How Should Christian Athletes Think About Their Mental Health?
If motivation is the unseen reason for doing something, pressure is the unseen reality causing unwanted friction for your motivation.
And all of us experience pressure.
For the athlete, there is no shortage of it. Think through all of the different things that you would classify as a stressor right now.
Seriously, count them up.
How many did you come up with? I bet you didn’t count 640. And yet a 2019 study of over 5,000 elite athletes showed “640 distinct stressors that could induce mental health symptoms and disorders.”
Keep in mind, we don’t talk about these kinds of pressures as a sport culture. Athletes are supposed to be strong. They eat pressure for breakfast. There is no space for negative or hard emotions unless they can be manipulated as fuel for motivation.
The mantra for the Wisconsin Football team before the 2019 season sums it up well: “Nobody cares, work harder.”
We need a better solution than this because it’s not working. “Nobody cares, work harder” didn’t work for Maddy Holleran. It didn’t work for Washington State quarterback Tyler Hilinski. It’s not working for the one out of every four athletes reporting clinically relevant levels of depressive symptoms. And it’s not working for the thousands of athletes who’ve lost their love of the sport under the weight of the pressure.
There is a better path forward. Unsurprisingly, it involves a God who cares about the unseen realities of our soul and his word inviting us into an authentic relationship with him.
Before we go any further, I need to give a few disclaimers.
I am not a trained mental health professional or anywhere close to an expert.
My wife specializes in leadership development within our ministry with a specialization in mental health so I understand the complexities of the issues enough to give an elementary introduction.
My purpose here is to encourage you to take the pressures you face in your sport and life seriously because God cares deeply about our heart and mind.
Please don’t take my silence on the benefits and potential solutions through modern medicine as a belief that mental health is only a spiritual issue that can be “cured” by God.
God cares about your mental health
Athlete, God knows about you and he cares deeply about you. He knows you better than your coach, your teammates, your parents, and your friends know you. He knows you better than you know yourself. You can study all of the gamefilm of your life and never fully understand yourself at the level that God does.
Struggles with pressure and mental health are hardly new categories for a God who has seen it all. And athletes don’t hold a monopoly on unhealthy responses to pressure either. The Bible is full of examples of men and women who meet the criteria of undiagnosed mental illness because of the stress and pressure they faced. The following list comes from Matthew Stanford’s book, Grace for the Afflicted: A Clinical and Biblical Perspective on Mental Illness.
Saul wrestled with feelings of worthlessness, excessive guilt, and suicide.
David experienced depressive moods, insomnia, fatigue, and a diminished ability to concentrate.
Gomer sought adulterous relationships to meet her needs, exhibited relational and emotional instability, and had issues with her identity.
Jacob had self destructive behavior.
Job found himself in a persistent negative emotional state of depression, shame and fear.
Samson was overly impulsive and easily irritated.
How we handle the thoughts and emotions swirling around inside of us—the pressures we face—is important to God.
When pressed to single out the greatest commandment, Jesus replied in Matthew 22:37 to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
That’s why we must think better about the pressures in our lives and how we respond—or don’t respond to them. Because how you steward your heart, soul, and mind, may not matter to your coaches (though a lot of them actually care about this area of your life) and it may not be reflected on the scoreboard (though a healthy mind should lead to a higher performing athlete), but it matters to God.
So what does it look like to glorify God by how we handle pressure?
I think it starts by answering two important questions:
What are the current pressures you are facing?
What tools can you utilize to improve your thought patterns and emotions?
Identify the pressures you are facing
I’m consistently shocked by how little I know about the inner working of my phone and laptop despite using them the majority of the day. For instance, did you know anything about an IP address (Internet Protocol Address)? We can’t connect to the internet without one. Each device we own has a unique IP address, kind of like a fingerprint. It locates our devices and identifies them to the larger network. The IP address unlocks our device’s ability to function at a maximized level by allowing us to connect to the world around us.
Most of us spend countless hours online without thinking twice about what our IP address is and how it’s allowing us to engage in the digital world with others. That’s fine when we are dealing with the inner workings of our technology, but not when we are dealing with the inner workings of our heart and mind.
I want to introduce you to another IP address that has a significant impact on the way you experience the world around you as an athlete. It’s called your “inner pressure address.” Your personal IP address is completely unique to you and it fluctuates based on the environment you’re in and the circumstances you experience.
Remember, there are 640 potential stressors athletes face. The ones you are wrestling with right now and the intensity in which you experience them make up your unique IP address as an athlete. Nobody else can determine this for you.
It’s your responsibility to identify the pressures around you. Yes, trained professionals can help you in this area, but ultimately you are the one who has to identify what’s going on inside of you.
Everybody has an IP address. We all have multiple stressors confronting us at any given moment and many of them have a compounding effect on our lives. Pressure itself is not bad or unhealthy. But when it’s left unchecked, unidentified, and ignored, it can lead to unhealthy thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Why does this matter?
There is a direct correlation between rising levels of stress and pressures and mental illnesses. And identifying them is the first step to stripping them of their power over you.
Here’s a couple of questions aimed at identifying the inner pressures you face:
Are you struggling with anxiety (excessive fear or worry disproportionate to a given situation) or depression (persistent sadness and a loss of interest in activities that you normally enjoy) that interferes with your ability to carry out daily activities and lasts for at least two weeks?
Have you experienced any of the following of the following in a way that inhibits your ability to complete your normal daily routines: low self esteem (feelings of worthlessness, can’t do anything right or placing a low value on self), eating concerns, sleeping troubles, low energy, depression, anxiety, fear of failure, perfectionism, flashbacks, anger control, obsessive thoughts and actions, or attention issues.
