Living in the time of the expert
How will this era be reflected upon in 100 years? I find it a worthwhile and entertaining task to project forwards and look back. My conclusions are plenty: how will our current governments be viewed? Will historians with the benefit of their current luxuries condemn or applaud the directions we have taken?
We will be known as the era where mental health was truly founded, and an era that allowed sufferers to come forward. We are the first generation to advertise support, celebrities and public figures show openness, you can ask and find help — you may say out loud I am not feeling well or that worries me, please help. Mental health is doing well, it is going the right way.
This is huge, it really is, as a student of psychology I am honoured to have lived in the age where mental health support came to be. It needs work, of course it does. But real men feel and have feelings, tough guys get worried, heroes can be anxious, and winners do get stressed. I am allowed to write this article. Anxiety is as prevalent as the common cold, we all suffer with it from time to time — some, admittedly, more than others.
But my prediction is they will look at mental health in this era and deem it a great contradiction.
Along with the increase of mental health awareness, we are riddled with a saturation of success stories, meticulously curated news feeds, and plethora of ‘experts’ — mindset coaches, normal coaches, athletes themselves pounding away at the keyboards offering tales of success and promised dreams without substance or understanding.
There are countless studies linking social media to anxiety and depression through the comparisons we make on social media. Instagram feeds are often polished accounts preaching endless self-improvement and showcasing successes, or talking about how they’ve overcome struggles in their life and sharing their ‘wisdom’ with others on how to do it too.
Yes — talking about depression is the right thing to do, but there is however no requirement to share with each and every person you meet. It’s brave to talk to family and loved ones but entirely unnecessary to share with all. If in time, with great reflection, you would like to help others by sharing your story, it is to be welcomed — but you should never feel under pressure to do so. For anyone who is suffering, sharing is an incredibly hard thing to do. But there are many on social media who use talking about anxiety and depression as a tool used to gain followers and portray themselves as strong and successful for overcoming it.
Mental health in sport is greatly publicised and many of the heroes share their stories with an honest and genuine desire to help. The analysis of the way in which a retired sports person speaks of coping vs a current active sports person is fascinating. The active athlete misses the reflective side, they hope to hop straight to cure, they want to be better quicker, in some respects they lose the ability to rationalise their problem. In many cases they fail to acknowledge they have a problem, there are some clear signs we as coaches, friends or loved ones can look out for:
Over bravado: bragging or attention seeking more than normal, looking for validation in training partners, piers or crowds
Lying: you will very often catch them in lies or several mistruths
Diverting attention from what they love by ‘wanting to have fun’
Isolation: wanting to train alone, not participating in social activities
There’s a common misconception that depression, anxiety, fear, and stress (DAFS) are separate diagnoses — and perhaps at the top end of medical institutions a distinction or explanation of each is sought after and discussed. For the sufferer, they are one and the same. We are entitled to name our suffering as we will. Working personally and coaching with what I call DAFS within sport and fitness a few commonalities come to light.
For the most part it comes and goes, there are periods of light and periods of great struggle. Analysis of what tends to bring on symptoms are both striking and worrying. There are, of course, the normal mood swings that each of us encounter on a daily basis relating to training performance, competition results, feeling unfit, any of these elements for prolonged periods can leave the athlete feeling down and lacking in motivation. This is not necessarily DAFS — this is a bad training period — it is not pleasant, it needs solving and support, it does not need medicating and for most part it disappears with a good training session.
The average sports person understands this, they ride the waves and very rarely does a period of bad form lead to a symptom of DAFS. The single most destructive, problematic area for athletes is comparison. Bringing a group of athletes together to learn from one another and grow tends to bring on very few symptoms, it hardens them. Athletes hate losing but do not mind it, they know it’s part of the game. What is highly destructive to athletes is the super-human picture they create of their competitors. They see their competitors as infallible beasts, and they begin to see their own mortality. It’s a very negative combination which spirals very quickly. It’s not a coincidence that weeks before competitions this starts to intensify.
The athletes start to imagine their competitors training double hours, lifting twice as much, running faster, they start to accuse them of having inside information, they begin to resent them, harbour hate — and as we all know that leads to the dark side of the force. This all makes them feel weaker, and the Doubt, Anxiety, Fear, Stress cycle starts leading to depressive symptoms and thoughts.
The athletes’ own imagination can be bad enough, but when this is fuelled by the perils of social media the problems really begin. There is nothing more destructive for a tired, hard working, honest, under-pressure athlete than seeing or reading about others achievements, having it shoved in your face. The worst part of it is that we do it to ourselves. The scrolling becomes addictive and when you’re deep in the mindset of comparison, you can’t help but look.
We work hard with athletes to recognise the signs and help to guide athletes away from the comparison mindset. One option is to avoid social media altogether, and as social media’s damage becomes increasingly apparent the platforms themselves are taking measures to help, which is to be commended. Other options include: asking athletes to set intrinsic goals, and helping them to get to know themselves and what is important to them.
Athletes that are driven by others and what others are doing are at risk — moving attention away from what others are doing and self focus is crucial. Asking the athletes to seek help from a professional can also be beneficial, it is important to note that we mean a professional who is educated to provide correct counselling for their circumstances.
Lists, diaries, self understanding assignments, and breathing exercises can be done in the short term to support the athletes, which helps to a certain point. However the most helpful tool is to speak with an educated professional. Having athletes, like anyone else, face the problem and confess the problem remains the toughest and most crucial part of the process — it can be a time of conflict and the right process must be taken.
At Red Pill, we work hard to share balanced 360 degree views of our business, athletes, and coaches on social media, we do not just show the 1 RMs or wins — we acknowledge the battles and losses. We try to motivate ourselves to work hard. We must share this responsibility as training providers, athletes, educators dare I say it influencers or media. You have a responsibility to share the truth — share with your heart or do not share.
In 100 years they will look back and say: this was the time of mental health and the biggest cause of the problems was right in front of them. They were plagued by comparisons on social media and an ‘expert’ on every scroll. It was the most harmful thing they could be exposed to and their lives were saturated with it.