Emotions and Athlete Mental Health

When it comes to athlete mental health and wellness perhaps Drake said it best, “I feel good, sometimes I don’t.” Was he referring to mental health? I honestly don’t know but the first time I heard that, it reminded me of my struggles with anxiety, but also how that line is applicable to every person on this planet. I understand that this may seem obvious (i.e., the notion that our emotions change), but allow me to explain further.

My first reaction when I heard that lyric was, that’s exactly how people struggling with mental health feel. You have good days and you have bad days. Sometimes you feel a rollercoaster of emotions of extreme highs and/or lows in a single day. Since everyone sees life through the lenses of their unique experiences and beliefs, I found it interesting that the first thing I would think of when I heard that line in “God’s Plan,” was mental health and anxiety. Looking at the bigger picture, emotions are part of being human. Regardless of the amount of success you achieve, you have good days and bad days. You can be happy one minute and the next something can make you upset.

There are three points I want to share with you about emotions and athlete mental health.

1. Athletes are not robots.

“God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one” 

– Rumi

Even though athletes are supposed to be tough and anything less than tough can get you called out for being “soft,” the reality is that athletes have emotions like every other person on this planet. Sometimes they feel good and sometimes they don’t. That’s just part of the way the world works, or the plan if you will. Whether that’s anger, sadness, anxiousness, fear, joyfulness, peacefulness, or love, emotions deserve equal respect.

As tech-savvy as we are these days, we’re still not robots. From a spiritual perspective, negative emotions are there to teach us lessons regardless of whether those lessons ever make sense or not. The fastest way to learn what not to do is by experiencing that the consequences of those actions don’t feel good. It’s like touching a hot stove and getting burned. But beyond the physical pain, emotional pain is just as real. Skin is skin, pain is pain, and sadness is sadness.

So, the next time you find yourself feeling “soft” because you’re feeling an emotion that’s not what you think of as “tough,” think of the toughest person you know and know that they too, sometimes don’t feel good.

2. Sometimes our past triggers negative emotions in the present.

“The only way out of suffering is through it.” 

– Robert Frost

Chances are there’s something in your past you need to let go of. Everyone has “baggage.” I wrote a post about suppressing your problems and how that ultimately only leads to more problems because eventually everything surfaces.

If you’re feeling off or like you’re on a rollercoaster of emotions, there’s most likely something within you that needs healing. It may be something happened to you as a child that you’re still holding on to, it may be something traumatic that happened that you never fully healed from, or it could even be that the way you were brought up conflicts with who you really are.

There’s no limits on what your triggers can look like because we’re all individuals with our own journeys so first and foremost, stop judging what you think should or shouldn’t bother you and just be real with yourself. Champions face adversity head on because they know the only way to overcome a challenge is to go through it. This doesn’t mean you have to be aggressive about it, go easy on yourself through your own process; just make sure you take those steps to heal instead of allowing the issue to compound and eventually explode.

3. You can train your brain.

“It was good because it gave people a chance to talk about things that might be on their minds—the hype, the pressure. I think it’s good for them to talk about those things. It increased our performance a lot. It helps us get issues out of the way before they even start. … When you feel it, it’s how you deal with it. You have to prepare yourself as well as you can.”

– Kobe Bryant as quoted in “The Mindful Athlete”

Your brain is just like the muscles that athletes work so hard to train, but it’s a little more complicated. That’s because your mind, which is an organ by the way, has all sorts of compartments where it stores all of the information that makes up your entire life. The goal in mental training is not to erase your memories, beliefs, or emotions, but rather to tweak how you choose to think of those things or draw upon them in the present moment. Working with a mental health professional can do wonders for helping you get to know yourself and also to heal so that you can better manage your emotions. Whether you work with a psychologist, psychiatrist, coach or a combination that works best for you, choose a team that you vibe with. Healing from a mental health issue requires a support team that gives you the room to explore what’s at the root, develop stronger self-awareness, and acquire individualized tools for when things go awry. Click here to learn more about how I work with athletes as a mental health coach for an example.