Sports conditions both your body and your mind. Apart from the obvious physical prowess required to participate in any sport, you need the mental discipline to maintain your focus.
And like any form of exercise, you’ll benefit from the release of neurotransmitters like endorphins that elevate your mood.
Positive emotional effects
Participating in sports can make you less depressed. A research team led by Michael Babyak, PhD, demonstrated that depressed people who participated in structured sporting activities for four months were more likely to report minimal or no depressive symptoms than comparative groups who either took medicine for depression or who used both medicine and exercise.
The American College of Sports Medicine advocates exercise as a way to alleviate depression in adolescents, citing a 2006 study in the “Journal of Abnormal Psychology” as evidence.
Improve anxiety levels
According to an article in the “American Journal of Psychiatry” in December 2005, researchers chemically induced a panic attack in two groups of subjects suffering from an anxiety disorder: one who had just finished exercising for 30 minutes and the other who had rested during this time.
After the injection, both groups became more anxious; however, significantly fewer members in the group that had exercised had a panic attack compared to those in the at-rest group.
Improve confidence
If you are feeling less depressed and anxious, and viewing yourself more positively, then you will also feel more confident overall.
Princeton University Health Services indicates that athletic persons have increased energy, which makes their day-to-day tasks easier.
The New York State Department of Health echoes this statement, indicating anyone can tailor a sports routine to their level to improve independence and self-confidence.
Stress reduction
Sports, from jogging to playing football, serves as exercise and exercise in turn serves as a stress reducer.
Physical activities such as sports cause the brain to release neurotransmitters known as endorphins, that create feelings of euphoria and reduce stress.
On a simpler level, a mind focused on the game is not focused on worries and anxieties.
Playing sports also raises your body temperature, which may exert calming emotional effects.
Improve self-perception
One of the physical benefits of participating in sports is losing weight and gaining muscle, that usually make one look better. This alone helps improve a person’s self-perception.
The Association for Applied Sports Psychology officially lists improved self-perception as a psychological benefit of exercise.
Assertions such as these are given further creditability by a 2000 study published in the journal “Paediatric Exercise Science,” using a large sample of 6,923 adolescents.
Among both male and female teens, the level of exercise was associated with feeling better about their body image.
Negative emotional effects
It’s possible that an over-emphasis on winning can create an unhealthy view of competition and foster feelings of aggression in adolescents.
A 2011 study conducted by the University of California in San Diego found that upset losses led to a 10% increase in at-home violence committed by football players against their spouses.
Athletes who suffer from sports injuries commonly experience negative emotions such as boredom, depression and frustration. Sports injuries may also lead to fatigue, tension, hostility and a sense of uncertainty.
Negative emotions can also hurt one mentally – your emotions are telling you that, deep down, you’re not confident in your ability to perform well and achieve your competitive goals.
Your confidence level will decline and you will have negative thoughts that go along with your negative emotions. Also, since your negative emotions are so strong, you will likely have difficulty focusing on what will help you perform better as negative emotions draw your attention to all the negative aspects of your performance.
Finally, negative emotions can hurt your motivation to perform because you just don’t feel good enough or that particular sporting activity is no longer fun.
This article first appeared in hellodoktor.com. It was reviewed by Dr Duyen Le. The Hello Health Group does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.