Top Mental Health Risk Factors for Retired Athletes

In retirement, athletes go through major transitions as they begin a new phase of their life. While this transition might be easy for some, it can be downright debilitating for others, but why?

A retired basketball player messaged me on Instagram to discuss what his retirement was like. He specifically wanted to know if having a job lined up after an athlete’s career is over is an advantage. For him, that’s exactly what happened, and it was relatively easy to make the transition. He was ready to leave the game and he had a plan. He went straight into coaching. We talked about how having a plan, knowing when to leave, and putting that into action were definitely advantages, but that each person has their own unique story.

To that point, not everyone has an easy path into retirement. The stories of struggle that I hear the most often are when an athlete’s sports career ends abruptly. For example, I coached a few retired football players who stopped playing because of injuries and subsequently dealt with serious depression. It’s not to say that all athletes have this experience, but it’s not uncommon either.

In thinking of the different conversations I’ve had, I began to wonder more about the factors that play into an athlete’s transition experience after sports.

Many studies over the years have been done on this exact problem over a variety of sports. Here are just a few of the findings:

“…athletes’ degree of athletic identity may be a risk factor for the emergence of psychiatric distress in the months following their retirement from sport.” [1]
“Career-ending injury is strongly associated with higher odds of depressive symptomology during retirement, while experiencing chronic pain, and maintaining a high sense of athletic identity, are additional potential contributors.”[2]
“Up to 20% of retiring athletes continue to experience crisis transitions, characterised by a lack of adjustment, ongoing psychological distress, depression and low self-esteem.”[3]
“…acceptance, positive reinterpretation, planning, and active coping were the most frequently used coping strategies during the career transition process. At the same time, athletic identity at the time of retirement exhibited significant relationships to coping processes, emotional and social adjustment, pre-retirement planning, and anxiety about career decision-making.”[4]
“…decline of mental health for those athletes who identified strongly and exclusively with the athlete role following the termination of their athletic career. … These findings are similar to Grove et al., (1997) who found that a strong and exclusive athletic identity at the time of sport retirement heightens stress and anxiety responses among retiring athletes. Athletes who continued to identify strongly and exclusively with the athlete role following sport retirement may have experienced thoughts and feelings that induce anxiety about the future.” [5]

Based on these findings, risk factors for retired athletes include:

Injury leading to forced retirement.
Unexpected early retirement due to other reasons.
The level to which an individual identifies as an athlete.
How they view their self-worth at end of their sports career.
Not having a pre-retirement plan.
Uncertainty about the future (e.g., if I’m not an athlete, who am I and what do I do).

Unfortunately, there isn’t a perfect formula to make life after sports an easy transition. The key is to get ahead of that change by broadening your options and your identity outside of being a player.

Keys to the game:

Understand that there will come a day when you can no longer play the game. Sometimes you get to choose retirement and sometimes you’re forced into retirement. The sooner you can work on a plan for your life after sports, the better.
Define your identity outside of who you are as an athlete. For example, “I’m not only a football player, I’m a __________, a __________ and, a ________. Aside from football, I’m passionate about _________ and I am gifted at _________________. I can be of service to others by _____________.”
Respect your process. Try not to compare your journey to anyone else’s. Unlike your playing days, it’s not a competition. Everyone’s journey has wins and losses. Your story is your story. Stay focused on where you’re going no matter what your pace is.
Establish a support system. Allow others to use their strengths to help guide you.

Would you like help with your transition into life after sports? Contact me about one-on-one VIP coaching.

[1] Giannone ZA, Haney CJ, Kealy D, Ogrodniczuk JS. Athletic identity and psychiatric symptoms following retirement from varsity sports. International Journal of Social Psychiatry. 2017;63(7):598-601. doi:10.1177/0020764017724184

[2] George Sanders & Clare Stevinson (2017) Associations between retirement reasons, chronic pain, athletic identity, and depressive symptoms among former professional footballers, European Journal of Sport Science, 17:10, 1311-1318, DOI: 10.1080/17461391.2017.1371795

[3] S. M. Cosh, D. G. McNeil & P. J. Tully (2020) Poor mental health outcomes in crisis transitions: an examination of retired athletes accounting of crisis transition experiences in a cultural context, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, DOI: 10.1080/2159676X.2020.1765852

[4] J. Robert Grove, David Lavallee & Sandy Gordon (1997) Coping with retirement from sport: The influence of athletic identity, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 9:2, 191-203, DOI: 10.1080/10413209708406481

[5] Giannone, Z. A. (2016). Life after sport : the relationship between athletic identity and mental health outcomes after sport retirement (T). University of British Columbia. Retrieved from https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0223581

Misty Buck