An Overview of Sports Psychology
Sports Psychology is a discipline that combines many facets of psychology and applies it to those who participate in athletics in any way, shape, or form. Though you may equate psychology to helping those with mental health problems, it is an extremely applicable and wide reaching field. Across the world, sports is the major common denominator. As you see with the Olympics, sports break the barriers between different nations and allow us all to come together to celebrate our love for sports. Humans were made to run and jump and climb; it’s as natural as breathing. That’s why we have mandatory PE classes through grade school. Exercise is good for us. It releases endorphins and neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine. So, if kids around the country are participating in athletics every day, it seems vital that we help their wellbeing by applying the discipline of sports psychology.
Sports psychology is the study of how psychological factors influence all things related to sports and athletes, such as athletic performance, exercise, or just physical activity in general (Cherry 2021). It encompasses how athletes can use psychology to both improve performance in sports and improve their mental well-being on and off the field. Sports psychologists don’t just work for professional athletes, they are focused on provided psychology based tools to help anyone who participates in athletes or exercises.
Let’s go into a little history of sports psychology. In 1925, Coleman Griffith was the first person to use sports psychology to work with athletes at the University of Illinois. Then, in the 1960s, the Soviet Bloc countries started adopting the principles in sports psychology. Later, this application of sports science emerged in Western cultures in the 1980s (Walton). In the last 30 years, sports psychology has been steadily growing in popularity and is now used routinely in athletics, physical education, kinesiology, and sports science. As athletes come speak out about mental health struggles, it has allowed the world to become increasingly more aware of the need for sports psychology principles in aiding struggling athletes. Especially now, during the Olympics, everyone is learning about sports psychology as it is helping world renowned athletes perform to the best of their ability.
In this series, we are going to go through sports psychology principles and practices, as well as its application in everyday life.
References
What is sport psychology? BelievePerform. (2014, April 24). https://believeperform.com/what-is-sport-psychology/.
Cherry, K. (2021, February 1). An overview of sports psychology. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-sports-psychology-2794906.