S7 E10: Athlete Mental Health
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Mental health amongst athletes is a topic that has gained awareness over the past few decades. Athletes are coming out with their stories more often than in the past to normalize the fact that athletes are also human. Research suggests that even elite athletes have about the same amount of mental health challenges as the general population (e.g., Gouttebarge et al., 2019).
Mental health is not only important during one’s athletic career but also afterward.
Mental health may not be fully understood despite the term being used so often.
Despite awareness being more widespread, the messages of others may not completely match the experience of an individual. Everyone is unique in their own way and their mental health challenges and journey to address these challenges toward becoming mentally healthier can vary. There are different factors ranging from internal to external to circumstantial to contextual that can influence the nature, extent, and course of a person’s mental health experience and journey.
It can help de-stigmatize mental health by not necessarily looking for labels, but rather seeing mental health on a continuum of mentally healthy to mentally unhealthy with many points between. Furthermore, you can have different levels of being mentally healthy or unhealthy across different aspects of your life.
Some techniques and strategies can be ‘therapeutic’ (e.g., journaling, deep breathing) and help with coping; but not necessarily constitute the process of going through therapy, which can involve a deeper exploration into one’s experiences, patterns, and process to heal, grow, and evolve to improve their mental health for the long-term.
The DSM-5-TR is the diagnostic statistical manual for diagnosing mental health conditions. However, it is descriptive in nature. It does not explain why and/or how a person ended up with their mental health conditions and symptoms. That is why it is so important for a professional to help explore and better understand a person’s mental health in a nuanced, individualized, contextual, and conceptual manner. That takes time to uncover and work with; mental health is not a ‘quick fix’ or simplistic experience because, as mentioned previously, people are different for various reasons with varied factors that interact with each other; even if the ‘symptoms’ look the same. It takes time to understand and address how a person gets stuck in patterns and symptom cycles and what might help.
It is not common for an athlete who is often very busy and constantly on the move striving for future goals to slow down, think clearly, and reflect in a productive way. Therapy does that.
Individuals come from different cultural backgrounds - ethnically, familially, religiously/spiritually, etc. - and even sport teams have their own culture, which can vary from team to team and place to place. This can contribute to how they integrate into a team environment. It can also contribute to how the individual’s mental health concerns are understood and whether or not they are addressed. In fact, high level athletes are less likely to seek support for their mental health according to research studies (e.g., Cosh et al., 2024).
It is important to look for red flags relative to 1) distress and 2) impairment. Furthermore, an individual who acts as though everything is perfect and they never have any problems at all could be an indication that they are avoiding the reality of their challenges - i.e., perfectionism - which can backfire when the emotional toll of ‘holding it all together’ becomes too much. Other signs might be when an individual becomes obsessive and compulsive around their behaviors and decisions, where it is driven by an intense fear rather than driven by intentionality; at the expense of high levels of distress and impairment to aspects of their life and/or health (short or long term).
Therapy is a space to slow things down and to reflect in a more calm, open, and supportive context to better understand aspects of one’s mental health. It’s a process to explore, talk through, and utilize ideas from the field to understand oneself and identify ideas that could be helpful to heal, grow, and evolve internally and interpersonally. It takes time and is not a ‘quick fix’. It does not happen fast.
Athletes may feel the need to ‘push through’ to deal with their challenges and/or to ignore them due things like demands and pressures and expectations they may feel compelled to prioritize even at the expense of their own health and well-being.
Being upset about a ‘bad game’ or ‘mistake’, tolerating the normative emotions of such an experience, and finding a way to recover from that disappointment is not the same as obsessive rumination, falling into thinking distortions with unrealistic interpretations and expectations, despair, intense shame, compulsive behaviors to ‘fix’ it, losing sleep over it, etc. There is a spectrum of how mentally healthy and unhealthy an athlete can be as it pertains to their reactions to situations and their patterns. The culture of sports might unintentionally reinforce unhealthy reactions when the unhealthy aspects are not evident and/or hidden because they might be viewed on the surface as ‘hard working’ and ‘dedication’ when in fact they are destructive and slowly leading to burnout, excessive distress, and impairment in life.
Back to the episode w/Dr. Ellen Hendriksen about perfectionism, it is important to reflect on if the behavior is motivated by intention or intense fear.
The prefrontal cortex does not fully develop until nearly 30 years old or so. This can make it difficult for athletes to be flexible in their thinking and maintain perspective as they navigate their athletic career. This can unintentionally lead to unhealthy patterns and behaviors.
There are two sides of the perfectionistic athlete - one is the reaction to over-do things to extreme levels; the other, is the do too little as a way to avoid trying and failing. The former can lead to burnout and other unintended consequences. The latter can lead to spiraling, as others in their life begin criticizing their lack of effort. Both are driven by intense fear of failure, guilt, and shame. This is often a sign of an underdeveloped sense of self. The athlete identity can be so powerful and so strongly tied to one’s sense of self… so much so that it can lead the athlete to become fragile in that the moment that identity is threatened (i.e., things not ‘going well’; an injury, criticism, etc.) they may struggle to recover and not feel grounded through the ups and downs of their career and life.
Athletes can be very good at ‘putting on a mask’ acting as though everything is perfect and well. The mask can be performative to fit a mold or that they have to always feel good, do good, and be good. It is unrealistic and can create significant pressure and fragility.
The idea of ‘mental toughness’ can get conflated and misinterpreted in a way that neglects real mental health struggles. A pep talk of “Do better” or “You need to toughen up” or “You can do it!” might work for some athletes; but for those who are internally truly struggling, it can be incredibly invalidating and interfere with them from getting the support and help they may need from others and/or from a professional.
Coaches, parents, adults, etc. may be afraid to broach the topic of mental health because it may feel scary or uncharted territory for them. Just checking in with a compassionate, patient, and curious approach can be a significant first step. You can outsource the difficult work to a professional who can provide therapeutic services. They may need something more than others trying to ‘cheer them up’ or problem-solve their issues; it may be a more in depth process they need to uncover and go through to become mentally healthy again. A question to ask might even be, “What do you need?” rather than assuming you know what they need from you.
There is so much a person can learn about themselves by having a therapeutic space to reflect, talk openly, and consider multiple perspectives. They may come out more whole, secure, and integrated as a person because of their mental health journey, not despite it. The mental health challenges that show up in their sport may very well reflect mental health challenges they face in other aspects of their life. The athlete can learn how to live more intentionally, with a sense of being grounded, and feel more confident and effective in navigating life.
Two different athletes may have different paths toward a similar outcome. They may come from different backgrounds and have had different experiences and have a different mental and emotional makeup that leads them to need different things in how they navigate their athletic career. It does not mean one athlete is ‘better’ than the other. They just may be different and need a different approach to how they navigate their journey because what they come in with can shape how they experience and react to the present situations and circumstances. Both athletes can have equal potential; they just need different paths to actualizing that potential. This is the idea of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in teaching - flexible pathways to the similar goals because there will always be variability amongst learners.
There are unique challenges athletes can face that could make them vulnerable to mental health challenges. For example, they are encouraged to ‘control’ their body in order to perform. That is a slippery slope since controlling one’s body can become obsessive and fear-driven, which can become unhealthy and destructive; even if not in the short-term then in the long-term. Social media and such creates so much more pressure for this idea of controlling everything - including their performance, health, etc. - where it can become obsessive.
Athletes may also feel like every interaction they have with others is transactional; as if someone is trying to get something from them. Mental health is bolstered by genuine, real relationships, which might be lacking in this type of dynamic. It is important to facilitate unconditional positive regard and relationships to offset this possibility.
Athletes may also feel they need to uphold some image like with the NIL to make money or maintain their status, which can also interfere with genuine connection and relationship with others.
Trust is so important. Trust is earned. Trust allows for openness and connection. Athletes are attentive to whether or not they can trust others, like a coach genuinely caring about them and their life outside of just making them look good by winning. Of course, coaches have tremendous pressure to win; although this pressure can bleed into decisions and behaviors that interfere with genuine trust and connection with the athletes they are hired to serve and care for.
Coaches who are extremely demanding may even self-select athletes who are vulnerable to being manipulated to do whatever the coach tells them to do in service of winning; these athletes could be desperate to win to have an income or to have the resources that come with ‘success’ of winning. This may come at a cost to their own health and well-being. They may also neglect their own self-direction due to this dynamic of simply doing what they are told to do and lose sight of their sense of self and intuition of what is healthy for them. It may lead to pushing beyond limits, playing through injuries, and other unhealthy behaviors that can impact their life in their short- or long- term.
