Alexithymia and Athletic Performance: Beneficial or Deleterious, Both Sides of the Medal? A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background: Numerous studies have been published on alexithymia among athletes in the last decades. The objective, here, is to provide a critical review on alexithymia in sport and identify elements demonstrating that alexithymic athletes can attain a competitive advantage. Methods: The Center for Reviews and Dissemination guidelines were used. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines served as the template for reporting the present systematic review. We searched PubMed, Embase, Science Direct, and PsycINFO, without language or date restrictions. Results: Within 72 eligible studies, 23 articles fulfilling the selection criteria were included in the review. Alexithymia is associated with various pathologies and considered to be counter-performing. However, despite considerable suspicion of an advantageous performance effect of alexithymia, there is a lack of data to quantify this effect. Studies identified are heterogeneous (different scales of measurement of alexithymia used or outcomes, different sports), that do not allow us to conclude on an observed causal relationship, because the studies are mostly observational. Conclusion: This systematic review opens a new search field on alexithymia, as possibly promoting performance.

Boosting effect of regular sport practice in young adults: Preliminary results on cognitive and emotional abilities

“…Although it is true that there is a greater prevalence of alexithymia in high-risk sports contexts (Woodman et al, 2009 ; Woodman and Welch, 2021 ), these data may also be biased due to gender. It is possible that the gender differences would be marked mainly in the verbalization of emotions and in external-oriented thinking, since both of these dimensions of alexythimia are more frequently associated with males, due to social desirability bias (Proença Lopes et al, 2022a , b ). Since our sample was balanced by gender, we can speculate that sportive individuals are less alexithymic, and instead, the higher prevalence of alexithymia in high-risk sporting contexts is probably due to gender; however, more evidence is needed.…”

Occurrence of Alexithymia and Its Association with Sports Practice from a Sample of University Students: Results from a French Cross-Sectional Study

“…The significant relationship between alexithymia and sport has already been demonstrated in students engaged in sporting activities [28]. However, more broadly, few data exploring the association between alexithymia and sports, with highly heterogenous conclusions, were shown by our research team through a systematic review [25]. In fact, higher scores in alexithymia can be associated with being an athlete [46] as well as a non-sport students [39].…”

“…It is known that sport is a protective factor of anxiety and depression as it can improve symptoms for these disorders [24]. It has been demonstrated that sports are widely associated with alexithymia [25], but in a negative way. In fact, researchers observed a link between alexithymia and overtraining [26][27][28][29], with addiction [30,31], and especially in high-risk sports [32][33][34][35][36][37].…”