Mental Health Challenges in Athletes

This assignment delves into the multifaceted mental health challenges encountered by athletes. It examines factors contributing to these issues such as intense competition, performance pressure, societal expectations, and the stigma surrounding mental health within sports. The analysis encompasses various psychological concerns affecting athletes, including anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and eating disorders. The discussion also highlights the importance of support systems, coping mechanisms, and destigmatization efforts to promote athlete well-being.

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Essay on World of Sport
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Sports that have full-contact like American football, boxing, and rugby are famous for
competitors' inclination to bring about life-changing awful head injuries. To such an extent that
more than four thousand five hundred expert players in American football sue the alliance over
for head injuries especially those that are concussion-related1. Alternatively, substance abuse
happens in all games and at most levels of rivalry. Athletic life may prompt medication abuse for
various reasons, including for execution improvement, to self-treat untreated psychological
sickness, and to manage stressors, for example, strain to perform, physical agony, injuries and
sports retirement. This paper seeks to explore mental illness and drug addiction for current and
ex-athletes giving recommendations on what should be done to improve the welfare of players.
Every year, large groups of onlookers fill the stadiums and arenas to watch their most
loved athletes perform in their elements. Fans venerate them, younger athletes desire to be like
them, and corporate backers seek to partner with them. However, similar to a large number of
Americans, these athletes struggle with medication and liquor addictions. Frequently there is
news of a player fizzling a drugs test, going to rehab, celebrating sumptuously or drug overdose.
Professional sports tend to encourage substance abuse. Numerous athletes are generously
compensated and can undoubtedly get to drugs through their groups of friends. It has prompted a
substance addiction plague that has smashed the lives of innumerable athletes.
Injuries, while ideally rare, are regularly an unavoidable when one participates in sports.
Most injuries can be dealt with close to zero disturbance in sports participation and different
exercises of day by day living. However, some induce a significant mental and physical burden.
1 Hughes, Lynette, and Gerard Leavey. "Setting the bar: athletes and vulnerability to mental
illness." (2012): 95-96.

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For most athletes, the mental reaction to injury can unmask or initiate serious psychological
health problems, for example, uneasiness, depression, cluttered eating, and drug addiction. After
injury, there is an ordinary emotional response that incorporates preparing the restorative data
about the damage given by the therapeutic group, and adapting emotionally to the damage. It's
imperative for athletes, coaches, team doctors and the administration to comprehend that
emotional responses to injury are typical2. In any case, problematic responses are those that
either don't resolve or compound after some time, or where the symptoms severity becomes
excessive.
Head injuries may prompt drug abuse. An expansive level of players confess to utilizing
prescribed pain killers amid their playing days. Many keep utilizing even after retirement. As
indicated by statistics, sixty-three percent of players who are retired and utilized remedy
painkillers while playing recovered them from the coach, relative, trainer, dealer, colleague, or
the web. Players who abused painkillers while playing were three times more prone to be present
misusers than the individuals who utilized the medications as endorsed while playing3.
Athletes may be susceptible to psychological issues for various reasons. Above all else,
the anxiety and pressure of contending on daily may leave the competitor with the possibility to
create sentiments of dejection or uneasiness. There is additional motivation to trust that
2 Byrne, Eavan. "Participation and motivation in sport in relation to general mental health and
social physique anxiety." (2014).
3 American Addiction Centres. (2017). "Guide To Addiction And Treatment For Athletes".
American Addiction Centers. https://americanaddictioncenters.org/athletes/., (2017).

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concealed head injuries from contact games may leave competitors with an inclination to
develop depression and post-horrendous anxiety issues. Likewise, other physical wounds, poor
performances, issues with colleagues or mentors, aging, excessive training and the early
retirement dread, may leave the competitor helpless against the advancement of mental
problems. Athletes ought not to feel compelled into concealing the issue. The "gladiator barrier"
should be eradicated as it remains as part of barrier towards seeking help. The possibility that
looking for help for mental issues influences the athlete to seem 'feeble' should be tended to from
both a media point of view and from the viewpoint of the competitors themselves.
Alternatively, there are different reasons why athletes abuse drugs. Some include to
remedy an injury or improve their performance. Others get a compulsion in the wake of joining
proficient games. Athletes undergo intense pressure during contests4. Notwithstanding, these
moments could not compare to the stress that accompanies the need for success. In reaction,
endless contenders result in suing performance- improving medications, or PEDs, to acquire an
aggressive edge. These drugs increment physical qualities yet introduce various health dangers.
Furthermore, depression is an emotional problem that influences a huge number of Americans
every year, including athletes. Numerous get addicted to drugs to mask this mental issue.
Thirdly, injured athletes utilize medications to quicken their recuperation. It has prompted drug
abuse leading to addiction. Those in power and speed sports such as cycling and swimming,
frequently use non-steroidal calming drugs as their cure. World class competitors utilize
solutions to treat asthma more every now and again than the all-inclusive community does.
4 Bauman, N. James. "The stigma of mental health in athletes: are mental toughness and mental
health seen as contradictory in elite sport?." (2016): 135-136.

