Student Athletes

Student Athletes

Student Athletes

INTRODUCTION

The college years represent a transitional period between late adolescence and early adulthood. It is during this time that traditional college students, ages 18-25, may be on their own for the first time, struggle to create or cement their own individual personalities, adjust to a new environment both academically and personally, maintain levels of academic achievement high enough to continue their passage through college, and manage their time efficiently. Additionally, financial issues, disagreements with parents, friends, or peers, and the struggle to fit in may also put a toll on students. Furthermore, they may face self-imposed pressures related to finding a job or a potential life partner. Such challenges can place an extremely high amount of stress on students as they try to master all the tasks at hand. While moderate amounts of stress have shown to motivate and enhance performance, high amounts of stress and the inability to cope with stress can be detrimental both to health and academic performance.

It is obvious navigating the everyday life and stressors of a typical college student can be challenging. However certain subpopulations within this cohort face even greater stressors. Student athletes are a prime example of this. Student athletes represent a diverse, unique population with special needs due to their roles on campus and their atypical lifestyles. Much like their peers, student athletes must master the challenge of cognitive and developmental tasks such as identity exploration, career decision making, forming effective interpersonal relationships, developing self-esteem, and achieving autonomy. However, unlike their non-athlete students, student athletes face overwhelming time commitments, unrelenting public scrutiny, daily physically and emotionally grueling workouts, a high-profile existence on and off campus, and demanding expectations both on and off the playing field. Such stresses associated with sport participation can affect the mental or emotional health of student athletes. In fact, it has been founded that almost half of the male athletes and slightly more than half of the female athletes interviewed reported that stresses associated with sport participation significantly affected their mental or emotional health.

Review of literature

Student athletes must deal with all the typical pressures of college in addition to training and competition. The additional weight pressures associated with their sport and status at the institution can increase the stress experienced by the student athlete. However, sources of stress as well as levels of stress can vary by level of intercollegiate athletic competition. Research has indicated that stress produces physiological changes which directly harm health. For example, psychological stress leads to exaggerated cardiovascular responses, enhanced platelet aggregation, coronary vasoconstriction, plaque rupture, myocardial ischemia, and arrhythmias, all of which are part of the process ultimately leading to myocardial infarction (MI) or sudden death. However, stress is a problem to college students and student athletes not only because of the direct strain it can place on them physically, emotionally, and academically, but also because of the indirect affect it can have on their health behaviors. It has been suggested that an 'aversive state' like stress can encourage individuals ...