By: Lilly Almand

The light has been shining bright on the topic of mental health lately, but when it comes to the life of student-athletes the light is fleeting. 

Statistically speaking up to 35% of collegiate athletes live and deal with mental health disorders being; stress, anxiety, depression, or eating disorders.

 When looking at a student athlete’s life there are many aspects to consider: outside work, extracurricular activities, sports, school, friends, family, etc. The title of student-athlete comes with time-consuming challenging work on and off the court/field. When an injury interferes with all the work that they have put in it can impact their mental health. 

Stress is already a huge factor in every athlete’s life as they face an immense amount of pressure to balance, and an injury only adds more stress to the equation. Even with stretching before and after practices and receiving treatments (like Cupping, Ice baths, Stem, etc.), injuries can’t always be prevented. When an injury occurs, being expected or not, they can leave the athlete up in the air emotionally. Senior Clarence (CJ) Washington said, “Mentally, it was challenging coming back from my herniated disk because I didn’t know if I would come back the same or at all.” The emotional response to an injury can include sadness, isolation, irritation, lack of motivation, anger, disturbed sleep, etc.

 Rehabilitation isn’t just physical but mental as well, because it can impact the athlete and how they see their return to their sport based on their progression. Jenna Gomez sophomore on the Softball team suffered an ACL injury during her senior year of high school. She has been on the road to recovery since then. When talking about her rehab this is what she had to say, “ It’s been mentally draining here and there because coming back from an ACL tear can be challenging at times with rehab, because I haven’t always had the best rehab leaving me behind on my progress.” Rehab can also be affected by several factors: fear, anxiety, lack of confidence, loss, or questioning of identity, whereas if you continue to set positive goals, and rebuild your views surrounding the injury you will progress in rehab.

Mental health is an influential topic that is gaining ground in society. When it comes to the mental health of student-athletes, people tend to shy away from its importance because athletes tend to be very good at balancing all of their tasks, but people don’t see that it can eventually become too taxing.