Sports and Mental Health
How do sports affect college students mental health?
Background
It is known that college students play sports or get involved in sports for numerous reasons. Some might be for enjoyment, some might be for a distraction from life, and some could be even for the physical activity aspect. College students take on a lot of stress in four years trying to figure out what they want to do for the rest of their life, and managing all of their school work on top of that trying to get to that goal. Every student has a different way to cope and deal with their stress. Whether they play a division one sport or just inter-murals at their college, sports can still have the same affect on those kids. We are going to take a deeper dive into the positive and negative affects that sports have on college students and hopefully come to an answer about how sports affect college students.
This video is a great video of students trying to end the stigma about mental health. they discuss that it is totally normal to have mental health issues and that there are ways to cope with that. They even discuss how teammates have left the team due to mental health reasons and they know that it will not be the last time.
Positive Effects That Sports Have On Mental Health
Sports play a big role into helping some college students get through their four years. In an article titles “ relationship between different domains of physical activity and positive mental health among young adult men” it discusses a lot about positive affects sports have. They did a study that showed cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness are positively associated with physical and mental components of mental health. That meaning that these two types of exercises positively help mental health among young men. Positively effecting mental health can be broken down different ways also. For some people positively effecting could mean just a way to cope with their stress and mental heath issues that they are facing and for others it could be actually helping and bettering ones mental health. In a survey I conducted I also found that a lot of people used sports as a way to take their mind off of other things going on to try to help better their mental health. Just the action of stepping onto a court or a field can just make the world around you stop for just that one hour the game is and that hour could better or at least help better someones mental health.
This video from Ted Ed does a great job showing and talking about the ways that sports benefit your body physically and also mentally.
Negative Effects That Sports Have on Mental Health
The Stress. The Stress. The Stress. The amount of stress that coaches can put on young athletes is insane. The yelling and screaming at the kids to benching and suspending. those actions will eventually take a very big toll on the players and athletes. At times coaches can be very tough on the athletes, and it can be draining. The coaches don’t know how the yelling and screaming effects different kids. the coaches don’t see what happens once the players leave practice or a game. According to an article titled “ supporting mental Health and Well-being Among Student Athletes” some big negative affects that sports have are mood disorders, eating disorders, and overall just stress. Lets take a look at an example, say you do terrible in practice one day and the following day your coach calls you out on it and just that one bad day could cause you stress and put you in a bad mood for days or even weeks because you got yelled at about it. Yelling affects everyone differently. Also according to a survey I conducted people said playing sports had an effect on their grades while in that specific sport season. 85% of people said that sports effect their grades during their sports season, then having bad grades because of sports could make you in a bad mood which affects your metal health. everything plays a role in it.
Things To Do
When it comes to sports and mental health there are a few things that could be done. Some possible options for if sports are negatively affecting you are…
- Take a break from the team
- Talk to some of your fellow players to see what they think
- Talk to the coach
- Get parents help
- Focus on things that make you happy
- Reach out and communicate with others
Those are just a few possible options on what to do if sports or anything is affecting your mental health negatively.
Major Findings
A lot of the sources I was using and reading I found about an equal response to the question how do Sports affect College athletes’ Mental Health. Whether it is Division 1 sports or just intramural most of the sources I found had a lot of positive effects but also had a lot of negative effects. One of the big findings I had from my survey was the different reasons people played sports. Distraction and enjoyment were the biggest things that I personally found on that topic. Surprisingly the sources that I found had a lot more negative effects than I thought that they would have.
How College and Universities Can Do Better
I think that colleges and universities do put a great deal of effort into helping kids that are going through mental health issues but there is always room for improvement. I think that they need to make available and push more of the resources that they do have. I know that all universities have resources that can be used but sometimes they are not as easy to find. I think that just that would help a little bit on if sports are effecting a kid in a negative way and need to talk and come up with a solution.
Big Positives
Sports have a lot of positive things but the two big positives that you get out of playing a sport is the relationships you gain from playing the game and just the fact that you don’t have to think about anything but the game or practice when your their. the whole world stops while your sport is going on. Just that one hour of just focusing on the game could mean the world to one person. Also, gaining relationships during your sport could be huge to someone too. That one person you find during your sport could end up being your best friend and actually that could help your mental health. The two big positives are gaining relationships and not having to think about anything while playing the game. Those two things are huge positives that sports have on mental health.
Conclusion
Many different things about sports affect people in different ways and that is what causes those negative affects or positive effects. Sports can be played for a ton of different reasons and each reason can be different from person to person. We tend to look past the issues of mental health but instead we need to take them more seriously and try to help better someones mental health instead of hurting it. So many play sports for good reasons and some for bad. We never know why someone is out on that field or how they are feeling out on that field.