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Episode Transcript:
Gerald Reid 00:06
Welcome back to season seven of the Reid Connect-ED Podcast. Today, Alexis and I are going to talk about the topic of athlete mental health. Through the Olympics of 2026 there's been a lot of talk about athlete mental health. It's been a topic of which many athletes, elite athletes, have been really speaking out about. I'm not going to go into personal stories. It's, you know, that's really their stories to share. But I will just say, in general, the topic of athlete mental health has certainly become more destigmatized Over the past decade or so, which is a great thing. It doesn't mean that it's destigmatized everywhere. You know. It's certainly still, I would say even a misunderstood topic. And so today, Alexis and I, we're going to try to really get into the details and the nuances of answering questions like, What is mental health anyway? You know, if we're going to talk about athlete mental health, we also have to try to define and understand what is mental health. First and foremost, we're also going to talk about the unique experience of athletes in terms of how it could contribute or facilitate mental health or mental health challenges. It's certainly a unique experience that athletes have that I think we need to get into the nuances of you know what that really is like, the lived experience of these athletes that I get to work with a lot, and that you'll see in media outlets talking about the mental health experiences of athletes. And then we're going to talk about, just generally, what could parents, coaches and athletes really do to support their mental health, you know, over the course of their career? And you know, I want to also make a note that after their career, it's equally as important, you know, in terms of people being involved in sports. Because if you're an athlete, you know, at some point there's going to be some sort of, you know, ending, a demarcation of their participation in a structured sport environment and being part of a team. Sometimes you can elongate that in different ways of your life, but certainly there tends to be an ending. And so athletes mental health is very, very important afterwards, as well as during their participation in sports.
Alexis Reid 02:04
This is such an important topic Gerald, because I think we often look at an athlete's performance as just the way they're performing in that particular sport, but we don't really zoom out as much to think about the bigger picture of how this individual is functioning across different aspects of life and mental health. You know, as we often talk about, is is really the driving force and being able to do anything well and feel well. And the other piece too is when we're thinking about young elite athletes, oftentimes, they're often students as well, right? How do we balance the academic and the athletic life while also maintaining our mental health and remembering all the different roles and parts of ourselves as athletes are navigating through this more intense, sports driven part of the world.
Gerald Reid 02:51
You got to think about kids who get involved in sports early on. I'm sure you're not going to hear of a child who's like, four years old saying, I want to be on the sports team so that I get admiration and I get to be on social media. I mean, maybe nowadays that might be more possible, unfortunately. But you know, the reason people get involved in sports at an early age tends to be different than what the motivations can become over time. As things like the professionalism of sports gets involved as things like the pressures involved even, you know, monetary compensation, about, you know, having a career through sports and making money and income. So there's a, there's definitely a change in experience that happens. So you're hitting on a good point,
Alexis Reid 03:35
and it's so interesting. And I want everybody out there in the audience to consider their own context and and remember that your context is just one, right? Your family, you as an individual, you as an athlete, might take on a certain persona, a certain aspect or flair of what's going on for you, but as I say, in education, a lot, every single individual is entering into an environment with different expectations, different experiences, different cultural beliefs, right? That come into play as you are stepping into the role as an athlete,
Gerald Reid 04:10
Absolutely, and I was going to talk about this a little bit later, but you're making a very good point that you know, people bring in certain beliefs, and that does really determine whether or not someone a acknowledges that there could be mental health concerns, and also whether or not that there's a ability to really accept help or to seek out help. I'll get into what mental health is, but I just want to kind of set the stage is that in terms of mental health challenges, like things like anxiety, depression at a high level, you know, where it's really distressing and pairing to someone's functioning that there's research that says elite athletes, their experience with that is comparable to the general population, and the reason for that is because they are humans, first, athletes second. And so why should we really care about athlete mental health? Well as.
Gerald Reid 05:00
Pointing out there could be different beliefs and different cultural backgrounds, and the culture of sport really is its own culture in some ways. I mean, it'll differ from team to team, from sport to sport, and from community to community. But, you know, there certainly is research that suggests, if you look at the elite athletes, which you think, Oh, they're healthy, they're mentally healthy, they're performing so well, they're at the top of their game. You know, they're doing the best in the world during the Olympics. It turns out that, you know, their mental health is about the same as the general population. Why is that? Well, because they're humans, first athletes. Second, you know, they are human beings. They're not. You know, some bionic beings that don't have a heart, don't have a mind, right? Don't have relationships, like they're human beings, and they happen to be athletes too, and they perform at a high level. So, you know. And there's also other aspects of the context of sport we'll get into, but certainly that there is this mental health challenges that could come with even at the top of the hierarchy in terms of elite athletes. And as you mentioned, beliefs like they're also less likely to seek help. You know, the population of people who are elite athletes and involved in athletics, as much as they have challenges, like everybody else are, they're less likely to seek out help. So we'll talk more about that as well.
Alexis Reid: 06:12
And the better you get, sometimes the more stress and pressure comes with it. Right? As Mom always says, Be careful what you wish for, because the greater you step into your your strengths, your power, your expertise, often a lot more comes along with that. We're not always prepared for it. So today, since Jerry has such a great expertise in sports psychology and thinking about mental health in general, I'm going to kind of take the role more of an interviewer. So this doesn't turn too much into a lecture for the audience out there, though, maybe that's what you need. But we're going to try to do a nice balance between having a conversation about some of this, you know, drawing upon both of our expertise, but really tapping into this broader conversation about what mental health is. So let's get started.
Alexis Reid 06:58
So, okay, Jerry, in this world of social media and in our current day and age, here in 2026 I hear so often that a lot of diagnoses, labels, conversations about mental health are really a part of like the common vernacular these days, because information is so readily accessible. You know, so many people, whether they have expertise in mental health or not, post about it on social media, and a lot of young people are starting to develop the language around understanding mental health. And in my opinion, I see both the benefits of getting clear on like what's happening in our lives and our worlds and our minds and our hearts, and then also, you know, maybe the detriment of speaking too much about mental health and not always being clear exactly about what you're describing and talking about. So I kind of want to, like, pull the veil back a little bit right, like, reveal the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain to think about, okay, when we talk about mental health, what are we really addressing here? Why is it so important to keep in the conversation, but be careful not to get into like clinical terms too quickly, or in like common conversation without an expert or a therapist or somebody to guide you and better understanding what's happening in terms of your mental health.
Gerald Reid 08:35
Yeah. So to summarize your question is, you know, with this increased awareness about mental health, particularly in athletics and in society in general, what are kind of the pros and cons of being so aware that there could be mental health concerns? Yes, and I'll start off by saying that you know, in unison with this happening, the greater awareness of mental health, that there's actually been also an increase of mental health challenges. You know, some would say is that partially due to more awareness, that we are more forthcoming about the challenges we have as human beings, and or is there something else you know? Is there other reasons you know? Is you know, in my opinion, you know, you can have mental health challenges, and someone could make you aware of it, but as you said in the beginning, everybody is so unique and different, right? Every human being is different in terms of who they are, as a person, their relationships, their environment, the demands they have, the resources they have, right? So, so if someone's gonna talk about and raise awareness about mental health, I think it's very useful to destigmatize it and to help bring awareness, but it doesn't mean that what they're sharing is going to match exactly your experience. So let's say, you know, okay, someone's talking about having anxiety, and let's say they use journaling for it, or they use, you know, breathing techniques, right? That's helped them, and they and that's kind of like the only thing they share about what's their journey of mental health with anxiety is, like, there's plenty of people I work with where like that, that is a a tool that is therapeutic, but that's not necessarily the therapy to work through what the anxiety is about and where it came from and what's contributing to it. So I think with this awareness is wonderful, like it's great to be tuned into challenges that we have, and at the same time, the journey of dealing with your own mental health is very individualized. You know, even in terms of the treatments that we use, there's a lot of different types of therapies out there, or, you know, clinical approaches. So I think that could be a challenge. You know, it's well intended bring more awareness. I think it's a wonderful thing. And I think it's, it's hard to realize that, you know, it may not have all the answers for someone, and that's kind of an individual journey that hopefully someone can can, you know, discover and resolve within themselves, through, through, you know, professional help that could be useful for them?
