Effects of stress and mental toughness on burnout and depressive symptoms: A prospective study with young elite athletes

Abstract

About every tenth young elite athlete reported burnout or depressive symptoms of potential clinical relevance. While high perceived stress was associated with increased psychological health complaints, mental toughness was able to off-set some of the negative consequences resulting from high stress exposure.

Implicit and explicit attitudes towards sport among young elite athletes with high versus low burnout symptoms

“…Therefore, surveys always carry the risk that athletes may "hide" their true feelings by responding in a way that conceals weakness (i.e., social desirability bias) or in a way that conforms with their expectations about how elite athletes are generally seen by other people. Nevertheless, this risk seems to be limited as our findings showed that (a) explicit attitudes were more closely related to general burnout symptoms than implicit attitudes, (b) the researchers were not known by the students (e.g., as lecturers or practitioners), and (c) many students in the present sample reported relatively high levels of burnout (Gerber, et al, 2018) or other psychological complaints such as insomnia symptoms (Gerber et al, in press).…”

“…Vulnerability factors include perfectionistic concerns, trait anxiety, ineffective coping skills, unidimensional athlete identity, high investments, social constraints or low attractiveness of alternatives. By contrast, social support, perceived autonomy, a positive motivational climate or being mentally tough are considered protective factors (Gerber et al, 2018;Madigan & Nicholls, 2017). In Gustafsson et al's (2011) integrated model, burnout is defined as a syndrome comprised of three symptoms.…”

Interrelation of mental "burn out" level and psychological health in athletes with different qualification

“…The criteria of psychological health of athletes were indicators of adaptedness, stability and "self-adjustability" [12]. The syndrome of "burn out" in athletes has the specifics connection with the increase of mental and physical loads [22,23]. There is no one point of view on the definition of "burn out" phenomenon in modern science.…”

Dark Triad Traits and Sleep-Related Constructs: An Opinion Piece

“…For instance, greater mental toughness is associated with better sleep quality, shorter sleep onset latency, fewer awakenings, longer sleep duration, and reduced sleep complaints (Brand et al, 2014a,b). Additionally, higher levels of mental toughness correlate with positive psychological health outcomes (Gerber et al, 2018). Pertinently, mental toughness influences also DT traits.…”