Many people around the world struggle with mental health. When you join a sport, it can teach you about teamwork and perseverance, which are beneficial to one’s mental health.
Alie Duque, a junior soccer player, said, “It teaches me a sense of teamwork,” after I asked her if her sport is beneficial to her. There’s been a study that shows an improvement in mental health while being a part of a team-based environment.
Saybrook University writes, “Participation in organized team sports leads to the following changes among the study’s 11,235 children aged 9 to 13, 10% lower anxious/depressed scores, 19% lower withdrawn scores, 17% lower social problems scores, 17% lower thought problems scores, 12% lower attention problems scores.”
Sports that involve teamwork are not only beneficial to children but it is also beneficial to adolescents. There’s an upbringing number of adolescents who are struggling with mental health conditions. There are ways that sports can be beneficial to mental health.
Newport academy writes “Studies show that exercise can be as effective as medication in improving teen mental health and happiness levels, physical activity raises the level of natural chemicals in the brain that affect emotional regulation and mood, team sports improve interpersonal resources such as empathy, confidence, and responsibility, exercise can help a teen avoid or recover from substance use disorder because it stimulates similar parts of the brain’s reward system,”
PE health teacher and the boys and girls soccer head coach at Taylorville High School (THS), BryLee Harvest said, “We face pressure every single day, and I’m a firm believer that pressure is a privilege.” Being an athlete, you have expectations you’re required to follow and challenges that may come with that. Harvest thinks that if you’re going day to day without doing something expected of you, you’re not trying to reach your goals or trying to put yourself out there.
He also said “I believe that consistency is all mental, it’s the biggest trait that you can have as an athlete in any sport.” Consistency can add to any pressure, but everyone faces pressure every day. Playing a sport can be turned into life lessons that can help athletes when navigating the working world and other life challenges.
Saybrook university writes “the breathing techniques a basketball player uses at the free-throw line to calm their nerves can also be used before making a presentation at work or school. And learning how to accept defeat with grace builds mental fortitude and can help overcome other disappointments that may weigh someone down otherwise. Those who stick with sports through high school and college also learn how to balance multiple responsibilities at once, and they develop better mental toughness as competition becomes fiercer,”
In addition, being in a sport can teach you how to persevere through struggling times that may come with life. Sports teach you skills that you can take into your adulthood that can help you with challenges. Teamwork is essential to many sports, and teamwork is beneficial to mental health.