Alexis Reid 11:05
It's funny, can you remember when you remember when you took your psych, 101, course in undergrad, and anybody out there in the audience to think about if you've ever taken like a psychology 101 undergraduate course, right? And I always joke, even with my clients now, who are in those courses, that you cannot think that everything you're learning about is something that you're experiencing in that moment, right? Because there might be characteristics of some of these, you know, psychological diagnoses or situations or challenges that you might experience. Because in in our human lives, our human selves, we do go through this range of emotions, experiences and aspects of life, but it reminds me of that right where you're like, Oh, I'm learning about this. It must be this. And then all of a sudden you're in your friendships or relationships, and you're, you know, throwing around terms like gaslighting or, you know, coping mechanisms, because you just learned about it. So sometimes that piece of awareness, again, can get us to think a little bit more clearly about some things, but sometimes it could also muddy the waters. I think,
Gerald Reid 12:07
yes, I'm thinking, it's almost like a door opener, right? It opens the door to possibilities, and what you do with that, you know, is going to determine kind of, you know, how things progress. You make such a good point about, you know, you're taking your first, like, one on one class, and, you know, diagnosing yourself or diagnosing everybody, everybody in your life. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's not, it's not, it's not mal intended. It's not intended in a bad way. It's like, you know, curiosity and hope that there can be help at the same time. The thing about learning about mental health, quote, unquote disorders, right? Is that the DSM, which is the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, which is essentially, these are what the diagnoses are. These are the symptoms. And here's how you qualify for mental health diagnosis. They it is descriptive in nature, meaning that, okay, I can have a person I work with who is an athlete, right? And they could qualify for, let's say, you know, generalized anxiety disorder, which means there's this tremendous amount of worry that's hard to control and impairs their life. Now, any disorder in the manual right here that we use to diagnose, it's descriptive. So you know, one of the challenges of being a therapist is it doesn't explain why for this person they have developed this quote, unquote disorder. It doesn't explain why for this person they have developed these symptoms. And so I think that's another important point, and it goes back to what I was saying before. It's great that people can be aware. Okay, I feel like I have significant anxiety that's impairing my life, that's, you know, mentally unhealthy, like it doesn't feel right. It feels like it's impacting my life. That's great, you know, the first step is acknowledging you have a problem, and then you can do something about it, but at the same time, like it doesn't actually get into the nuances. And that's why I absolutely, genuinely love my job, and I love supervising students, because you get into the journey of an individual and therapy, for me, the best part is to try to understand all the nuances of a person, what makes them who they are, what experiences they've had, how they have perceived their experiences, and to really just understand what makes them tick, what makes them motivated, what you know, what makes them you know, happy, sad, anxious, worried, angry, upset, guilty, shameful, like all these things that as a society, we don't really take time to ponder and reflect upon, as we talked about in our previous episode with Dr Mary Ann wolf about reading. Reading is a wonderful thing because it slows us down. You get to process and really reflect and think critically. Therapy is the same thing. Slow down and really get to know yourself and understand yourself. And it's not a quick fix, and it's not a simple thing, right, you know? So it's a process. So again, like kind of back to your question. The awareness is wonderful. And at the same time, you know, as people are sharing their stories, and athletes share their stories, that's great, and maybe some of the parts of their stories resonates with yours. At the same time, your journey and you know what's going on for you could be very unique to you as well, and that's a whole process to understand for yourself, which you know, is where the healing and the growth comes from. That's what I really think, you know, I always say to my students is, like, you got to really get to the point of understanding where they got stuck and what they need to get unstuck. And it's not always clear, and it's not just labeling them and saying, Okay, we're going to treat you like this. We you're really going to get into the nuances of like, where do they get stuck? How do they get stuck? What are all the factors that influence that? And what's the most one of the most important factors kind of help pull them out of it. Help them pull themselves out of it, and to heal, to grow, to evolve as a person. You know, that's that's a process for people you know.
Alexis Reid 15:56
You know, I, I heard you say in your response that, you know, if there was an athlete who was diagnosed with generalized anxiety, and I felt myself had like, have a visceral reaction to that thinking and maybe worrying like, Okay, if an athlete hears that They have a diagnosis of anxiety, that might actually move them further away from getting the help that they need, right? It might actually be like, Okay, I need to hide this and get through it and just push through this rather than seeking help. Because, you know, not even thinking about stigma, but thinking about, like, any kind of challenge that one might experience, especially as an athlete, it might feel like it's it's something that's debilitating them or working against them, or something that might be seen as a weakness instead of a strength. So I wanted you to talk a little bit more about like when it when an athlete is experiencing some kind of distress, yeah, like, how do they know what is potentially harmful, or something that's workable? Or, how do you even know where to start in this journey, in this process, especially, you know, in an athlete's mind, you know, I, I am not a sports psychologist myself. I've studied a lot of sports psychology, and I've worked with a lot of elite athletes as well, and obviously for more the educational side of things. But there's also this, like, mental toughness that a lot of these athletes have, like, I just need to get through this. I just need to push through I'll be fine. I just need to work harder, right? And there's this mentality, whether it's instilled in them or not. It regardless of the culture, sometimes it's just like their drive. So if they're noticing that there are higher levels of distress or different periods of anxiety that are impacting them, like, what would you even like say to them? Like, what might be like a little voice on their shoulder should be whispering to them to help them, not necessarily even get through it, but figure out what to do.
Gerald Reid 18:07
Yeah. Well, the first thing you know that I'll say is that mental health is kind of a continuum. You know, instead of thinking like, I have a mental health disorder or not, you can just think of, you know, your lifetime being like, okay, at some points, I'm going to be maybe mentally more unhealthy or mentally more healthy. And it's a spectrum, right? And it could fluctuate in different aspects of your mental health. Could fluctuate depending on what's going on in your life. But think of it as a spectrum. I think to destigmatize it for yourself, if you, you know, feel like the label is kind of stigmatizing, even though it shouldn't be. But if it is, you know, think of it more as spectrum. And look, you know, there's, there's kind of signs, right? And you made a very good point. Athletics is such a unique context, because you get rewarded for doing things that in normal, in typical life could be considered unhealthy. So, I mean, think about and this is not unique to sports. There's other, you know, sectors of society where this happens. I'm not saying that it's all bad. I'm not like telling coaches not to push their athletes and try to get the most out of their potential, right? That's part of what makes sports so magical and so incredible, inspiring and and, you know, some people actualize things in themselves that they would have never right without the context of sport, there's amazing things that happen in sport and the bonding that could happen, right? But it's not always the case. And so, you know, an athlete can look for red flags. They can look for signals that this is more than just me not feeling confident. This is more than me just having a bad game. And coaches and parents can look out for this too. You know, mental health. You know there's, there's two aspects you want to really. Look at is how intense is the distress they're feeling. You know, distress is not just like I'm a little nervous before a game and I have some butterflies, and those go away after the game starts. Right? You might use a sports psychology consultant, you know, someone who kind of focuses on mental skills, performance skills, which are basically things like goal setting, visualization, positive self talk, ways to kind of, you know, focus on the present moment when you're performing. These are, these are sports psychology consultant skills that that could be used to deal with, you know, distress that's not really impairing their life. It's not really at a at a significant level where it's it's beyond what would be expected in a given situation. So like I said, it's not just some butterflies or some doubts or getting mad at yourself if you miss a shot, right? That's kind of normative athletic behavior. It's like, if you, if you're not upset that you miss a shot. You know, you probably don't care. You know, it's kind of, you know, expected to feel that, right? As you said, we all have normal emotions that we all experience because we're human, and that's part of being an athlete too, right? But when it comes to becoming mentally unhealthy is, you know, certain signs of the distress becomes disproportionate. So, you know, is the person ruminating for long periods of time, you know, thinking about an upcoming game or reflecting on a past game, and that's really all they think about. It's just constant rumination going back in time and being like, Oh, if I only did this, if I only did that. And as I work with people, you know, it's even deeper than just thoughts. It's like beliefs, you know, oh, now that I, you know, I failed my team, I let my coach down, or, you know, the fans are, you know, looking down on me, right? There's so, there's so many deeper things than just being upset, right? That's and the rumination is just, it's elongated. It's just like all they think about. It could be intrusive in their mind. It could just be constantly, you know, being upset. And that could lead into behaviors that are really not functional and actually dysfunctional in terms of their life. And then things like, you know, things that could look healthy on the surface like, oh, look, they're, they're getting into the gym early now because they had a bad game, and they're working harder, and they're taking responsibility for it, and they're saying, I got to do better. I got to do better. And when I'm talking about athlete mental health and becoming mentally unhealthy, I'm talking about what's underneath that. Because sometimes that could be healthy, that could be Yeah, that's like a mature individual. They're taking responsibility. They know they got to try to, you know, improve from their bad game, whatever. But when we talk about