By: Lidia Garcia, MSW
As a competitive middle-distance runner, mental health professional, and lululemon Los Angeles City Ambassador for Run, I am passionate about mental health for athletes. My personal experience as a woman of color in competitive sport and elite academic institutions and my work as a therapist at the Institute and Flourish has driven my advocacy for mental health in athletic and academic spaces.
What are the mental health and health benefits of physical activity?
You have likely heard that physical activity supports mental wellness. It can:
- reduce feelings of depression and anxiety
- provide positive reinforcement to boost self-esteem and confidence
- support a healthy body image and relationship with food
- foster healthy connections through friendships and community
Consistent physical activity across the life course also has health benefits such as:
- prevention of chronic disease
- maintenance of bone density and muscle mass
- overall mobility throughout one’s life
How does therapy help athletes?
My focus is sport psychology, but as someone who has trained in social work I’m supporting my clients beyond sports and engaging the full ecology of a person. Very often sport is analogous to life, and our perceptions are shaped by our lived-experiences as well as both familial and societal messaging. This messaging, whether real or perceived, can affect how an individual handles pressure, overcomes setbacks, responsibly manages time, communicates needs, navigates disagreements, prioritizes sleep, measures worth, and ultimately influences performance.
Therapy assists with developing skills and strategies for managing responses related to athletic performance; these skills learned in sport can be transferable to other areas of life.
Further reflection on one’s ecological messaging can be challenging and can look something like this:
- When there is a barrier to access, how do you advocate for yourself and your team?
- When nerves get the better of you, what skills are you employing to adjust your mindset?
- For parents, as your daughter develops into a young adult, what kind of messaging do you provide when it comes to menstruation, breast health, body shape, and food?
- How do you advocate for your daughter when a coach insists she play through an injury, lest it ruin her chances of college recruitment?
- How do you manage your expectations of her performance?
- How do you support a healthy ecology for your athlete?
- How do you and she learn the value and difference between longevity versus temporary success?
My practice focuses on a value-driven mindset, resilience, advocacy, and enhancing a true mind-body partnership that not only improves sports performance but enhances self-worth across a lifespan. I look forward to supporting your athlete or yourself at all levels of performance.
hat are some actionable recommendations for athletes?
- Dream big! Then identify the small actions required to achieve that goal.
- Be flexible. It’s ok to try lots of things and fail at some of them. What’s most important is that you enjoy something enough to be consistent at it.
- Figure out what’s important to you, and by that I mean identify your values. Values are the anchor for why we do things both in sport and in life.
- Get to know your inner voice, listen to your body, and make adjustments as needed.
What are recommendations for the parents of athletes?
- Always find the positives and encourage your athlete, don’t discourage her by highlighting mistakes or comparing her to others.
- Invest in appropriate equipment to limit physical barriers. For girls, this can mean having a proper sports bra as breasts begin to develop.
What is the recent history of women’s and girls’ participation in sport?
Fewer than 100 years ago, it was believed that women were too delicate and frail to participate in athletic competition. For the sport of running in particular, women were barred from distance races until the 1970s. A professional women’s marathon competition was not introduced to the world stage until the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
You may be thinking to yourself, “Who cares about the marathon?”. This example illustrates the recent nature of athletic participation in our girls, across sports, as well as the attitudes that have shaped expectations of girls and women in competitive or noncompetitive sport.
Today, not only do women make up close to 50% of runners and marathon finishers, the sport of track and field has become the most popular among high school girls, along with volleyball and soccer. Athletic participation in general is more accessible and acceptable for girls and women than it has been for previous generations.
What are the current barriers to entry?
There continue to be barriers to entry – such as limited resources and funding, lack of representation, and access by schools and communities to engage in safe and equitable sporting opportunities.
Title IX was an historic moment for women and girls in sport; however we continue to find examples of disproportionate investment in sports programs based on gender.
Limited support for resources, appropriate sports equipment, and settling for the playing field full of gopher holes that the boy’s team didn’t want are all major barriers to continued participation. Lack of diversity in body shape, skin tone, ethnic background, and ability also create both mental and physical obstacles for engagement and belonging.
Despite these barriers, I encourage youth, teens, and adults to engage in consistent physical activity, mental health guidance, and advocacy initiatives to reap the many benefits these practices offer across a life course and within our communities.