What are mental health and its importance in sport?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is “a state of well-being in which the individual is aware of his or her own capabilities and can cope with the stresses of life”.

Mental health is a life experience, not only related to the absence of physical pain, maladaptive thoughts, or emotional discomfort; it refers to the awareness of resources to cope with difficulties in every area of life.

In recent years, a large number of athletes have verbalized in the media the presence of psychological maladjustments at some stage of their lives that have impacted their mental health:

“From the moment I step onto the mat, it’s just me by myself, confronting the demons in my head…. I have to do what’s good for me and focus on my mental health and not compromise my wellbeing” (Simone Biles).

“I didn’t feel like living. It was my body, but because it had to exist. I didn’t have that joy or energy that life should have. You get tested and you’re fine but you notice something is off. You get into your body and your mind, where everything looks black. I wanted the night to come to take my pill and rest” (Andrés Iniesta).

Mental health must be understood as a continuum, not as a dichotomy associated with the presence or absence of illness. This continuum ranges from a more detrimental extreme for health, which would be having a diagnosed active mental illness, to a more adaptive extreme associated with feelings of feeling good, vitality, wanting to do things, enjoying the day-to-day, and being happy. In most cases, people who enjoy good mental health care are in the intermediate values of these extremes.

Benefits of paddle tennis on mental health.

The sport of paddling in a regulated and adjusted to the capabilities, values, and motivations of each individual generates a number of benefits in mental health:

• According to various studies, physical activity can reduce feelings of distress and the risk of suffering from depression by 30%, as well as between 20% and 30% of the risk of suffering from neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia.
• It reduces the probability of suffering anxiety, stress, and negative moods.
• Increases concentration, memory, and learning capacity.
• Increases self-esteem levels.
• Improves self-concept.
• Promotes better planning, derived from the discipline of training.
• Helps in the improvement of social skills in a healthy context. People who practice sports tend to surround themselves with people with healthy habits.
• Improves the sense of responsibility.
• Promotes sensory stimulation, by having to put the attentional focus on the implements of the sport, teammates, opponents, and the rules.
• It has a positive impact on personal self-efficacy, by encouraging the person to overcome difficult situations.
• It has a positive impact on resilience, which is the ability to overcome adversity.

What guidelines can we suggest to organizations or clubs to promote the mental health of their athletes?

Promote destigmatizing sports environments that provide space to talk about mental health and provide specific training on healthy habits and self-care.

To have in the facilities a structure and resources for the early identification of symptoms of mental health disorders. Feel free to visit Health well being to get more important information about mental health.

Establish a context that allows the collection of testimonies of sportsmen and women who have suffered from mental health problems and have been able to overcome them.