athlete mental health, it's deeper than that, right? It becomes, oh, my God, I am not a valuable human being. I have no worth to my team. Or, you know, my career is going to be ending because I had one bad game. And, you know, it's all they think about, is, like, the catastrophes that are looming because they didn't have a good game, or, or whatever it is, you know, this is one example. They could start to have changes in their eating habits. They may not sleep well because they're up all night thinking about it, you know, which has a whole downstream effect of, like, you know, you don't sleep, you're probably prone to injuries. Like, there's so much that goes into that, but there's, I'm also thinking of, like, you know, the shame and embarrassment cycle that can come from that too, that that reinforces these behaviors. Again, that on the surface look like you're doing something well, but really it's deflecting from, you know, the thing that didn't go well, yeah, I mean, the shame is the right word, right? It's like, it's like, you know, you're looking at something like, Okay, I made a mistake, and you're just the kind of obsessing over it, right? It becomes an obsession, really. And like I said, it's like, you know, you look at someone, you know, like, we're here in Boston, like, Dustin Pedroia was, like, one of the most beloved Red Sox players, and he would show up early before everybody else. I know, from what I heard, everyone I read, you know, he would show up really early before practice, where he was there and like, that's celebrated, that's like, you know, we look up to that, but, you know, I don't know him personally. But like, you know, there could be other athletes who are doing the same behavior, and that could be celebrated without really understanding that beneath the surface, it's driven by a deep sense of fear, not intention. And we want to go back, if you want to go back to the perfectionism episode we had, you know, Dr Ellen Hendrickson, we really talked about, are you're in? Is what you're doing driven by intense fear of failure, fear of shame, fear of not being low unconditionally cared for feeling like you have to have value only by what you do for another person. Everything's transactional, everything you know or do you feel grounded in yourself, it's. So much so that what you're doing is intentional and has meaning to you, and it's based on your values. Again, I don't want to, you know, over emphasize other people's stories, but Alysa Liu, and, you know, the figure skating world exemplified exactly that, if you want to read up on her story,
Alexis Reid 25:17
I think it's really interesting. And it goes back to the question I always ask in the UDL world is, like, what's the goal? Right? Like, what am I actually trying to do? Am I compensating because I am afraid I'm not good enough, or am I recognizing that? You know, this is a good routine for me to build my skills and to provide feedback to myself to figure out what to do next. So it's really interesting. And you know, it's actually very important to pay attention to, especially for young athletes. I'm going to bring it in here, right? Their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed yet, yes. So they might think right, like, oh, I need to do all these things, because this is the appropriate response to not performing the best, or not performing where people expected me to. So they might go in this incredibly like other end of the spectrum and push themselves so hard without realizing, you know, the unintended consequences. Right? They might be doing things that make a lot of sense, but it might be helping them to cover up again, this embarrassment, the shame, and their brains aren't developed enough to be able to determine what actually is good for me, what is going to help me in the short term, what's going to help me in the long term? How might this impact other aspects of my life, if I'm just going to go full throttle, and what could that mean in the future? And I think, and I imagine, I don't know the stats on this, but I imagine that might also be where a lot of athletes might injure themselves by pushing themselves too hard in response to something that maybe didn't go the way they expected or wanted it to.
Gerald Reid 26:55
That is exactly right, I mean. And you look at stress, having too much anxiety and stress puts more people, people more at risk of getting injured. You want to throw in an injury that you already have, and you're recovering from an injury, right? You try to push yourself too hard, because maybe you feel like you don't have value. You feel like you have to prove yourself. You have to, you know, rust the process to because you don't feel confident yourself, that's also going to put you at risk for an injury, but you put you made an important point, you know, like this is, you know, we're talking about kind of regulating yourself, about kind of coping, you know, in a way that's effective. And if you can't kind of pull back, see the big picture, and process your emotions and process what's happening, you can just kind of fall into these habits. And these habits, like I said, could look positive and be celebrated, but they could be, you know, not actually adaptive. And, you know, we talked about perfectionism, like trying too hard, or like working yourself beyond your limits to the point of exhaustion or burnout, or just not even enjoying what you're doing anymore. I mean, we, you know, we work with sometimes amazing athletes who they're doing great, but they don't enjoy it at all, right? And so that's, you know, that's not what we're looking for. What is the point of doing this in the first place? But I also want to say the flip side of being a perfectionist two sides of the same coin. Rather, should I say there's two sides of the same coin of being a perfectionist? You can, you can cope with your insecurities and the deep anxieties that you have by trying harder, trying too hard, pushing stuff too hard. The flip side of that coin is you can do less and you can tank. And imagine what that does to the people around you when you're on a team and you have these challenges internally that nobody understands about all this. You know, self worth, identity and fears and, you know, depressive thoughts and burnout and sleepage, all these things, right? And imagine they feel like, well, I might as well just not try, if I don't try, well maybe, you know, I can't get blamed because, at least they didn't try self fulfilling prophecy comes up a lot. I see it a lot in education, where it's like, well, if I don't try that hard, then I won't be blamed for, you know, this, because it was just a lack of whatever. Yeah, it's so interesting. It's so true. You can blame your Yeah, you're, you're basically protecting yourself. Yeah, you know, I mean that this is kind of what depression is. If you think about it, in some ways, depression could be, I'm so afraid of something that's upsetting me that I'd rather stop caring. You know, I'd rather stop caring than put myself out there and try and fail. It's protective, right? And think about what that does to the people around you when you stop trying, what happens coaches, what's wrong with you? You're not trying hard enough, you're weak, and all of a sudden becomes this terrible spiral. When, if we were to think about this from the lens of mental health and being mentally Healthy. It could be that this person has some deep stuff going on that they're just not processing. They don't even know about it. They start to think, oh, yeah, maybe I'm lazy. Maybe I am just this terrible person that doesn't care and is a bad teammate, right? But this is why it's really important for people to get help and to look at these signs and maybe to reinterpret what might be happening. Is this a difficult kid? Is this a difficult athlete, or is there something going on internally that they're protecting themselves even being like overconfident and being abrasive and and putting people down, to me, a lot of times, is a way to protect themselves from their own insecurities, you know, and sometimes that culture of putting people down in the sports world is celebrated, yeah, oh, he's the tough guy. He's popular. Oh, we're all chirping each other, right? When does it become healthy normative? When does it become this is actually feeding into people's mental health challenges,
Alexis Reid 30:59
yeah, not to mention the hazing aspect of things that we had an episode on, you know, thinking about how I can turn in a completely different direction and really impact people in a terrible way. But as you're describing all of this, I'm thinking too, not just about coping mechanisms, but also thinking about how a lot of people can wear different masks, right? You they can either let their depression and their apathy or their sadness or grief for not doing as well as they want to kind of shine, in a way, to protect them like nobody expects as much from them when they're not doing well, yeah, but then the other side of the coin, and a lot of athletes have talked about this in the media, where you know, they have to put on a good face, and they have to, you know, go out there and, you know, pretend that they are feeling great because they had a great game. And this is the wild part about mental health, is that, like, the two things can be true. You can have a great game and still not feel good, or you can not feel good, or you can feel really good and not have a good game, like there's the two sides of of the experience, and depending on who you are and what the expectations are, you can go out with a mask and put on a persona that you think is expected of you instead of what you're really experiencing, right?
Gerald Reid 32:18
Yeah, and then, and then, when you don't feel that way, you begin to maybe gaslight yourself, or maybe just not know what to do with it, like, Oh my God, I don't feel perfect. You know, it's like, the expectation of being an athlete sometimes is like, always be your best. Like, you know, always, always be your best. And, I mean, imagine going to work every day and someone's like, why are you not smiling? Why are you not like, clapping? Why are you not like, just constantly, just nagging things that you're not doing, right? When the reality is, maybe you got something going on in your personal life, and it's like, okay, like you said, put that mask on. And people, this happens to adults too, outside of sports, right? Put that mask on because you always have to present yourself a certain way. And those, those are the people we worry about actually, you know, for me in the mental health world, the person who's, like, pretending like everything's fine, and like, never admitting that there's any challenges, or always saying like they're perfect, and like, Don't worry about me, or avoiding deflecting. Those are the ones to worry about. You know, it doesn't mean that they definitely have mental health challenges, but it's a sign that sometimes that, because the reality is life is not like that. Yeah, and to to to send the message that you should always be at your best all the time is is not realistic.
Gerald Reid 33:36
I want
Alexis Reid 33:36
to,
Alexis Reid 33:37
I want to, I want to press pause on that, because I think what we imagine as our best is not always realistic, like we can't always like reach the bar that we have for ourselves, but our best on any given day might be enough, right? My best today might be different than my best tomorrow. But I think that we we have this oftentimes, especially as athletes, like, an unrealistic expectation that the best is like you got to be, you know, Michael Jordan every single game. But, you know, even his percentage rates were in 100% right? Even the top athletes weren't, you know, achieving their their top of the top, best performance every single time they stepped out, into their game, into their sport, right?
