Sports are a fundamental part of High School and teen years but that doesn’t mean that they don’t come with stress. Sports add many levels of stress onto high schoolers from feeling successful enough and performing well enough to keeping their school as a priority as well. We are going to tell you some of our experiences with sport related stress and how to deal with it. Sports are a very important part of our lives so we’ve learned how to work around and work through stress.
Performance in sports is very important especially at a more competitive level, but it seems to become the thing that most student athletes focus on the most. Sports are so much more than just how you perform. Most if not all athletes tend to get caught up on how many points they scored, if they made the right play, or even if they were in the right spot. There are so many components of each sport and it is hard for one individual athlete to do it all. Every young athlete thinks they need to be the best to succeed, causing a lot of stress and pressure at such a young age. This causes anxiety in athletes not allowing them to continue to excel in their sport. The most important person to help in these situations is the coach. Oftentimes when coaches think they are helping, they are making it worse. Coaches put so much pressure on their athletes to be the best they can be with good intention, but it causes burnout. Athletes are not only trying to do well, but now they have to worry about what their coach and everyone around them thinks. Sports are meant to be fun, but the fun aspect is often lost in the constant need to be the best.
Sports add extra pressures in the classroom as well. Many student-athletes prioritize their sports over their academics leading them to fall behind in the classroom. Occasionally I have to choose to sacrifice studying or homework time because of practices, games, or competitions. When students are extremely busy after school it is much more important that they try their best to get a good night’s sleep so that they can pay attention during the school day and absorb as much knowledge as they can. Another thing that I do to try and minimize my stress is work in my off periods. If I can get most of my homework done during the school day or whenever I have time it significantly lowers my stress levels especially during a busy week knowing that my work is completed. Procrastination is something that is very easy for student-athletes to do since they use their free time to rest and push their assignments until the last minute. All that this does is increase stress and most likely leads to worse grades on the assignments. Many athletes don’t realize that if their grades suffer enough it could lead to suspension from a sports team until grades recover. This is especially true in college for athletes playing on scholarships. That is why it’s important for athletes to focus on their education as much as they do their sports so that they can lower the stress levels that come from being a student-athlete.
Sports are encouraged and students should continue to play them, but sports should stay fun and nothing more. It is important to be competitive and focus on the sport but not let it consume the athlete and their life. Sports should be a part of the students life and not become their whole life. If sports consume someone so young then they will develop anxiety and other mental problems by not giving themselves rest or time to do other things. Overall, sports are important, but they should be kept positive so that they remain fun and not a distraction or a burnout.
