I am a female, freshman student athlete competing on the NCAA swimming and diving team here at the University of South Carolina.  As I am now finished with my first season as a collegiate athlete, I have experienced many different feelings and emotions through out my transition to college.  I am privileged to be a student athlete, and it comes with many positive things such as a built in group of friends and a support system.  My athletics brought me here, across the country from my home in California, friends and family, and that alone is a huge change.  And while my first season was an overall success, it was filled with ups and downs, and ultimately a stage in my life where anxiety and depression were very prevalent in my average day.  The stress that I experienced due to school, diving, and social expectations was more than I could have ever anticipated.  This, coupled with the fatigue of early morning practices and late night studying, and a smidgen of homesickness, I was thrown into a place of sadness even though I was doing what I love. 

Approximately 10-20% of all student athletes competing at the NCAA level are suffering from depression according to the American Studies foundation (Gill 85).  Even farther, the same study notes that this is higher than their non-athlete counterparts (Vickers).  Large amounts of stress can further develop negative emotions that lead to disorders such as anxiety and depression, closely relating the effects of stress to depression (Wang et al).  The unique level of stress that I have faced during my first year of college as an athlete has illuminated what these numbers mean to me.  Collegiate athletes are faced with a multitude of challenges and a higher level of stress in their four years as a student athlete due to the unique circumstances they are in during their daily lives as a student athlete.  This extra stress and these unique challenges cause student athletes to have a higher risk of anxiety and depression than non-athletes. 

Entering into the college atmosphere as a freshman is a drastic change for any high school student; however, this transition can have an even greater effect on the student athlete.  In her article "Stress On College Athletes," Terry Hurley expounds on the fact that freshman student athletes must adjust to the demands of their sports and athletics.  Learning to balance a schedule can be hard for anyone, but with a full load of classes and twenty hours per week of athletic training maintained by the NCAA, athletes have an added factor that increases the intensity of their schedules.  Freshman student athletes can also feel the loss of 'star status.'  Athletes may "no longer receive the attention and status they are accustomed to getting form fans, fellow students, coaches, and family," which can feel like a detrimental loss (Papanikolau et al).  Often expecting to participate fully their freshman year, athletes may obtain an insurmountable amount of stress when they are not chosen to travel or participate in certain athletic events (Papanikolau et al).  The aspiration to travel to every meet, game, match or competition may increase an athletes stress levels, and cause the athlete to develop even more anxiety over their athletic performance than normally expected.  This stress is incorporated throughout their entire four-year experience with the fear of being 'benched.'

Many of the students athletes that enter as freshman are also used to having special treatment from coaches, but being the best on a high school or club team is very different than joining a college team.  The recruiting process does not help this notion because recruits are treated in this manner during official visits (Papanikolau et al).  Athletes are flown out to schools, all expenses paid, and treated like royalty.  Without the actual knowledge of what a head coach is really like to a team, freshman athletes come in overestimating the amount of personal contact they have with coaches, and the personal interest the coach shows in the athlete, luring them into the realm of self-worthlessness, which can ultimately lead to depression (Hurley).  

Maintaining A grades is a struggle for any student on a college campus, however student athletes are held to an even greater standard by the NCAA.  The NCAA rules state that "Division I student athletes must complete 40 percent of the coursework required for a degree by the end of their second year," and must also reach GPA standards set by the institution ("Remaining Eligible: Academics").  Student athletes must learn to quickly balance their athletics and academics if they plan to stay eligible during even their first season.  Ann Kearns Davoren and Seunghyun Hwang address the repercussions of this added stress in their article, published by the NCAA in Mind Body and Sport: Understanding and Supporting Student-Athlete Mental Wellness, stating that the combined stress of school and sports can lead to anxiety and depression which further the regression of grades and athletic performance (38).  This is a cycle of high stress reporting to low grades in turn again increasing stress and so on.  

Another unique stressor regarding academics in a student athlete's career is missing classes for competitions.  Sports such as baseball and football have been recorded missing up to 2-3 classes missed each week during season (Moltz).  There has been a time balance shifted onto athletics, leaving academics to be dealt with in the spare time.  To continue to be eligible and keep a standard GPA, student athletes are required to go beyond the regular time commitment to regain the time that was lost to missing class plus their work outside of class.  This added pressure to be able to keep up with grades while missing an outrageous amount of school causes extreme stress, anxiety, and even depression amongst student athletes (Wilson & Pritchard).  Academic stressors are just another addition to the list of factors that lead to mental health issues of student athletes, including injuries.