Gerald Reid 34:22
And the ones that last are the ones that can cope with that, you know, and if we're creating this expectation, and the ones who can't cope with that because they feel like it's like way too much pressure, like we're losing so many wonderful athletes to that experience, you know, like, if we can actually help support these athletes to get through these experiences and not feeling like everything has to be perfect all the time, like we're gonna, first of all, they're probably, they'll last longer in the sport. You're not gonna get burnt out or kind of avoid it, or have these spirals that we talked about. So it's actually better for them. You know, I think the it's difficult for people to bring this up. Because, like you said earlier, you know, it's like, are they just not mentally tough? Do they have to get tougher? And it's a hard thing to talk about. That's why, you know, coaches and parents could, you know, check in and try to just, really, just have a real relationship. I've worked with enough athletes where they feel like, if they're if they feel like their coach doesn't actually, genuinely care about them as a human being, as an individual, outside of just being someone that is going to make them win the game or make them look good, they know that, like, it's not, you know, it's like, it's like a child, like a child knows, you know, they pick up on adults. They can kind of feel it. They know what's genuine, what's not. And so, you know, the first and foremost foundation is really to try to really have a trusting, real relationship, and go out of your way to prove that that's the case. Because the athletes, believe me, they don't know they they, they won't. They don't know if you really care about them or not, if they feel like it's valid that you don't really care about how they like what's going on, or they're going to kind of hold back from getting help, they're going to probably feel worse. And there could be a reason why, you know, I think the coaches and parents don't want to bring this topic up is because they're probably afraid of themselves. You know, they're afraid if I say something, it's going to make it worse. Or they're afraid, like, you know, you don't want to open up a can of worms that, all of a sudden we were talking about something that they're out of their depth, you know, they're, they're in, you know, the deep water that they don't know how to swim in. So that's why it's like, you know, outsource that to someone you know, who can help, a professional, who can create that space to just, you know, knows how to deal with that stuff. Like, part of my job is basically just knowing how to talk about difficult things my students. The other day I was in class, I was like, look, look, y'all like, I hate to break this to you, but like, You got to learn how to help your patients be upset with you. Your job is not to just make them feel better. Everybody in their life is already trying to get them to not be upset, right? And that's not mal intended. That's actually good intended, like people in their life are trying to help them feel better, but it's not always what they need to work through the depths of what they might be going through. And sometimes you have to feel worse to feel better. And you know, part of therapy is creating a space for people to be authentic and honest about what's going on. Because if you don't have the ability to be honest about what's really going on on the inside, you're just scratching the surface. You know, I work with people where it takes time to get to the, like, the core of what's really keeping them stuck. And so you don't want to scratch the surface in therapy. And so, you know, that's just a that's a process.
Alexis Reid 37:43
I think that's good advice, not just for parents or coaches of athletes, because I think it's advice for anybody, especially for parents or educators, anybody who's working one on one in any relationship, right? Is to not just jump to problem solving or fear where you walk on eggshells, yeah, right, because I can't tell you how many students that I've worked with who you know, in tandem of working with me on executive function skills are also working on mental health therapy, where they often will disclose like, where their stuck point initially came to light. And I've said this before on the podcast, and I say this often, that most of the time, they say that it was the most difficult for them when nobody asked them what was happening for them. Right where there were, there was clearly a difference in their personality and their energy level and the way they were interacting and engaging in different aspects of their lives and and people just like, kind of just were like, well, they're doing good enough, it's okay, yeah, right. Instead of, you know, just checking in, right, just being curious, and again, if you're out of your depth and something comes up that doesn't feel comfortable, I always remind parents, especially I'm like, you don't need to problem solve everything. Yeah. And Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, DBT, I think has really great way of helping parents, especially to manage these situations, is to really just ask what you need, right? And say, you know, do you need me to just listen? Do you need me to validate your experience? Or do you want me to help you problem solve? Because I think in different situations and contexts, that's the case, and we don't always all have the answers, even in therapy. I'm sure you've told your students before that we don't always have every answer to every question and every dilemma that comes up, but really the process is for helping the person that's sitting with you in front of you to be reflective on the experience, to be able to again, gain a little bit more awareness as to how whatever the question the situation, the concern and challenge might be, is impacting them, so you can figure out what comes next and to really just understand it
Gerald Reid 39:53
right. And there could be multiple components that are contributing to it, right? I mean, like and what a person. Needs cannot be clear sometimes, right? Like,
Alexis Reid 40:02
we often don't know what we need, even as adults, right? No. And so, like, I joke, this is where cursing comes in. When people curse, it's like they don't really know how to articulate the discomfort that they're feeling. So they just, you know, throw out an expletive.
Gerald Reid 40:20
So true. But yeah, like, you know, there's so many components that can go into it and and dealing with this mental health stuff, it doesn't mean that you don't, you know, sometimes it could be a signal that the person needs to step away and go in a different direction, right? But I think maybe the fear is like, Okay, you begin to talk about these mental health things, and all of a sudden they're gonna not take on challenges anymore, and they're gonna, like, not have structure anymore, because they're not going to be like, participating the way they used to, right? But that's not, you know, sometimes that is the case, like, sometimes the situation they're in is just unhealthy, and they need to kind of step away from what they're doing or or go into a different maybe team or a different sporting environment, because it's unhealthy for them, if that's part of it, but that's not always part of it, right? The whole point is that you learn about yourself. Therapy is all about learning about it's like, you know, in the class I was talking to, my students are like, Yeah, my patient went through a breakup. I'm like, you know, don't focus on like, who's to blame for the breakup. Just focus on like, what did the person learn about themselves and about relationships in general through that? So like, the same thing here, like, whether the person stays with their sport or makes it kind of a slight turn in a different direction, or joins a different like, whatever it is, where they stay with their team, the point is that they're learning about themselves, and they take that learning into other aspects of their life. And so there's a really important point that I like to make about athlete mental health, is that when they're coming to me and they have some sort of like, you know, mental health concern, that's not just like, oh, they have butterflies, but it's like a legitimate distress, like, highly distressing, impairing part of their sport, usually it's related to other aspects of their life. And I think this is maybe a not totally understood aspect of mental health. It's not always the case, but because, like some some performance situations are so out of the ordinary that it's like, yeah, maybe anybody would feel that, you know, like these, these downhill skiers were like, Oh my gosh, doing the most incredible, slash dangerous things, you know, you can imagine, that could create crippling anxiety for anybody, if you kind of like, if your mind starts to wander in a direction that maybe it's not helpful, right? But at the same time, you know, what I have found is that you know athletes, when they bring in their mental health concerns as it relates to their sport, it tends to reflect other areas of the life, because you know they are, who they are, wherever they are, you know. So I have found how wonderful and what a blessing it's been for me to work with athletes going through very hard times in their sport, and as they come out on the other end of their therapy, they grow and they evolve and they heal as a person and and in many ways, become, you know, quote, unquote, better. I want to say the word better, but more whole as a person. Evolved, evolved because of the challenge, not despite it, you know, because the challenge was almost like a wake up call. Okay, there's, there's patterns I have within me that either led me to get into this point and I don't want to continue those patterns, or maybe there's patterns I have that led me to tolerate things that I shouldn't tolerate, you know, or you know, or maybe there's hurt that I had, that people were hurting me, you know, because, you know, there's abusive things that happen, and maybe I actually needed to heal from that and have support. So it's really, you know, because of these challenges, that people can become more whole, not despite them.
Alexis Reid 43:55
Two things that you just brought up that I just want to highlight that are so important is, like, one Imagine if an athlete just scored every single shot that they ever took, right? I don't know if they would really find too much enjoyment in that. It probably would become super isolating, and I'm sure the top athletes couldn't say that. Like, it must be really hard to be the leading scorer, to be the best of the best, right? Especially when you're working and playing on a team like that brings about additional challenges from, like, a social perspective. And as I say to my students all the time, I'm like, it would be really boring just to be like the best at everything I tried the first time I tried it like, there's something enjoyable, there's something that's so fulfilling about, you know, working towards something that's new or is challenging or is elevating you to the next level. There's something that builds character, in the struggle, in the persistence, in the the tweaking and learning and adjusting as you go and and with that also. Comes like, it's very difficult to do that, like you do. Need to build some mental resilience. I'm going to say, instead of toughness right, there needs to be this resilience of being able to shift and adjust when you notice things aren't going the way you intend or you expect them to. And there's, there's really nothing wrong with that process. It's actually a beautiful one. I think that's one of the greatest aspects of being human, to be honest.
