist within their squad who constantly accompanies them in all the processes they experience on the field, but also in everything that happens off the field and could potentially affect their professional performance.

This discipline is beginning to gain importance within the world of sports.

As a sports enthusiast, it’s very likely that you’ve witnessed a match where two soccer players fight, a tennis player decides to break her racket, or a basketball player yells at their coach during moments of high frustration experienced during the games. We’re all human beings, and it’s normal for us to be overwhelmed by the emotions that certain situations generate from time to time.

Hence, sports psychology aims to help athletes better manage their emotions, enabling them to perform at their best while always striving not to harm others or themselves. Among the main benefits provided by this field are stress or anxiety management, improved emotional intelligence, and understanding mood states to make the most of every moment. Furthermore, it enhances performance and concentration, strengthens the athlete’s personality, and boosts their confidence.

Having a sports psychology department has helped many athletes.

In the last decade, a large number of professional athletes have revealed that they have experienced periods of underperformance or temporary withdrawal from their disciplines due to mental health issues that have affected their performance.

Athletes like Simone Biles, Michael Phelps, Rafael Nadal, and Naomi Osaka have spoken out about their struggles with depression and how they’ve navigated through difficult times without letting go of their sport. Their experiences indicate that these kinds of issues affect a significant number of athletes, who, with the help of specialized therapy and medical attention, have managed to cope with such challenges.

Cases like these reaffirm the importance of sports psychology as a daily practice because athletes continue to be human beings, and the demands of their various activities should not affect their quality of life in terms of mental health. This underscores the significance of mental health in the professional development of all individuals.