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Additionally, utilizing pharmaceuticals can prompt addiction. A significant number of athletes
use marijuana to ease interminable pain. The medication is lawful in a few states and players
have said it is a more secure alternative than pain-killer pills5.
The outstanding physical and mental demands requests set on professional athletes may
expand their defenselessness to certain emotional issues and risky practices. Furthermore, the
peak aggressive years for world class sports competitors tend to cover with the highest point of
the danger initiating mental problems. Nonetheless, physical and rivalry strain, introduces a
unique array of stress to professional athletes. They include a limitation to the support system
due to relocation, public scrutiny via social media, aggregate progression in group activities and
the potential for injuries that impose premature retirement6. The courses by which competitors
assess and adapt to these stressors can be a capable determinant of the effect the stressors have
on both their mental health and their performance. Athletes tend not to look for help for
psychological issues, for reasons like lack of comprehension of emotional health problems,
stigma and its potential effect on performance, and the impression that looking for assistance is
an indication of weakness.
There have been endeavors to disperse emotional health discoveries related to sports to
propel the counteractive action, identification and early treatment of psychopathology in
5 Danish, Steven J., and Bruce D. Male. "Toward an understanding of the practice of sport
psychology." Journal of Sport Psychology 3, no. 2 (2008): 90-99.
6 DrugRehab.com. (2017). "Substance Abuse And Professional Sports". Drug Rehab.
https://www.drugrehab.com/addiction/athletes/.

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professional athletes. There are suggestions that some sports administering bodies should
continue minimizing the significance of emotional and mental issues in this populace. It has
adverse implications where elite athletes within these associations are not furnished with access
to convenient or satisfactory emotional care or don't feel that the organizations' culture is one that
they can even raise their psychological concerns. While it is settled that physical movement has a
beneficial outcome on mental and emotional health, it is critical that exceptional physical action
performed at the highest competitor level may rather trade off mental prosperity, expanding side
effects of uneasiness and misery through injury, burnout, and over-training7.
With regards to treatment for athletes who are battling with drug dependence, individual
components of generally acknowledged strategies for treating apply. There are unique forms of
therapy in the sporting scene. Different conditions will decide the main phases of treatment,
which will, for the most part, include a time of restorative detoxification. It will guarantee that
the competitor's body is given a sheltered situation in which to wean itself off medications,
without dread of being compelled into taking more pills or surrendering to the compulsion to
relapse. In instances of extreme obsession, the detoxification procedure can cause queasiness and
spew, misery and tension, a sleeping disorder, diarrhea and other impacts. Medical experts
should be available to administer anti-convulsion and anti-anxiety drugs to ease side effects. Be
that as it may, therapeutic detox alone does little to rectify addictive conduct over the long haul.
For that, an athlete would require therapy and counseling treatment to address the mental harm
7 Reardon, Claudia, and Shane Creado. (2014). "Drug Abuse In Athletes".
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4140700/. (2014).

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done by the substance dependence. With assistance, an athlete can figure out how to ensure that
future cases of drug yearnings are avoided.
On the other hand, athlete psychiatry concentrates on finding and treatment of mental
sickness in competitors notwithstanding usage of rational ways to deal with improved execution.
As this field and its examination base are new, clinicians frequently convey mental care to
competitors without a full comprehension of the symptomatic and remedial issues that are unique
to this populace. There have been a few examinations taking a gander at the commonness of
some mental problem in different athlete populaces. Dietary problems and substance dependence
are the most concentrated of these disarranges and have all the earmarks of being fundamental
issues in competitors8. Be that as it may, to give educated comprehension and treatment, more
research on disorders such as bipolarity, over-training, anxiety issues, suicide, ADHD (attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder) and psychosis in athletes is required.
Additionally, studies on the areas of risk factors, prevalence, prognosis and the
uniqueness of such disorders in athletes are needed. Furthermore, there have been insignificant
and inefficient investigations on the utilization of psychotropic drugs in athletes. Few
examinations propose that some pharmaceuticals may either be performance improving or
contrary to execution. More elite competitors experiencing mental problems frequently have
reservations about using solutions with obscure health and performance impacts. There is a
requirement for some more, higher quality investigations on athletes usage of antidepressants,
anxiolytics, mood stabilizers, stimulants other ADHD medicines, as well as, the effectiveness of
8 Glick, Ira D., Mark A. Stillman, Claudia L. Reardon, and Eva C. Ritvo. "Managing psychiatric
issues in elite athletes." The Journal of clinical psychiatry 73, no. 5 (2012): 640-644.

