Event for athletes addresses mental health

The Psychology Club and CSB+SJU’s The Hidden Opponent chapter co-sponsored “Don’t Sweat It: How athletes can manage performance anxiety.” This event discussed performance anxiety and mental health at the collegiate level.  

The Psychology Club “provide[s] psychology-related events to students interested in psychology” according to their mission statement and regularly hosted mental health events. The Hidden Opponent is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting mental health awareness, according to the CSB+SJU chapter’s Instagram website. The joint event focused on finding healthy balances in college for mental wellbeing. 

The interactive presentation highlighted two health experts from the CSB+SJU campus community: Eric Belt and Thomas Carlson. Belt and Carlson’s examination of academic performance through the lens of sports performance provided a unique analogy to help educate students about mental wellbeing.  

Belt is a certified mental performance consultant (CMPC) and professor in the Exercise and Health Sciences department. His academic research focuses on professional development in sport psychology practitioners, according to the CSB+SJU website. Carlson is a licensed professional councilor on campus and CMPC. His graduate research includes mental health counseling, sport and exercise psychology. He has two master’sdegrees and is pursuing licensure to practice clinical counseling. 

Belt and Carlson’s presentation explored the prevalence of stress, types of stress and methods for managing stress. Their presentation was not about eliminating stress; it was about managing it. 

 “There might not be this even balance of things… It’s more like a dance… and by [thinking about it] so, this may allow you to be more present, be more accepting and be more curious,” Carlson said. 

He spoke about the importance of staying grounded and being flexible with stressors in order to prevent burnout. He has encountered athletes that feel mentally burdened by sports mistakes. He encourages these athletes to separate their self-worth from performance in these cases. 

 “Just because I play this sport doesn’t mean that’s who I am,” he said. 

This analogy extends to students and their academic, social and recreational performance. Eric Belt spoke about the dangers of persistent burnout and methods for mental recovery. 

“Pushing through burnout is similar to pushing through an injury and continuing at the same level,” Belt said.  

He made clear distinctions between stress and burnout, noting some stress types can be healthy motivation. Belt explained that sports or academic overtraining often cause fatigue that can be mediated by rest, whereas burnout causes intense emotions, dead and blurred understanding of self-worth and performance level. He said small steps can help slowly recover from burnout. 

 “What is it that you can do to socially and emotionally recover during the week? Small behavior helps to recover those [healthy] energies,” said Belt. 

 In addition to burnout recovery strategies, he suggested a mindset shift to prevent burnout. 

 “Most people are going to have those physiological reactions of being anxious because a perceived idea of, ‘I am anxious because of this, because of this thing that is possibly coming up in the next couple of days.’You may then tell yourself that you’re actually anxious and pair those stimuli together like a psychological association,” Belt said. 

Belt and Carlson explained the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle as one helpful performance mindset. This mindset is used by athletes in strength training, and the speakers suggested it can be helpful for mental wellbeing beyond exercise. 

They concluded the presentation by giving words of encouragement to the attendees. They told students that hard work is worth it. They restated the importance of finding unique grounding strategies that are tailored to suit each individual.