Understanding Mental Health and Wellbeing in Sport

Abstract

According to the World Health Organisation (2018) mental health can be defined as "a state of wellbeing in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community". This definition acknowledges that mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders (Galderisi et al., 2015) and shows that sport can potentially create situations that challenge mental health where, for example, the athlete is unable to cope with the stresses of training and competition. As the quote from Kelly Holmes demonstrates athletes, like all members of society, can be affected by mental health difficulties. Mental health is perhaps best conceptualised as a continuum ranging from negative (ill health) to positive (good health/mental wealth; Kuettel & Larsen, 2019), where both clinically diagnosed mental health disorders and sub-clinical symptoms can have an impact on an individual's quality of life. Indeed, research has explored both clinical and sub-clinical symptoms in athletes and consequently throughout this chapter the term mental health difficulties is used to describe both clinically diagnosed mental health conditions and sub-clinical symptoms. The chapter explores the mental health of athletes by examining the prevalence of mental health difficulties in athletes, the mental health difficulties that can affect athletes, why athletes might be vulnerable to these, how they can be prevented or treated, and how positive mental health and wellbeing can be promoted in sporting environments. This will be further explored in Chapters 12-14 which investigate resilience, thriving, and athlete welfare which are all closely allied to mental health.

Current state and the support system of athlete wellbeing in Japan: The perspectives of the university student-athletes

“…Given those risks in a highly competitive environment, optimizing athlete wellbeing, particularly mental health, has received considerable attention in high-performance sports academic, political, and practical fields. The increase in interest might be triggered by some high-profile athletes openly and publicly discussing their challenges with mental health and wellbeing ( Heaney, 2021 ). In the period between 2018 and 2020, several sporting organizations published consensus statements on athletes’ mental health, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ( Moesch et al, 2018 ; Schinke et al, 2018 ; Gorczynski et al, 2019 ; Reardon et al, 2019 ; Van Slingerland et al, 2019 ; Henriksen et al, 2020 ).…”