Gerald Reid 45:26
Yeah, I mean that that kind of goes back to why sports could be such a beautiful thing. Is that, yeah, it could be a healthy version of that totally, and it could bring out some wonderful qualities in people. You know, the when it comes to mental health, and you know people have mental struggles. Is really important to understand that everybody's different. And so you know, one person, athlete a, may thrive in this environment, right for XYZ reasons, and athlete B may flounder. And does that mean that athlete A is a better person or better athlete than athlete B? No, it could be circumstantial. You know, athlete B, who's struggling, maybe they just have a predisposition to having a really sensitive stress response, and they're just easily activated emotionally, right? And they have a hard time regulating that. But their talent is the same as athlete a, their skill set, their drive, their tenacity, whatever it is, right? That doesn't mean that athlete A is better than athlete B. It just means that they're different. And that's why understanding mental health, and there's, there's plenty of other examples of how two athletes could look different, right? One could come from, you know, an environment that is extremely highly pressured, right? And so they could perhaps have this kind of predisposition based on, maybe they grew up in an environment where it's like, you always have to be perfect. You always have to be on you know, you can't think about your own you know, your own feelings, your own needs, and you just neglect everything about yourself, so you just kind of sacrifice your health and just for the sake of winning. Winning is everything. Let's imagine that all you got to do is win, look out for yourself. Only don't worry about other people. Just win, right? If you grew up in an environment that modeled this, whether it's socially familiar, culturally, your neighborhood, whatever, or trauma that you had, some people who grew up with trauma, they kind of developed this survival instinct, right? That that person, that athlete, is going to have a very different experience from athlete a, who's kind of just like, yeah, like, I'm just here. I'm going to get the most out of this experience. I'm having fun. Athlete B doesn't mean they're a worse person. They just have a completely different makeup, and they may need support with that, and they may be equally as valuable to the team. They may also have qualities that athlete a doesn't even have because of what they went through. Maybe they can grow from it and have a depth of empathy, if they can, kind of like grow from challenging experiences or whatever qualities they have. And so it's important when you think about mental health is it's not just like being resilient. It's like trying to understand that everybody's different, and resiliency will look very different. You know, athlete a may just need a pep talk. Athlete B may need, you know, extra support, or just a different approach in terms of the relationship that they have with the coach.
Alexis Reid 48:16
It's very UDL of you. Jerry, yeah, it's true, right? It's not just learner variability, it's athlete variability, and the way in which they learn and adjust and take feedback or coach themselves as they're being coached might look a little bit different, and they might need something different. You touched upon three things that I want to dive into a little bit. Hang tight, because we're going to come back to expand upon this. Number one is thinking about the identity of an athlete who often that takes up such a big part of their world. And I do a lot of work with the people I work with too around this. You know, the things that you value might be closely related to your role as an athlete, but there's so much more to you than just that, and we'll dive into that. The other piece is this idea of the environmental factors that might play a role in how an athlete shapes their identity, and this idea of perfectionism. And I suggest that anybody in the audience who is interested in any of the things we talk about go back and listen to the perfectionism episodes, because that this idea of like, Are you like, fueling and directing yourself from a place of fear because you feel like you have to prove something, or are you doing it from a place of more? I always say intuition, but it might just be wisdom, right to know, okay, this is the path I know I need to take to become better, and it does take a lot of self sacrifice, which could look like perfectionism, but there's a line between the two. And then the last piece is, and I think this all goes together, Jerry, so I'm sure your response will weave it in. The last piece is, as you're talking, I'm thinking about how you know we might. Tweak our nutrition to meet some of our goals. We might tweak our our movement, our conditioning, we might we might tweak our coaching. We might tweak our our routines and habits as we're trying to improve ourselves as an athlete. But I see mental health as one of those aspects of things that we need to check in with and potentially make little adjustments to, rather than feeling like it's all or nothing, like I'm at peak mental health or I'm really struggling.
Gerald Reid 50:31
Yeah, so there's two there's two parts. One is the identity part, which I'll touch upon first, and the second is that perfectionism and and sports definitely pulls for perfectionism. I mean, everything's about control. It's like, control your body, control your body looks like control your body's able to do like that's a slippery slope. Well, especially slippery slope when you're doing really difficult, challenging, dangerous things, like the Winter Olympics that we just experienced in 2026 and that's why I think sports is very challenging to understand the nuances of mental health versus mental mentally being mentally healthy and being mentally unhealthy, right? Because, as you were saying, you do need to control your body, right? And then, what do you do need a level of perfection? Yes. Or, you know, what do we say? The asymptote getting close to perfection? Yeah, the asymptote metaphor that I came up with, as close as we can get to it. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And so, like, it's a slippery slope, because if you really don't know what that line in the sand is between like, this is obsessive, this is compulsive, versus this is actually me just doing something that's healthy for me, it's a very hard thing to really delineate. And that's why, you know, having honest conversations and and also having people around you to validate that this is actually hard. You know, if you got people in your life that are like, You got the nutritionist, you got the strength and conditioning coach, like, if everyone's kind of giving you this like perfection message, like, everything's got to be perfect, and as opposed to just being honest that, hey, like, it's hard to know what perfect, quote, unquote, nutrition and strength and and all this stuff for your body is, like, I think if we can just be honest about that, that just helps them to be honest with themselves, and maybe prevent them from just reactively, just going down the rabbit hole of, like, obsessing over everything and looking at every Instagram reel about, like, what's going to make their body better? Like, there's a million things out there. Well, this is the other thing too, and thinking about, and I'm not an expert in this, but we've talked about this on the podcast before, about, you know, sometimes our body metabolizes things differently. There isn't just, like, you have to have this amount of protein and supplements and this and that. There's no one size fits all.
Alexis Reid 52:44
There's no one size fits all. And like all of these messages that we're hearing, it's, it's so nuanced, right? We want to be careful not to just say, Oh, this expert told me to do this, and that's what I have to do. We need to also be in tune with our bodies, just as we want to be in tune with our minds and our hearts.
Gerald Reid 53:02
You know, let's bring this back to your point about identity, right? If your identity revolves around doing these things perfectly, yeah, which, in turn, lead you to think that that's why you're performing so well, yeah. Which, by the way, you can do all these things and actually perform worse if your body's not nurtured the right way, if you're overdoing it, if you not, you know, eating disorder kind of things could happen where you're actually hurting your body. You don't even realize it. But all this is to say is that if this becomes your identity, it's a transactional version of getting validation from people. And that's why sports becomes a slippery slope, sometimes, especially with the professionalism of it. The brand, you know, the N i L is a wonderful thing for people to get compensated for their efforts, and for, you know, what they feel like they deserve at the same time. You know, if you would kind of zoom out and think of the n i L is just like everybody is trying to have a brand, everybody's trying to like, be famous in some way, so that they can get money, right? Everything becomes transactional. And I want to bring that back to your idea of identity. Identity in its most healthy form, in my opinion, comes from self love and genuine relationships. And I've heard athletes say and I've some of the students in the program have commented on this as well, like, like, when do athletes get to just be themselves without doing something for someone else?
Alexis Reid 54:28
Well, you mentioned this before about trust, right? Trusting in the coach. And I think a big part of it also is, is trusting in yourself, right? I see athlete development in in helping athletes know themselves, know their bodies and their limits, and being able to trust themselves, trusting the people around them, but also ultimately trusting themselves to know when they are feeling mentally healthy, physically healthy. Yes, physically ready, and I say physically. And like the nutritional, the sleep hygiene, the hydration, you know, a lot of these things that fall off that some top athletes, we've talked about this before. I've heard on different podcasts talking about how they just had these great skills that they didn't tend to these other aspects of themselves. They just kept going because they were getting lauded for their skills, rather than them really thinking about how to care for themselves.
Gerald Reid 55:25
And the same thing emotionally, right? You just kind of push through without really knowing what your emotional needs are. So. So let me bring that back to what you were saying before about intuition. We want people to kind of have more of an intuition as to what's going on inside of them, what do they need? And athletes are constantly, if not almost always, told what to do. Yeah, it's true. So we talked about this on the psychology of coaching, episode with Dr John McCarthy, our good friend and colleague, who basically was like, you know, there's research on this, and he kind of did his own observations and his own research. Of like, you know, coaches are just constantly telling the athletes what to do, and they're not asking any questions. And so this is a slippery slope, because of your point is when someone is just compliant. And by the way, some of the best coaches, quote, unquote, most successful coaches will have athletes who will listen to anything they will say that will run through a wall for them because they were told to and they don't want to let the coach down. And to me, that is actually a selection bias. I want people to think about that. These coaches are selecting athletes who will be compliant, right? They're fitting their system of like they're gonna do what I tell them to do. I'm not, I'm not putting these coaches down like they're successful. They're doing, you know that they're developing, you know, good. You know, young men and women. That's great, whatever it is, successful in relation to winning, or, like, a percentage of how well they're doing and achieving versus what you and I think success is like this holistic approach of developing individuals. And that's why this is such a tricky, sticky subject, because in some circles and some cultures, not even in sports, and just some cultures like that, is success. That's a healthy individual. They're being successful. They're getting the most out of their potential. They're doing what they're told. They're complying with a larger collective right. That's kind of a collectivistic like, you know, to Don't, don't ruffle feathers, kind of, you know, fit the system and do what you do your job, do what you're supposed to do. I'm not here to say, like, that's wrong, but like, if there's indications that that's actually leading people to become mentally unhealthy, then we should be looking at that.