The list of risk factors for anxiety and depression continue as further observation leads into the unavoidable event of injuries of student athletes.  Margot Putukian expresses in her article titled, "How Being Injured Affects Mental Health," that injuries can "trigger or unmask serious mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, disordered eating ... " (61).  Putukian explains that with an injury that prevents an athlete from playing, the athlete may feel a lack of motivation, frustration, anger sadness, and even isolation as the rest of the team continues to train without them (61).  Athletes may begin to feel that they "don't deserve" to train with the team, or continue a normal caloric intake after they have returned to their sport because they took so much time off and are not good enough, leading to increased mental disorders.  Even just the fear of an injury is enough to stress an athlete into anxiety during a competitive season when the results can be so detrimental to their training.

Being injured can have a detrimental effect on a student athlete's mental health.  According to multiple studies, female student athletes are at higher risk to anxiety and depression than male student athletes especially while freshman or when injured (Yang et al).  Reasoning behind this includes that women participating in certain sports such as racing, diving and gymnastics, which are all directly affected by the athletes weight, cause more stress for the athlete to maintain a certain body image.  In judged sports like gymnastics and diving, the athlete is scored directly by the way they look in a leotard or bathing suit.  Even with the physical training these athletes have, these expectations can cause anxiety leading to eating disorders and depression.  

Chronic fatigue has been directly linked to depression, one causing the other and vice versa (Nall).  Fatigue comes with being a college student, all-nighters are a well known and performed thing on college campuses.  All of these stressors listed above that are unique to student athletes, compile into large amounts of fatigue that are hard to cope with when handling a schedule as hectic as an athletes.  Athletes not only have school and homework during the day, but they also have 4+ hours of athletic training, including morning practices that start as early as 5:30 am, and afternoon practices ending late.  By adding all of these hours of training, it is not surprising that athletes are experiencing chronic fatigue, progressing into depression.

Being a student athlete does however also have a positive affect on mental health.  Recent studies have shown that athletes in college, whether NCAA or recreational, have "lower levels of global psychopathology in comparison to the normative sample [population]" (Donohue et al 33).  The reasons behind the results of this study are listed to be that student athletes are more socially involved, have greater self-esteem, and increased serotonin levels due to exercise (34).  

In an article titled "Social Support Moderates Stress Effects on Depression," the author studies and examines the ways that moderating stress lowers the symptoms of depression (Wang et al).  Studies show that college students who have better social support due to their, study groups, clubs, teams, and families show less symptoms of depression than those with a lack of social support but an equal amount of stress (Wang et al).  As student athletes have a built-in group of people that they must socialize with to be on a team, it is therefore believed that the social connectedness that a student athletes gains from being on a team lower their risk of depression (Maurer).  

Athletes do have the social and emotional support of their fellow athletes and coaches, however competition between teammates and stressed relationships between coaches and athletes can deteriorate the support system that athletes are said to have (Maurer).  Often times student athletes are competing with each other starting positions, favoritism from the coach, school records, or even just a spot on the team.  Due to this tension, teammates are often times not the best support system for student athletes, but their limited contact with non-athletes makes it hard to have many other people to lean on.  Relationships between athletes and coaches can be touchy also, because many times athletes are not comfortable confiding in a coach their mental problems in fear of loss of respect or other consequences (Schwenk 4).  As a result of the possible strain of athlete-athlete and athlete-coach relationships, student athletes may not have the strong support system that Wang's article suggests.

It is a well known fact that exercise releases endorphins and serotonin into the body which reduces stress basically increasing happiness (Talebiyannia 56).  The central claim of Talebiyannia's article is that the optimism, positive excitement, and entertainment of being on a team and doing physical activity as an athlete makes athletes generally happier than non athletes (57).  However, while making these claims, the authors have not considered the fact that even though physical activity is known to reduce stress, when the exercise becomes the stress in someone's life it no longer has the same mood boosting effects that it normally would.  Athletes are at a 50% risk of getting injured while training for their sport, and collegiate athletes must avoid injuries as much as possible to stay 'in the game' (Maurer).  