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narcotic hypnotics and antipsychotics. Such investigations ought to use delicate execution
measures and include longer-term utilization of psychotropic pharmaceuticals. Besides, trial
subjects ought to incorporate competitors who have the mental issue for which the
pharmaceutical is proposed.
There is nothing amiss with sports psychology concentrating on performance. In essence,
the fixation on performance has prompted a blindside in the field9. The merging of these related
and parallel, rather than overlapping areas might be the breakthrough to treating psychological
well-being and substance dependence problems in the athletic group. A proposed treatment
program, TOPPS uses evidence-based treatment strategies that is, techniques clinically that have
been proven to be successful with extensive samplings of the populace. It then alters them to
better fit athletes individually. Family Behavior Therapy for instance advocates for family and
companions of the individual to aid in the treatment the person with mental illness or drug
addiction.
Consequently, for elite athletes, TOPPS enlarged the exemplary FBT model to
incorporate mentors and partners, mixing the competitor's nuclear and extended family members,
as well as, the social and colleagues groups into one emotionally supportive network. It might be
said; the TOPPS program is a respected and impressive sports manifest. It is an all-inclusive
treatment method that advocates for a teamwork towards the noble and common objective.
9 Velasco, Haley., "Few Student-Athletes With Mental Illness Seek Help". USA TODAY
College. http://college.usatoday.com/2017/07/21/few-student-athletes-with-mental-illness-seek-
help/. (2017).

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Another program, UNLV is endeavoring to satisfy the immense guarantee of intercollegiate
sports; the welfare enhancement of the individuals who play.
Treatment techniques for drug addiction and emotional disorders, for example,
depression, of which the WHO says there are viable medications are clinically robust for the
treatment of typical pathologies but are less efficient for competitors. While science has
progressed, it is the myth that successful help cannot be administered to these individuals by the
schizophrenic and restless-culture has not. Social and auxiliary stigmas stop people from
conceding they require help, and they substantially less seek it. This is exacerbated by way of life
in athletics, which, in some darker ranges, can lecture that strength is comparable to not
appearing, or disregarding weakness10. "Play through the pain" might be strong guidance for
wounded egos and abrasion, yet deadly for the depressed or opiate dependent.
Given the scope of mental issue and substance fixation in athletes, there is a need to
adjust the message around the advantages of physical activity. Limited studies exist within
standard psychological literature and the sports society on the mental wellness and prosperity of
athletes. It would be delinquent for sports administrators to expect athletic in-susceptibility to
emotional disorders. Similar to obesity tracking, comprehension of the mental needs of athletes
amid their profession and once it is finished is critical. To-date, there is little awareness of the
symptomatic and helpful issues unique to the athletic population. More research is required on
the frequency and etiology of dysfunctional behavior by athletes, which would serve to advise
10 Gleeson, Scott, and Erik Brady. "When Athletes Share Their Battles With Mental Illness".
USA TODAY. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2017/08/30/michael-phelps-brandon-
marshall-mental-health-battles-royce-white-jerry-west/596857001/. (2017).

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those working with competitors. Mainly, the incorporation of focused competitors in standard
emotional health examination will help set up a complete continuum of prosperity that would
shape and educate physical movement rules that are intelligent of the whole populace, what's
more, its emotional wellness needs.

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Bauman, N. James. "The stigma of mental health in athletes: are mental toughness and mental
health seen as contradictory in elite sport?." (2016): 135-136.
Byrne, Eavan. "Participation and motivation in sport in relation to general mental health and
social physique anxiety." (2014).
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Danish, Steven J., and Bruce D. Male. "Toward an understanding of the practice of sport
psychology." Journal of Sport Psychology 3, no. 2 (2008): 90-99.
DrugRehab.com. (2017). "Substance Abuse And Professional Sports". Drug Rehab.
https://www.drugrehab.com/addiction/athletes/.
Gleeson, Scott, and Erik Brady. "When Athletes Share Their Battles With Mental Illness". USA
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mental-health-battles-royce-white-jerry-west/596857001/. (2017).
Glick, Ira D., Mark A. Stillman, Claudia L. Reardon, and Eva C. Ritvo. "Managing psychiatric
issues in elite athletes." The Journal of clinical psychiatry 73, no. 5 (2012): 640-644.

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