We all face challenges at work. Commuting, finding time for breakfast, keeping hydrated, refilling the printer in the office that just won’t play ball. These things are the typical hurdles which we face everyday and which we are prepared to deal with. Some challenges, however, are not as easy to overcome as sharing the office milk. For a great many people, a daily struggle takes the form of battling poor mental health. According to Mind, the UK mental health charity, approximately 25% of people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year.

Naturally, some of the millions of people who suffer from a mental health problem will have their work lives affected by it. For most, there is a way through these problems. But what can you do when your job hinges on performing for others? What can you do when you feel the pressure to excel against the very best competitors in front of the world’s onlooking eye? What can you do when your situation simply does not allow you to find a way through? Well, that is the life of an elite-level athlete.

Mental health problems in sport

This situation is one felt by a great many athletes the world over. Now, in 2021, we are beginning to see the first ‘mental breaks‘ in professional sport. Mental breaks constitute short retreats from professional competition which are much needed and long overdue for some. One of the trailblazers in this movement is Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka. Earlier this year, Osaka announced that she would be taking a mental break from tennis after she was fined for not meeting her media commitments. The 23-year-old tennis star said this:

‘I do not wish that on anyone and hope that we can enact measures to protect athletes, especially the fragile ones. I also do not want to have to engage in a scrutiny of my personal medical history ever again. So, I ask the press for some level of privacy and empathy next time we meet.’

Osaka unknowingly began something of a mental health revolution when she put her mental wellbeing above her work life. By breaking down the stigma around mental health, she has unwittingly lowered the drawbridge for other athletes to take breaks too. An opportunity that many have seized.
Last week, while competing at the Tokyo Olympics, American gymnast Simone Biles was visibly off-form. Following a low-scoring vault, Biles withdrew from numerous remaining events and instead supported her team from the side-lines. Later, it was announced that Biles was withdrawing to protect her mental health, having fallen victim to a gymnast’s condition called the ‘Twisties‘.

The Twisties manifests as a loss of spatial awareness which, for gymnasts, can prove both costly and dangerous. As such, Biles’ decision demonstrates both mental maintenance and a bid for personal safety.

Other athletes who have sought breaks on mental health grounds include English cricketer Ben Stokes, and Olympic champion swimmer Adam Peaty. As these brave athletes have demonstrated, the mental health revolution is gaining much needed pace.

Supporting athletes with mental health problems

One fundamental question which is yet to find an answer is: why do these athletes need mental health breaks? In such high-pressure and mentally damaging professions, surely the coaching teams have well-developed strategies to mitigate the risks both mental and physical? How have we arrived at the stage where athletes must step back from their sport entirely to look after their own health?

The answer that few want to give to this question is that the mental health provision for athletes is lacking. Not non-existent but lacking. There continues to be a stigma around mental health problems the world over. In Japan, for example, where the Olympics are currently being hosted, the stigma around mental health issues is notorious.

Studies have found that among the Japanese general population, mental health disorders are linked to ideas about weakness of personality. People in Japan also keep a greater distance from individuals with mental health problems. These views go towards making Japan worse than Taiwan or Australia when it comes to stigmatising attitudes about mental health issues.

Negative attitudes towards mental illness are present, to varying degrees, in all countries across the globe. Unfortunately, this environment includes elite level athletes and other professionals who ought to be better cared for. The words of Adam Peaty make it clear how overlooked some aspects of a sporting life have become:

‘Reading some of the comments in response to this is why we have such a stigma around mental wellbeing in sport. It isn’t a normal job. There is a huge amount of pressure. Money does not buy happiness.’

The sorry truth is that athletes have been forced into a situation that ought not to have existed in the first place. While mental health provision is getting slowly better, more can and must be done to protect our sportspeople. It would be an incredible shame if people only thought about the wellbeing of their idols once they had disappeared from their TV screen.

About the Author: Isaac Knowles

Isaac Knowles is a contributing current affairs Features writer. He focuses on social issues which face everyday people and has written on topics such as race, feminism, and poverty. While endeavouring to write in-depth pieces that make real-world impacts, Isaac has developed significant expertise in the fields of politics, economics, and human rights.