I think we glorify God when we show in increased awareness and ability to identify what is going on inside of us. Why? Because we serve a God who delights in order—not chaos. And I truly believe that the order (or the churchy word shalom or peace) he desires extends beyond the world around us and into our minds as well.
Knowing your inner pressures is the first step towards peace because it identifies what needs attention. It’s the same reason we get x-rays and MRI’s as athletes when we have pain. Identifying the what and where of the pain puts us on the proper path to recovery.
But simply knowing a bone is broken doesn’t fix it. In the same way, we need to move beyond just knowledge of our inner pressure’s effects on us.
Tools to train your mind
In an article addressed to the collegiate athletic community regarding possible solutions in the area of mental health, Russ Rausch (Founder, Vision Pursue) and Ginger Gilmore Childress (Director of Behavioral Medicine, University of Alabama) said:
Our mind is like a muscle that can be trained. Passivity with our minds will lead to the same results. If we want to reduce our inner pressure in a way that glorifies God, we need increased intentionality in two areas: vulnerability and mental training.
Vulnerability
Think about a balloon. A balloon is created to be filled with air. When we force air, inner pressure begins to exist inside, causing it to expand outward. Now, not all balloons are created equal. Some can withstand enormous amounts of pressure before popping, some only a little.
We’re similar.
God created us with a unique ability to handle the pressures of life around us. But each of us is also unique in the amount of pressure we can withstand before it destroys our love for the sport (mental aspect)—or worse, our physical bodies.
Do you know how to release pressure from a balloon? Sure, you can pop it. But that can be a loud and unpleasant process. Another option is to open it back up. The more you open it up, the more pressure is released from the inside.
Do you know one potential way to lower your IP address? Open yourself up to someone you trust and tell them about it. Perhaps more relief would come from finding a group of trusted people with whom you can practice authenticity and vulnerability.
I struggled with habitual sin while I was in college. Sensing it’s increasing power over me, I finally called my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) and told her about my struggle. That was the first step on a path to freedom for me. I wasn’t cured overnight. But the sin lost its power over me when it became public.
Sin festers and grows in the dark. It’s why the Bible tells us in James 5:16 to confess our sins to one another. Though the inner pressure we are facing is not sin, I think a similar approach is needed. Nothing good comes when it lingers in the dark, even if it’s not inherently sinful. Ignoring the pressures you face or burying them inside will not bring you relief and contentment. At best, the weight of the pressure will hinder your performance in competition. At worst, it will suck the joy out of your sport—and potentially your life.
Let’s not overcomplicate what this looks like practically.
If it’s the night before a competition and you are feeling pressure that’s preventing you from sleeping, just text or call a friend. A simple “Hey, I can’t stop thinking about tomorrow, can you pray for me right now?”
If you’re involved in a team bible study and the leader ends the study by asking for prayer requests, don’t be ashamed to ask your teammates to pray for you in the areas you feel unhealthy amounts of pressure.
I know some people get relief from journaling/writing. Journaling amounts to vulnerability with yourself, or, if you do it as a prayer journal, vulnerability with God.
The most mentally unhealthy athletes I have worked with are the ones who neglect to acknowledge the pressures they are facing to self, others, and God.
Admitting the areas of our life that cause us unwanted stress may feel like an act of weakness, especially in an athletic culture that celebrate a “nobody cares, work harder” mentality. But it’s quite the opposite. It shows incredible strength, courage and bravery to share about your struggles with someone else. Before Jesus went to the cross, he spent time with his Father praying through his thoughts about what was to come. He was raw. He was honest. But Jesus modeled this for a reason. And I think one of the reasons was to give us permission and encouragement to do likewise—before God our Father—and before others.
Mental Training
When I was in elementary school, I entered a free throw shooting competition. After winning a few local and regional tournaments, I made it to the state finals. In what would unfortunately be the apex of my basketball career, I took fourth place overall.
Each shot was the same. Three dribbles while I quietly recited Philippians 4:13, completely out of context, by the way.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Spin ball with two hands while envisioning the ball swishing through the net. Find the seams on the ball without looking at it. Bend my knees. Then, I would shoot. Most of the time it would go in.
Free throw shooting is about focus. It’s about rhythm. It’s about habits. The worst enemy of someone shooting a free throw is mental or physical distraction. It’s why home teams are silent when “their” team is at the free throw line and conversely screaming when the opponent is shooting.
The art of finding a habit where you visualize yourself succeeding is hardly rocket science for anyone involved in sports. We do it because it works. And it works outside of athletics, too.
At its core, it’s meditation. But if you’re like me, that word stirs up an image of someone sitting cross legged on a yoga mat with their thumbs pressed against their fingers on top of a mountain while watching the sunset. I want to rebrand meditation—which is actually a biblical concept, as mental training.
If stressors in our lives increase our inner pressures, mental training can be seen as a fight for inner peace.
It’s important to note that if we want to glorify God through a pursuit of positive mental health, we need to do it God’s way. Mental training in pursuit of God’s peace, which he wants us to have by the way, involves filling our minds, not emptying them. And what do we fill our minds with?
His Word.
Psalm 1:1-2 shows us that the blessed man is one who delights himself in God’s word and meditates on it day and night.
In Psalm 119:148, David mentions staying up late at night to meditate on God’s promises.
Psalm 143:5 says “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands.”
What if we began to use his Word as a weapon for our mind instead of a misguided ploy to pursue a win? Athlete, one of the best ways to reduce the stress in your life is to memorize scripture. God’s word allows us to see reality through his lens instead of our own skewed perception. It allows us to re-calibrate our minds towards what is true.
If you sense the inner pressure in your life rising, I would encourage you to have these verses readily available found in Philippians 4:6-8:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Take your inner pressures to God. He desires to give you a peace you cannot attain apart from him.
In the battle for our mental health, God’s word can be the bridge that allows us to move from pressure to peace.