The constant metronome of the collegiate athlete's schedule: practice-class-practice-homework, repeated each day is enough to make any athlete tired of their sports.  Because of the extent of time spent preforming their sports, some athletes develop a lack of desire to continue their training.  The athlete does not have the option to stop practicing, or take time off especially during a competition season where practices are extra intense and strictly mandatory.  This can cause athletes to develop depression even with the daily exercise that is known to increase happiness. Therefore, the stress of becoming injured while working out and training, and the dread of attending yet another practice is enough to reverse the positive effects of exercise on mental health that are supporting that athletes are generally happier than non athletes. 

Participation in athletics suggests an increased level of self-esteem and confidence in body image (Proctor & Boan-Lenzo 205).  Due to the excessive amounts of exercise done by athletes, they are often times more physically fit than that of the normal student in a college atmosphere.  However, in sports such as diving and gymnastics where the physical appearance of one's self is directly judged upon and used to score an athlete, the stress to maintain a 'perfect' body is very great.  This stress and anxiety caused by the need to stay fit and trim in judged sports like these can lead athletes into eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia which are also symptoms of depression (Vickers).  Therefore, even though athletes often have better self-confidence than non-athletes, some are still at higher risk of mental disorders due to the demands of their sport.  

The amount of students participating in NCAA regulated sports in college is on the rise, and with increasing numbers of depression amongst people ages 18-25, now is the time to take a step towards helping and preventing mental health disorders in student athletes (Proctor & Boan-Lenzo 205).  In Wilson and Pritchard's article, they propose that it is extremely important to recognize the unique stresses that are put on athletes especially in their freshman year.  Prevention programs should be put in place by athletic departments and head coaches of each sport to adequately screen athletes for anxiety and depression in order to catch symptoms early when the athlete has not admitted to a mental health decrease (Wilson & Pritchard).  

Multiple researches have produced results similar to the ones found in "Examination of Psychiatric Symptoms in Student Athletes," where student athletes were shown to express less psychiatric symptoms, i.e. anxiety and depression, than the control group of college non-athletes (Donohue et al 29).  Almost all of these experiments are conducted by survey in which each participant self-reports through a questionnaire about their mental health.  This method of study, while effective with completely honest participants, may provide a reason for the discrepancies between these experiments results and the hypothesized results of the studies.  Student athletes are well aware that there are major consequences resulting in the admitting of a mental health problem, including being pulled out of competitions for the remainder of a season.  Also, the stigma on an athletic team of being weak is the last thing any team member wants, even if they have to suffer through their mental illness to be 'tough.'  Student athletes are likely to deny their mental illness due to the stigmatism and course of action that must be taken when it is admitted to (Schwenk 4).  The probability of athletes denying their real struggles with anxiety and depression may account for the results in these studies.

Wilson and Pritchard also suggest in their article that to reduce stress athletes from different sports can be put into groups in order to share their experiences as collegiate athletes.  By giving student athletes a gateway to express themselves can be extremely beneficial when they are struggling with anxiety or depression but have not spoken up about it (Wilson and Pritchard).  Separating the athletes into groups with athletes that are not on their own sports team will also reduce the potential 'teammate tension' that goes on between competing teammates.  By providing student athletes with a support system that is not of their own team, but of people who do share the same experience of being a student athlete, student athletes may be able to better deal with their transition into college, and the challenges they face as student athletes (Wilson & Pritchard).  Some sources argue that the specific stressors that athletes are under and other factors call for plans to address their psychological health (Neal T. et al 231).  Others argue that as more students in a college student body are becoming athletes, extra attention needs to be given to student athletes in the social work field (Gill 85).  By spreading awareness about the prevalence of depression amongst student athletes, athletes may be more receptive to the services they are provided by the school, such as in-house sport psychologists. Emmett Gill even proposes that Psychology graduate students at each university could be used as extra support for athletes to help with budgeting while also providing extra help to the athletes (87).  Increased awareness of the risks, and easy access to help may encourage athletes to take their mental health more serious and seek the help of professionals.

Growing up as an athlete I, like most other athletes, was told to suck it up, or that athletes are tougher than that, get back up there and do it again, with this mentality stuck in our brains over and over, it is hard for us to admit that there can be a problem, that sometimes we just cannot be that tough.  Now that I am a collegiate student athlete, I know that we do not always have to be the toughest person in the room, it is alright to seek help and admit I have a problem, or make changes to help with my mental health, because depression is on the rise in the United States, and student athletes are not exempt from feeling the effects of stress and anxiety.  Collegiate student athletes face challenges each and every day that increase the amount of anxiety and depression they experience, and it is time to take a stand and begin to protect our student athletes.