Alexis Reid 57:47
It's like, at what expense? At what expense? , it's like this. This could be helpful. And in fact, and indeed, there are some really beautiful protective factors and relationships with coaches and teams that have worked well, yeah, and you know, we want to be mindful that athletes are also humans. They have more to their lives than just the sport in that exact moment,
Gerald Reid 58:14
exactly. And when you actually work with these athletes and you hear them be honest, because they have a hard time being honest with their coach to say, hey, like, actually, I'm injured. They hide injuries and concussions. This is a big one. Concussions. They hide issues that they have, like, legitimate issues. They hide the fact that, like, their grades are struggling. Like, yes, there's any possible which way that this can go.
Alexis Reid 58:41
I'm going to add in also, because we talked about this on an episode as well, is, you know, thinking about gender differences too. You know, females in their menstrual cycles might have different capacities and different needs at different times. And, you know, I always joke with my female athletes I work with. I'm like, nobody ever taught us about this, right? There's actually different things we should be doing and eating and being mindful of that sometimes get overlooked because you have to get ready for a certain game or competition, and you know, the timing doesn't always sync up, literally, with where you are in your life and in your world, in your body.
Gerald Reid 59:18
And these coaches, as Dr John McCarthy said, have so much pressure on them to succeed. So it's a, it's kind of a cycle, right? It's, doesn't mean that they're bad people, but, like, the system is kind of pushing them to be successful. There's a loser job, and their career depends on it, right? You know, they can have a mediocre team and have, like, healthy, mentally healthy athletes, but they may lose their job because they're not winning, right? So it's a system. I get it, I understand it, but you make a very good point, though, that you know, like paying attention to your needs. There's a New York Times article that just came out was wonderful about how young female athletes, they call it kind of a, almost an epidemic of ACL injuries.
Alexis Reid 59:57
Yeah, there's interesting research around that. And there it.
Gerald Reid 1:00:00
Exploded more than males, right? And so, and one of there's become more frequent, way more frequent, right? To the point of like this is like, not good, right? And so there's theories about why that is. And one of the theories is actually that there's plenty of preventative measures and exercises that have been well developed, well studied, very effective for preventing these injuries, and all you have to do is to just know that they exist, number one and number two, implement them consistently. For your athletes, the problem is that the coaches may not be aware of it, or they may not feel like it's a priority or the time of that they have to be able to implement something like this. But those who do you know, there's an athlete who I know, who said, you know, that that actually made a tremendous difference on our team once we started doing that. So but I
Alexis Reid 1:00:48
think this is important to say, because, you know, ACL injuries has become more prevalent, especially with female athletes at concussions. You know, really grateful to the work Dr Chris Nowinski and his colleagues are doing at the concussion Legacy Foundation to talk about, you know, what are the implications of what happens later? But there's a lot of really great research out there. So if you're a coach or your parent that wants to just be more educated, you know, there's, there's a limit to being over educated and knowing too much, and then you try to control too many situations, but just being familiar and aware enough. This is why we do these podcasts, right? How much? How much is enough? But you want to just be familiar so you can recognize what might be needed, because there's a lot of really great research, a lot of great foundations out there, and a lot of great coaches and parents alike, and athletes who are beginning to advocate for themselves. To say, Listen, I really want to get to this level, and I'm noticing that right to make sure that they're protecting themselves. And I always say, I'm like, you know, if you're going to continue to play injured or even from an academic perspective, if you're going to just burn yourself out studying all night, right? You might do okay. But if you don't, it's not just impacting you individually in this one moment. It might be impacting some, you know, your future self, your team, these other aspects of whatever's happening. It's like we need to, we need to weigh these pros and cons, because again, coming back to executive functions and their frontal lobes, especially young athletes, can't always see, you know, their future selves, their future situations, and how one decision potentially can impact a longer aspect or greater aspect of their lives.
Gerald Reid 1:02:35
Absolutely, and I can't emphasize enough, this athlete identity is so powerful. I mean, you got to look at social media, the way it's built now that the professionalism of sports and the way the exposure is and the recruitment cycles, this identity is so powerful for these athletes, and if you don't have any type of grounding, It makes them fragile. We just talked about ACL injuries. You get an injury, you're out, let's say it's for a year or half a year, or your whole career. You can't play the sport anymore. It is devastating for the person. And obviously this type of injury is going to be painful and emotionally upsetting to anybody. It's just like, that's part of being human. But if you have every aspect of your being wrapped up in being an athlete, but not only being an athlete, but this image of how they think they should be and how people should perceive them to, you know, be a certain way. And that's reinforced by people telling them how great they are and telling them, you know, like and everything rides on whether or not they played well or did well, right? Like they don't, you know, and they don't play well, and they get criticized, right? Or they get neglected, you know, like, there's, there's artists, there's musicians, there's famous. Like, one day they're on the top of the world, and one day they don't even, nobody even remembers who they are. There's so many athletes. I was literally just thinking about this, like, the other month, a month ago, it's like, like, who played in the Super Bowl in 2007 like, I'm sure, at the time, I was like, Oh, these guys are amazing. You know, I totally seven.
Alexis Reid 1:04:10
You do remember? Yeah, we're gonna be careful, maybe one or two people I remember, I think that might have been one of the best Super Bowls of all time. Interesting. You chose that that year.
Alexis Reid 1:04:29
But maybe 2006 maybe has gotten out shadowed by 2007
Gerald Reid 1:04:36
how many other athletes are there besides Tom Brady, Eli Manning and the guy with the helmet catch right? There's so many, you know, there's so you just, you know. And these are human beings, right, where, if they wrap themselves up in this identity so much, and look, they have reasons for it. Some of them, like I said, like, that's their way of having income. Like, and they feel like I have no other skills. Like.
Gerald Reid 1:04:59
This is the best I can do to have income, and I can make a lot of money. Like, I get that, but like, it becomes such a fragility. And I really want to point this out. Like, if you have all your eggs in one basket, and that's everything you get your external validation from, you have no real sense of loving yourself outside of this. It's fragile. And the moment that that fragility gets shattered or there's like, crack in it, that's when, you know, people are gonna need support. And, like, we can't prevent that from happening. Like, yeah, but at least we can be aware that people can need support and try to prevent it too, and bolster people to feel good about themselves outside of this kind of matrix. You know, it's kind of like one of the athletes that I know, she said, you know, just remind everybody that being an athlete, it's not that deep, like, I know it seems like it, you know, everything's wrapped up in it, and people are celebrating you. But just remember, it's not that deep, you know, you bring up such a good point, and I want to touch on this, and then kind of wrap up thinking about, how do we sum up some of the suggestions we have for people in the lives of athletes or athletes themselves who might be listening. But I just want to double click on this point, because I took a sports psychology course in undergrad, and I'll never forget it was little me with a bunch of football players and other athletes in the class, and we were talking a lot about
Alexis Reid 1:06:18
these college athletes who might get signed to play professionally, and, you know, leave college behind to move forward professionally, and it brought about a perspective that, you know, isn't my experience, right, that the a lot of these athletes, some of their voices that I'll just quickly share and definitely not do justice to what they were sharing. A lot of them were sharing that, you know, they're like, if I get a shot to make money to play a sport, oh yeah, I have to take it. You know, my parents have invested in me. Or, you know, I've worked so hard because I have this skill and everybody's expecting me to take care of them. You know, they become lauded in a community that a lot of times, might be underserved or might not be appreciated for who they are, and then this one athlete comes out of this space, and it kind of lifts everybody up, not just them, yeah, and it's a lot of pressure to support the environment and the families and the community and the collective That, again, puts additional stress and pressure on them, yeah, outside of even just your own personal pressure, because you want to be the best, or you want to achieve, or you love playing and doing whatever you do athletically, you know, it's so interesting. And from a mental health perspective, I wonder if you could just quickly speak to that before we wrap things up.
Gerald Reid 1:07:39
Yeah, I mean, like, so someone who experiences something like that, forgive me if I'm not using right word, but there's a desperation to it. And when someone's goes
Alexis Reid 1:07:50
back to fight or fight, almost like, survive,
Gerald Reid 1:07:52
survival, right? Yeah. And like,
Alexis Reid 1:07:55
literally survival.
