Wrestling is one of the sports where mental health is harshly impacted. Not only is the sport hard on the physical health of the athletes, but it also takes a toll on their psychiatric well-being.
Taking someone on from person to person can be something quite scary and mentally challenging.
Wrestlers have to face challenges such as cranking the heat in the mat room and dropping a couple of pounds to keep the same weight. It takes a large amount of willpower to trudge through these obstacles. Many mental health issues arise with this.
“When you are a girl, it is extremely intimidating,” Teagan Patrick said.
Since wrestling is a male-dominated sport, there are few girls on the team, which is truly awkward. The Lakeland wrestling team has five girls, compared to over several dozen boys. “You just got to push through the pain and believe that you can,” Patrick said.
The sport is physically painful, leaving the mental side highly valuable. With this, having a strong mental view of the sport is strongly advised.
“The mental challenge in the sport is overthinking and overestimating the match,” Austin Howell said.
The nerves can get to some players and can make them worry. It can be nerve-racking to have to go up against someone who may seem more skilled.
It can be really hard to deal with at times and can even harm mental health.
It can be rough to have to deal with not making the weight that was needed.
It can cause the players to become sickly if they do not achieve their weights properly. It can affect their whole personality.
This can also make someone more aggravated and difficult to be around.
Some may also deal with the struggle of stress. With school, it can be a burden added to the wrestler’s shoulders. They have to juggle the stress of wrestling that night and not having enough time to do all the homework that piles up from the school day.
