Athlete Well-being

How do we perceive our athletes?

I recently conducted a poll on LinkedIn to understand what the readers would like to know from this blog. The results were interesting, “Impact of sport psychology on athlete well-being” got the maximum votes! So here goes …

The celebrated Greek philosopher Plato popularized the maxim “healthy mind in a healthy body,” which I believe captures the essence of sport psychology. This is because many professional practitioners (including me) adopt a holistic approach wherein the general well-being of athletes is considered equally as important as their performance levels. I understand well-being as an umbrella concept — it encompasses emotional, psychological, and social functioning. Research suggests that achieving a healthy state of well-being is critical for athletes, not only from a mental health perspective, but also as a strategy to overcome challenges, improve performance, and enjoy long and successful careers. When I think about well-being, concepts like hedonia and eudaimonia crop up in my head. I came across this definition by Dodge and her colleagues, they define well-being as the balance point between the resources available to the individual and the challenges they face throughout life. If you spend some time re-reading it, I believe you will realise it echoes the experience of any athlete.

There are several positive benefits of playing sports or training for high performance like a sense of belonging, building self-esteem, communication skills, developing leadership qualities and work ethic, character development, amongst many others. However, the other side of this coin should be addressed as well! Elite sport or the high-performance arena is a challenging environment — physically, emotionally, psychologically. Athletes have to constantly battle the pressure of performing consistently, rigours of training, potential overtraining or even burnouts, impediments caused due to injuries, and the debilitative effects of performance slumps. To be able to perform despite these challenges, any athlete requires a high level of psychological functioning. We, as consumers of sport or as people who belong to the sporting ecosystem, unfortunately, can tend to perceive athletes as performance machines. We may expect them to always perform. We may expect them to be the “heroes” and “sheroes”, an identity that we build and project on them. As a society, we may expect them to be “mentally tough” always because the otherwise is understood to be weak. This poses a damn challenge to objectively look at athlete well-being, doesn’t it?

In India, we are still wrapping our heads around building acceptance and sensitivity when it comes to mental health in sport. The recently concluded Tokyo Olympics highlighted athlete voices regarding mental health struggles and the perils of emotional distress. Let’s take it with a pinch of salt as the athletes who spoke about their struggle were international elite athletes, Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles, and Michale Phelps. Unfortunately, in India, we are yet to create emotionally safe spaces for athletes to talk about their mental health struggles without the fear of being judged, labelled weak, or even benched! As a society, we are yet to acknowledge the significant need for psychological support for our athletes. In a performance-driven world, well-being is the foremost factor to be compromised!

What can we do about this?

I firmly believe the key lies in perception! When I work with athletes, I look at them as a human and not just an athlete. That athlete has several configurations — he/she/they can be a child, a sibling, a student, a partner, etc., but most importantly, they’re human. To me, that's the single most important aspect of the individual sitting in front of me. Being an athlete is not their entire identity, it’s a part of their identity. There is always more than what meets the eye. If we begin valuing them as a human, we are taking a staunch step towards their well-being. They’re champions, rightfully so; however, pigeonholing them just as that is compromising their well-being. Perceiving them as a human, a human who is allowed to err will help us unlearn the stigmas we have been dwelling upon. Carl Rogers is famous for his ideation of unconditional positive regard which I hold dear to me in my practice — ‘when you accept a person as is, develop a relationship, and provide a safe, non-judgmental space, that individual can move toward self-actualization, grow toward maturity, and grow toward socialization.’ Accepting athletes as they are, acknowledging their vulnerability, creating emotionally safe spaces, and developing a culture of sensitivity and empathy are taking the first steps towards their well-being.

Stay tuned to know more!

References:

Dodge, R., Daly, A. P., Huyton, J., & Sanders, L. D. (2012). The challenge of defining wellbeing. International Journal of Wellbeing, 2(3), 222–235.