Gerald Reid 1:07:56
And here, here's, here's the bigger context of that, someone like that is more likely to be manipulated potentially.
Alexis Reid 1:08:04
Yeah, that's a huge vulnerability, and it
Gerald Reid 1:08:07
may not even be intentional, but if that person is recruited to a very, very demanding, hard nosed coach that is going to expect them to do whatever they tell them to do for the sake of winning, maybe certain people benefit from that structure, right?
Alexis Reid 1:08:24
Right? There are, we talked about this a little bit
Gerald Reid 1:08:27
with Coach Mac too, yeah, like, maybe there are some who benefit from having that structure, because psychologically, that maybe they had no structure, or maybe they didn't have that kind of figure in their life to kind of like, do whatever they like, in some ways that's care to them, right? Oh, this person cares about me. They're going to get the best out of me. They're going to push me. They're going to push me. That means they care, right? So let me just set the stage for that at the same time, there could be situations like this is nuances, not all or nothing. This is not a one size fits all, but most
Alexis Reid 1:08:56
certainly not for everybody in the safe
Gerald Reid 1:08:58
situation, exactly. But there could be, because obviously, this talk is about athlete mental health. Why? That's the reason I'm bringing this up. There could be someone who's vulnerable, where they may push themselves too hard, they may neglect themselves, they may not care about grades because they're trying to please their coach. They may,
Alexis Reid 1:09:16
or they might not, have the skills to match the level that they're being asked to work at academically. I see this a lot too, where programs will bring students that maybe don't qualify academically for the school, but they want them on their teams. And not all schools have a great like educational support system, especially for the athletes, which, you know Well, another talk for another time. But I mean, there are schools who do. There are some that are really great, don't get me wrong, but, but it has to be a balance. And that's again, another pressure point. Is why I bring it up.
Gerald Reid 1:09:47
But at the very least, what I'm saying is like, That person could be vulnerable to all these things we've talked about, of like putting all their investment in their identity, in, you know, how they feel about themselves, about and let's say that athlete gets injured, very vulnerable, very vulnerable. There's tragedies that have happened to athletes like this. I don't want to, like really bring it up here, but tragedies because of this type of dynamic, right? So we want to really try to see these athletes as human beings, as individuals with histories, with backgrounds, with things that they're bringing in. You know, vulnerabilities. There's so many reasons why someone could have mental health challenges. I don't really want to spend time getting into, like, what contributes to mental health challenges. We'll maybe have an episode on that. But it's not just one thing. It's not like, oh, that person, you know, is soft, or that person
Alexis Reid 1:10:34
the nature, nurture, balance, right in psychology too.
Gerald Reid 1:10:37
It's, it's complicated too.
Alexis Reid 1:10:38
So complex everything is, I mean,
Gerald Reid 1:10:41
it's complicated. Like, there's, there's reasons that you may have no idea about a particular person, right? It's not as simple as, like, oh, they just have symptoms of anxiety or depression. Like, there could be a lot wrapped up in what's going on inside of them that takes time to understand and figure out. So all this to say is Be kind, be gentle. You know, it doesn't mean they don't push people. Like, there's too much dichotomous. Talk about like, either people are too soft or too hard. Like, that's missing the point. Like anything could be a good idea. That you take it out of context, it's not a good idea anymore, right? You take this idea of like, oh, kids are, you know, kids are too soft, okay? Like, maybe there's some truth to the fact that kids need to be like, pushed a little bit more and not be
Alexis Reid 1:11:23
build that resilience and persistence. Build
Gerald Reid 1:11:24
resilience, not act entitled, right? You know? But to me, first of all, like entitlement and that kind of stuff that could be masking insecurities, that kind of masking other anxieties that they're not admitting and we're just talking about the behavior, not talking about the core, the reason for it, or maybe that's being modeled to them around them, or their influences on social media. Like there's reasons for this behavior, let's try to understand what's leading to it and address it. But secondly, like, I think we need to be careful with this dichotomous talk about things are either this way or that way. You know, you know both sides could have some truth to it, and you want to just understand the context, right? Like pushing someone extremely hard could be good for one person, but for another person, as I said before, like they could be vulnerable to like that could be detrimental to them. And yeah, they both may end up in the same spot and be successful in their own way and reach their potential, but they may need different things to get there. Just like, you know, UDL would say,
Alexis Reid 1:12:22
really great points. Okay, so closing thoughts, as we always think about, what are you looking forward to in the future? What are you hopeful for in terms of better understanding, athlete, mental health
Gerald Reid 1:12:34
, the fact that there is more talk about it is very, very door opening for people, and to destigmatize the fact that like, we struggle, and I'd like to reframe this as like, we're human. Like, maybe we're just realizing that we're human. Maybe, instead of being like, this is a stigma, or not a stigma, it's like, let's just say like, Hey, we're human and like, stuff happens. It's always happened. This is not new.
Alexis Reid 1:13:04
And in a world of AI and all this, like new technology, we are not machines. And, in fact, I don't think we want to be. I would argue we're trying to keep our humanity and this, these ups and downs, are part of that
Gerald Reid 1:13:19
totally, yeah, I'm hopeful that that, you know, people could get into their life journey and see life as a journey. And we're all learning different lessons. We're all learning about ourselves. We're all, you know, figuring out what this segment of life is about for us, what you know, what are we learning from? How do we grow? How do we evolve? How do we have joy in what we're doing, and find that, how do we just make things a little bit better? You know, if you're listening to this, maybe you become a coach. Like, do it a little bit differently. You know, if you're a teacher, if you're this or that, like, whatever, if you've seen things happen in ways that you didn't love, like, try to just do a little bit better. Like, don't obsess over it. Sometimes you can kind of, like, over correct. It's like, don't over correct. But, you know, just try. Like, there's always hope, you know, there's always tomorrow, there's always the ability to make things a little bit better, even if, like, if society seems like it's falling apart, like, you help one person, you help one athlete, you help you know one person, one teammate, you know, you help yourself. Like, that's something, you know, we're all living these lives.
Alexis Reid 1:14:24
I appreciate that. And just a last, final thought. You know, there's this idea of resonance that we talk about, like, did that resonate? Did that resonate? But I think, in my mind, resonance is like when we when we take some action to improve, or do a little bit better, or at least build that awareness that leads to something that improves or works towards optimization or enhancement in the world, either personally or in a grander way, the resonance in that one action can spill outward.
Gerald Reid 1:14:57
Thank you, Lex, thanks for the interviews
Alexis Reid 1:14:59
and fo r everyone. Be well.
Gerald Reid 1:15:04
Thanks for tuning in to the Reid Connect-ED podcast. Please remember that this is a podcast intended to educate and share ideas, but it is not a substitute for professional care that may be beneficial to you at different points of your life. If you are needed support, please contact your primary care physician, local hospital, educational institution, or support staff at your place of employment to seek out referrals for what may be most helpful for you. ideas shared here have been shaped by many years of training, incredible mentors research theory, evidence based practices and our work with individuals over the years, but it's not intended to represent the opinions of those we work with or who we are affiliated with. The reconnected podcast is hosted by siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid. Original music is written and recorded by Gerald Reid (www.Jerapy.com) recording was done by Cyber Sound Studios. If you want to follow along on this journey with us the Reid Connect-ED podcast. we'll be releasing new episodes every two weeks each season so please subscribe for updates and notifications. Feel free to also follow us on Instagram @ReidConnectEdPodcast that's @ReidconnectEdPodcast and Twitter @ReidconnectEd. We are grateful for you joining us and look forward future episodes. In the meanwhile be curious, be open, and be well.
S7 E10: Athlete mental health
In this episode, Alexis interviews Gerald about the topic of athlete mental health. Gerald shares his wisdom and perspective from his expertise as a licensed psychologist along with his training and vast experience working with athletes. Given the increased awareness that athletes, too, experience mental health challenges just like the general population, this interview will answer lingering questions to fill in the gaps of understanding with the topics below. As always, this episode will provide an expert perspective that has nuance and encourages context, rather than one-size-fits-all or sensationalized messaging.
Summary:
Understanding mental health in general
The unique context and pressures of sports
How mental health issues manifest in sports
The power and fragility of an extreme athlete identity
Ways to support athletes’ mental health
Be curious. Be Open. Be well.
The ReidConnect-Ed Podcast is hosted by Siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid, produced by and original music is written and recorded by www.Jerapy.com
*Please note that different practitioners may have different opinions- this is our perspective and is intended to educate you on what may be possible.
