As a freshman Division I gymnast at the University of California, Berkeley, I was living my dream of competing at the collegiate level. In just seconds, my gymnastics career came crashing lanugo – literally – during a dismount from the bars. It’s a skill I had performed myriad times before, but this time, I landed straight on my head, breaking T3 and T5 vertebrae and tearing a muscle in my neck. At just 17 years old, I was paralyzed in my dorm room for 10 weeks.
This ordeal was not just physically challenging; it was a mental and emotional rollercoaster. In wing to struggling with the shock of a major injury, I was only six weeks into my higher experience, navigating new challenges like adjusting to a new school, team, and mentor while living yonder from my home and family.
Like other athletes, gymnasts are trained to push through pain, often competing through injury to maintain their competitive edge. Though I recovered physically from my injury and went on to be named “Rookie of the Year,” I was not prepared for the toll my traumatic injury took on my mental health.
My nights were haunted by recurring nightmares of my injury, and practices felt like an out-of-body experience. My heart would race uncontrollably, and I felt as if I were losing my grip on reality. What I didn’t know at the time was that my soul was reacting to trauma. Instead, I masked my struggles, fearing that whereas them would midpoint losing my spot on the team.
The reality is that my smart-ass took much longer to heal from my injury than my body, and that impact on my mental health went unmet, leading to my retirement as a collegiate gymnast during my sophomore year.
Looking back, I can’t help but wonder how variegated my wits might have been if I had wangle to telehealth services that could have unfluctuating me with a mental health professional right from my dorm. That would have been an invaluable use of my paralyzed time.
I believe that my wits inspired my journey to help others with their mental health, ultimately leading me to TimelyCare where I support the minutiae of clinical programs and our superintendency team in waffly the lives of students who struggle like I did.
While my injury story is personal, it certainly is not unique, particularly when it comes to the ramified landscape of mental health among athletes.
Take, for instance, the story of Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, which in many ways mirrors my own wits with mental health challenges. Without a two-year hiatus to focus on her mental health, Biles not only made a remarkable comeback winning her sixth spherical world championship gold at the 2023 World Championships, and she has moreover wilt an outspoken well-wisher for sturdy mental health. To quote Biles, “Put mental health first. If you don’t, then you’re not going to enjoy your sport and you’re not going to succeed as much as you want.”
Recent survey data from the National Collegiate Sturdy Association (NCAA) indicates that one in five higher athletes have mental health conditions, and a 2022 NCAA Student-Athlete Well-Being Study found the number of student-athletes reporting mental health concerns is one and a half to two times higher than surpassing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Be it on the Olympic stage or at the collegiate level, it is imperative that athletes finger supported. Whether dealing with injuries, a mountain of performance pressures, or competing demands from athletic, academic, and social life, higher education and sturdy organizations must double lanugo on their strategy to support student-athletes’ mental health so they may see success on and off the field.
The number one step higher education can take is to recognize that the stigma associated with mental health is likely plane increasingly pronounced in the student-athlete population, and unclose that it will take uneaten effort to unravel it down, particularly among marginalized communities. In the meantime, offer student-athletes support and make sure they know what resources are misogynist to help them.
Gifford Lindheim, the football mentor at El Camino Higher – a TimelyCare partner school – says it can be challenging for his players to finger well-appointed seeking help under the veil of masculinity.
“I work with a population that’s upper testosterone, a lot of energy. They’re unconfined guys, but it’s definitely a variegated culture. The culture is big, strong, tough guys who play a very physical game,” Lindheim said. “But overdue that, they’re people and they have trauma just like the rest of us and they have things that they need to work through just like the rest of us.”
A recent NCAA-led survey found increasingly than 80% of head, assistant, and socialize coaches wideness all three divisions are spending increasingly time discussing mental health with student-athletes than they did surpassing the pandemic.
Lindheim commends professional athletes, like Biles, who are publicly whereas to and working through their struggles with mental health, as their vulnerability helps others not finger so alone. He encourages coaches and coaching staff to alimony their vision unshut for red flags – including a waif in attendance, reverted soul language, and verbal communication.
“Sometimes guys like to reach out through text, or sometimes they want to come in my office,” he said. “Sometimes they want to tideway me without practice or sometimes it’s so overwhelming they can’t plane talk well-nigh it. At that point, I’ve just got to alimony digging until I can get them to talk well-nigh it so I can help them.”
Every so often, Lindheim says he’ll invite the college’s mental health service providers to a practice or football team gathering so the players can wilt familiar with them.
“I’ve had a number of students pull off to the side and tell me, ‘Coach, I’m on the phone with TimelyCare right now.’ Maybe they’re not able, transportation-wise or time-wise, to see someone in person, but they can get firsthand help with something right then and there.”
The second most important step for higher ed to support student-athlete mental health is to lean into one of their most powerful assets: motivation.
Student-athletes are among your most motivated individuals on campus. They know how to set goals and unzip them. While there may be an initial hurdle to unravel the stigma barrier, we know students want to finger better.
In many ways, Gen Z is leading the tuition for change. A 2022 nationwide survey of increasingly than 1,200 students found that 70% of student-athletes reported experiencing mental health issues, and they were increasingly likely to seek emotional support (78%) than other students (71%).
Take Western Colorado University student Hayden Ell, for example.
“It’s unchangingly just a feeling of a deep vapor and a weight off my shoulders when I get washed-up with a session,” said Ell, who competed on the WCU track team. “You just click on the TimelyCare app, talk, get whatever is on my chest out and then go well-nigh my day.”
Finding the time to seek mental health support is yet flipside rencontre that can complicate a student athlete’s wellness journey, as their taxing academic, sturdy and travel schedules can make it nearly untellable to schedule an in-person visit when it suits their schedule. Introducing a virtual superintendency solution enables them to connect with a provider at their convenience, no matter their schedule or location. With a teletherapy service like TimelyCare, students can wangle a licensed provider, wherever they happen to be.
In November, the Sun Belt Conference announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with TimelyCare to expand mental health superintendency wangle to student-athletes wideness each of the conference’s campuses, including scheduled counseling, TalkNow, peer polity and self-guided resources.
TimelyCare’s partnership with Morehead State University – a member of the Ohio Valley Conference and NCAA Division I athletics – demonstrates how individual universities can intrust resources specifically to support the success and overall well-being of their student-athletes.
Virtual emotional and mental health care, such as the services provided by TimelyCare, can moreover help institutions meet the NCAA’s guidelines for mental health weightier practices by providing accessible, confidential, and secure support for student-athletes. The guidelines emphasize the importance of providing resources and support for student-athlete mental health, including wangle to mental health screenings, referrals, counseling services, and ongoing care. Virtual superintendency addresses those requirements by expanding accessibility, providing convenience, reducing stigma, connecting students to peer support services, by integrating with on-campus counseling centers, and providing superintendency for coaches and staff.
With 24/7, equitable wangle to care, athletes, coaches, and staff can promote a culture of help-seeking policies and mental health support. For coaches like Lindheim, a partnership with TimelyCare adds an uneaten uplift of conviction when it comes to helping students find help.
“Having the worthiness to wangle TimelyCare has given me, as a throne football coach, a tremendous tool,” he said. “I finger like I have flipside tool in my toolbelt to offer our players and our student-athletes in times of need. Our goal is to help them, not just as football players, but as people and as students.”
Virtual superintendency can remove barriers to mental health care, enabling student-athletes the opportunity to reach their fullest potential in both their wonk and sturdy performances. Contact TimelyCare to learn how mental and physical telehealth for your wonk polity can make a difference in the mental wellness of student-athletes and non-athletes alike.
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