Why do some Sport Athletes run into social problems and how does it affect their lives?
Introduction
Many people think that sport promotes those qualities that are normally deemed enviable for instance respect to those in power, hard-work, dedication to excellence, fairness and sportsmanship. Sports athletes go through so many social difficulties and problems. Keeping-up to people’s expectations is not always an easy task and that’s what sports athletes do every day. In our extremely competitive society, sports can corrupt the character of an athlete than develop it. Both athletes and coaches cheat so that they can benefit and the optimism that is connected with sports has long been flecked by all sorts of corruption. Many sports athletes run into social problems like drugs, alcohol, gambling and/or mental health issues because of the stress and the demands associated with their career. So much anxiety and stress can make someone indulge in these bad behaviors. Stress is not that bad after it something that takes place in all of us but how one reacts to what happens to him/her is what counts. How people react is controlled by their mind and their feelings.
Discussion
Sports athletes live in a sport world that is very competitive and a few of them make it professionally. These athletes deal with extreme pressure and stress. Research statistics show that nearly twenty million individuals suffer from intense depression during their career. When it comes to sports athletes, this problem is worse because of their mental attitude. They think that they are tougher that this sickness and they end up not seeking help (Morris, 58). They also think that if they seek medical help, this can have an effect on them physically and muddle their careers.
The effects brought about by stress can at times be very overwhelming for a sport athlete. Their livelihoods depend on their physical and their mental welfare. So many turn out to be mentally ill and others rush to alcohol and drugs and gambling. Stress can only treated through relaxation and so they look for this relaxation in gambling, in drugs and in alcohol hence ruining them more. With all these stress they may fail to compete, because they are not healthy enough. Mental illness is brought about by all this stress that can not be handled by the athletes. Sports can affect these athletes in so many ways because of the distinctive aspects found only in these sports activities for instance over-training, suffer exhaustion and injuries (Elicksen, 39).
Recent conducted studies have revealed that twenty five percent of women athletes and twelve percent of men suffer from depression; this is an extremely high number. Most of these sports athletes run to these social problems like gambling, use of drugs for rescue. Many people believe that taking drugs will calm your nerves and gambling will help you relax. These activities worsen your situation and can ruin your career. Sports athletes should win the battle of their mind, an athlete who has finer mental abilities and the need to win psychologically normally comes out successfully compared to others.
This is why sport athletes should make sure that they do not depress themselves so much because their career depends on them. For many years now, sports athletes go through intense depression and this is the reason why they search for comfort in these activities (Careerball, 22). So many of them quit for a while when everything becomes very overwhelming. Very many people associate dishonor and disgrace with mental illness but now that a large number of people are being diagnosed with this illness, people are learning to accept it because it has cure. The stigma associated with this illness makes the sports athletes not to seek medical attention.
Many at times we hear of a well known sport athlete who just collapse and burn without us knowing what had happened to him/her. Mostly, it is this intense depression and stress that makes a sport athlete to just switch off and with time their careers get shattered too. This matter has made the certified sports teams to hire psychiatric specialist to examine the mental health of these sports athletes. Long ago many sport teams hired physiotherapists just to examine the physical fitness of their athletes and their mental healthiness went unchecked. It is a very optimistic sign that these professional teams have begun to think about examining the mental fitness of their sports athletes and their physical fitness.
Mostly sports athletes withdraw from their duties at their late thirties and they feel the onset of stress and depression much more than other people working else where do (Gore, 34). Their lives are mostly a glare of simplicity and once that public interest is forgotten and normally they do not have anything to draw back on in the end. This feeling of insignificance makes many of them get depressed and stressed and that’s when they run for comfort in drugs, alcohol, gambling and other become mentally ill.
A good case ought to be made, to offer support programs and psychological health examinations to sports athletes who have retired so that they can live a good and a healthy life even when they are not involved in sports any longer (Miah, 29). Stress and depression affects all people even though it gets to sports athletes more. The view that sports athletes are too strong to seek medical attention for stress and other different mental sicknesses ought to change and they are supposed to be forced by their coaches to seek this help.
Hopefully we can make improve the lives of these athletes get over this mental illness, get over drugs, gambling, alcohol and other social problems so that they can always remain as the finest stars they are. Stressed and depressed people tend to isolate and this can be very risky and especially because people who suffer from stress and depression tend to abuse drugs and take alcohol to deal with their superfluous emotions and can end doing themselves harm than good (King, 46). Many athletes can be faced with such problems and when they add drugs and alcohol to their problem they worsen their already horrifying situation.
Some sports athletes uses drugs like steroids a problem that is considered to be very serious. They do this to get over their depressed minds but they end up complicating their mental health further. The same social problems encountered in the society at large are also encountered in the field of sports. At all corners of life, all of us experiences stress and for the sports athletes they get a double treat. The sports athletes do not only worry about their standard of living and emotional depression, but they also worry about their working out and their competition depression.
An athlete who is not stressed is always full of vigor and performs well.
On the other hand, a sport athlete who is stressed up is at all times enervated and with no competitive edge. They can find it difficult to sleep or eat and will be more open to to sicknesses and injuries. Even though many athletes can effectively go up the mountain of mental and emotional obstacles laid in their pathways, many of them find themselves weighed down and full of apprehension and angst.
Sports athletes tend to be more vulnerable to stress because of the many challenges they face all through the path of their athletic career. There are many sports specific aspects that contribute to this stress, for instance; the injuries, the exhaustion, and over-training. Their trainers, coaches and their team-mates’ expectations, the keen public visibility, time hassle and ethnic and sex stereotyping add to their stress pressures. Unfortunately, the stress among the sports athletes goes without being reported because of the fear of being seen as weaklings. Sports athletes have been trained to be strong and very tough and so stress and other forms of mental illness should never have an effect on them, sports psychologists are hardly ever used for these kinds of issues.
Conclusion
Sport participation brings about a certain level of stress and apprehension on sport athletes hence they are at a very high threat of developing mental sickness like depression. The world of sports is a very spirited and a competitive field and can greatly change the life of a sport athlete but can on the other hand devastate him/her leading to severe session of depression and mental sickness. Many top sport athletes have experienced severe depression and stress for years. Depression and stress seems to be affecting very many individuals in this world but this problem has been very common in the world of sports thus making them engage in deviant behaviors like use of alcohol, drug abuse, gambling and can also lead to mental illness. Sports athletes’ coaches should make sure that their athletes are well examined physically by professional psychologist to make sure that these athletes are in good health. This medical check-up will prevent the sport athletes from the many social problems.
References
C. Richard King. Native athletes in sport & society: a reader. Chicago of Nebraska Press, 2005
Russ Hafferkamp. Careerball: The Sport Athletes Play When They’re Through Playing Sports. New York. Booksurge Llc, 2009
Christopher John Gore. Physiological tests for elite athletes. Chicago. Human Kinetics, 2000
Debbie Elicksen. Positive Sports: Professional Athletes and Mentoring Youth. California. Freelance Communications, 2003
Sean O. Richardson, Mark B. Andersen, Tony Morris. Overtraining athletes: personal journeys in sport. New York. Human Kinetics, 2008
Andy Miah. Genetically modified athletes: biomedical ethics, gene doping and sport. California. Routledge, 2004
