We hear a lot about what coaches and organisations think about mental health in sport. But what about the athletes themselves — the young people at the centre of it all? As part of the MINDFit project, we spoke with two athletes, Elena and Paula Konopka, about their personal experiences with mental health, the pressures …
When we talk about success in sport, we usually think of physical fitness, technique, and tactics. But what happens when an athlete who is in peak physical condition simply cannot perform at their best? Petra Rajković Vuletić, a coach with experience working with young athletes, shared her thoughts on the role of mental health in …
Introduction In the contemporary competitive sports environment, it is becoming widely recognized that young athletes’ overall growth depends on more than just technical proficiency and physical training. An essential aspect of long-term athletic success is self-care, which is the proactive practice of preserving one’s own psychological, emotional, and physical well-being. An athlete’s trajectory is essentially …
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Performance anxiety is a very common phenomenon in the sporting context, particularly in high-level competitions, where the psychological and emotional demands are extremely high, as they generate a high level of stress, forcing athletes to develop effective strategies to cope with these situations whilst maintaining optimal performance. In this regard, if pre-competition anxiety is not …
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Mental health is a comprehensive construct that goes beyond the absence of psychological disorders, including a state of emotional, psychological and social well-being that allows individuals to effectively manage the demands of everyday life, achieve adaptive functioning and contribute positively to their environment. This expanded definition, which takes a holistic view of well-being, is based …