How Physical Injuries Affect athletes Psychologically
Physical injury is a common set back for athletes of any kind. There have been many studies showing that there are not only physical setbacks, but also mental setbacks to injury. Without the knowledge of sports or science it’s easy to believe that an injury is only physical, but scientific research says otherwise. Over the course of an athlete’s progress, there are many milestones as well as bumps in the road that are to be overcome. While enjoying positives like getting your free throws perfect or finally getting the correct movement, there will inevitably be a time when injury occurs. This is when athletes not only face the most pain, but also the most psychological distress. Studies show that athletes can face mental illnesses like depression and anxiety while being injured. Athletes can face significant physical damage but it is often the psychological effects that are more damaging and stay with the athlete longer. With a new psychological awareness, it is now much easier to see the effects that are layered on top of athletes sports life and home life. Athletes who have a well rounded approach to a mental and physical fitness are more likely to recover from and prevent injury.
Stress is a huge factor pre and post injury. Not only does increased stress raise the chance of injury by slowing down their attentional responses and psychological reaction of an athlete ( Maddison et al) it also makes the recovery time longer. Attentional responses are factors such as the inability to concentrate and distraction, where as the psychological reaction to stress is muscle tension. These factors may not seem particularly significant, but because they affect the flexibility, coordination, and the ability to pick up on cues athletes are put at higher risk. While this can happen to anyone involved in high level sport, there are personal factors that can make it worse for one person compared to another. Things like personality, coping resources, stress history, and the amount of stressors are important factors to look at because they don’t only affect the athlete individually but they can also be added up together which increases the chance of becoming physically injured (Maddison et al). It was found that “athletes with high life stress were two to five times more likely to sustain injury than athletes with low life stress” (Maddison et al). If an athlete is stressed about something in their home life, it is more likely that they won’t be as concentrated on what’s happening around them during their sports life leading to a greater chance of injury occurring. Sport injuries not only lead to an imbalance and discomfort in everyday life, it also makes it harder to achieve goals in their sport due to the short or long term physical inability of an athlete (Mohammed et al). Stress not only adds to the chances of injures, it also makes the road to recovery longer. Tension and worry are also common, yet forgotten factors that lead to a longer rehabilitation time (Mohammed et al), where factores like fatigue, nutrition, and age are well known aspects that lead to sports injury(Fernández et al). All of these factors increase the stress and likelihood of an athlete getting injured.
For most people, the thought of injury provokes the idea that pain is the only side effects that appear. However, along with physical pain, mental illnesses can arise in athletes during and after an injury occurs: “ Injuries can affect athletes mental health by triggering depression and anxiety, decreased self-esteem, loss of identity, anger, isolation, fear, and tension. It is worth noting, that sports injuries include both psychological and physiological effects on athletes”(Mohammed et al). With this added factor to recovery, it makes it more difficult for the athletes to push through physical pains and continue playing their sport after recovery. There are two main kinds trauma associated with sports injuries: overuse syndrome and traumatic injuries. Overuse syndrome is when the amount of training and volume of work causes the injury. For example tendentious in the shoulder for volleyball players or strained quads for soccer players. Both of these injuries are those that have been caused by overuse and can be much less painful and easier to recover from. Traumatic injuries are injuries that are not from overuse, and can be traumatic for the athlete. These are injuries like torn ACL’s, sprained ankles, and broken bones (Mohammed et al). Traumatic injuries are also much more painful and can take a long time to heal as they are more serious. Both of these tramas can help lead athletes down a dangerous path of mental illness.. This would not only affect them long term, but it would make their recovery time longer and more challenging.
Mindset is one of the most important skills for an athlete to have. Not only does a good mindset help athletes through a tough game, it is also beneficial during injury recovery. Many aspects of an athlete’s life can change after being injured and can cause distress. Diana Lattimore states that each athlete thinks of injuries different ways:
Some view [sports injury] as a disaster, some see it as an opportunity to show courage, and others see it as a relief from the drudgery of practice or frustration with poor performance. Most athletes, however, begin sports injury physiotherapy in hopes of returning to play at the same pre-injury level as quickly as possible (lattimore)
If an athletes chooses a negative mindset, sports injury has the ability to take away their identity. When an athlete thinks of sport as something that makes them who they are, in other words an “identity tunnel’ (Lattimore), athletes require a strong and positive mindset to help stay mentally healthy. When an athlete loses their identity, the risk of mental illness and the inability to change their lifestyle because of an injury raises. Prior to this struggle, the athlete would have been totally consumed by sport and unable to see themselves doing anything else with their life at that moment in time. Sadly, this means that the athlete is in a psychologically unstable mindset, and open mindedness will be challenging to achieve in stages of recovery. Unfortunately, without an open mind in the process of recovery, it makes the recovery period longer than it has to be.
With the use of meditation and mental therapy, it has been proven that athletes gain a better awareness and acceptance of their situation (Mohammad est al). Because meditation brings the mind and body together as one, it is very helpful to athletes in pain. This is because it helps one find the direct root of pain or discomfort due to the full body awareness which is present during a meditation session. Not only does this make it easier for physiotherapists to help prescribe mobility exercises that fit the athletes need, it also makes it so the ability to reduce pain is easier. Meditation is a lot less invasive than medication that would be prescribed for pain, and is much more beneficial to post recovery activities. A healthy and mentally strong athlete imuch less likely to obtain a sports injury due to lack of mental stress and the ability to center the body and mind through meditation. In in a study run by Mohammad est al, it was proven that athletes who accepted an participated fully in meditation post injury had a smoother, and less mentally stressful recover. The use of meditation helped the injured athletes cope with the included mental issues that follow an injury.
To conclude, sports injury isn’t only caused by external sources, it can be traced back to internal sources such as stress, personality, coping resources, and many other personal factors. With any of theses factors, mainly stress, the likelihood of injury increases and the recovery time gets longer. Because injuries can be caused by psychological issues and increases the likelihood of mental illness, a strong mental health is required. Therefore athletes with a strong mental health and less stress in their lives will less likely get injured, and if they do, their recovery will be smoother than athletes who don’t have these traits.
Work Cited
Fernández, Rubén et al. “Influence Of The Physical And Psychological Variables On Physical Injuries In Football”. Journal Of Human Sport And Exercise , vol 10, no. 3, 2015.Universidad De Alicante Servicio De Publicaciones , doi:10.14198/jhse.2015.103.04.
Lattimore, Diana. “On the Sidelines: An Athlete’s Perspective of Injury Recovery.” Sport & Exercise Psychology Review , vol. 13, no. 2, Sept. 2017, pp. 13–21. EBSCOhost ,
ezproxy.capilanou.ca/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db =s3h&AN=125203292&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Maddison, Ralph, and Harry Prapavessis. “A Psychological Approach To The Prediction And Prevention Of Athletic Injury”. Journal Of Sport And Exercise Psychology , vol 27, no. 3, 2005, pp. 289-310. Human Kinetics , doi:10.1123/jsep.27.3.289.
Mohammed, W., Pappous, A. and Sharma, D. (2018). Effect of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in Increasing Pain Tolerance and Improving the Mental Health of Injured Athletes. Frontiers in Psychology , 9.