How Does Mental Health Impact an Athlete’s Performance?
Mental Health’s Impact on Athlete’s Performance
Low levels of self-esteem and self-confidence in athletes have been shown to increase an athlete’s risk for depression, anxiety, social anxiety, and worse physical health. All of these negative outcomes have been shown to increase an athlete’s likelihood for poor athletic performance (Chang et al., 2020).
How to Foster Positive Mental Health in Athletes
The current system that is in place to support athletes is insufficient and is too focused on mental health literacy and awareness, rather than responding to the needs of athletes (Purcell et al., 2019).
Wider Factors that Impact Athlete Mental Health
With systems to help support athletes in different environmental, social, and personal aspects of their lives there is a greater chance to help aid athletes' mental health and well-being.
The figure to the right shows how the individual is impacted by their microsystem, mesosystem, ecosystemm and macrosystem in various different ways. These different systems highlight the importance of looking at an athlete's mental health holistically to foster positive mental health in all aspects of their lives.
