Student-athletes spend copious amounts of time with their coaches, but they also spend a considerable amount of time in the classroom with their teachers.
Ambitious student-athletes may spend even more time in practice, and their performance in the classroom, along with their mental health, can be negatively impacted. Coaches can provide mental health support for their athletes, but what about other educators?
Education Week reached out to experts via email about what teachers, counselors, and administrators can do to cultivate a school environment that promotes student-athletes’ mental health and academic success. They offered the following six tips.
1. Encourage healthy sleep schedules
A major problem that plagues many student-athletes is insufficient sleep, according to Melissa S. Xanthopoulos, a psychologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and associate professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Sleep is extremely important for academic learning and athletic skills acquisition and performance, especially for attention, memory, and executive function,” Xanthopoulos said.
When a student doesn’t get enough sleep, their academic performance can decline, and reaction time can slow. At practice or in competition, insufficient sleep can be dangerous for student-athletes, contributing to fatigue during training and increasing the chance of injury, including concussion.
There’s also an effect on students’ mental health from not getting enough sleep.
“Sleep is essential for mental health and emotion regulation. Insufficient sleep is associated with increases in symptoms of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation,” Xanthopoulos said.
However, some coaches may feel the need to use this delayed start time to offer optional practices or conditioning before school, to make up for less available time after school. This doesn’t allow the student-athletes to recover from their exertion the previous day, “thereby negating the rationale and benefits of shifting school start times,” Xanthopoulos said.
2. Encourage growth mindsets focused on the process
Growth mindsets are the belief that talents can develop over time with enough practice, while fixed mindsets are the idea that a person is born with a certain level of talent that will not get any better over time.
“Participating in high school athletics has long-lasting, definitive benefits, especially when athletic leaders create an environment that challenges and rewards the growth mindset,” wrote Steve Amaro, principal of Freedom High School in Brentwood, California, for the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) website.
Fixed mindsets cause individuals to view stressors as barriers that cannot be overcome. Growth mindsets lead individuals to view those stressors as challenges, leading to a growing sense of persistence and focus, Xanthopoulos explained.
Teachers can enforce the importance of a growth mindset for student-athletes, which could help them understand how their mindset is either helping or hindering them, Xanthopoulos wrote.
3. Teach safe social media use
Many student-athletes run social media accounts to promote themselves, develop connections with coaches, fans, and other athletes, and—more recently—make money through name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals.
However, social media has been associated with mental health risks and challenges like anxiety, depression, and stress in adolescents.
With children starting to use social media at younger ages, student-athletes in middle school might already be using social media.
"[Following other athletes and teams] can contribute to feelings of inadequacy, increased anxiety, and decreased confidence...Responses, comments, and both successes and failures...can positively or negatively impact a student-athlete’s mental health,” Xanthopoulos wrote in an email.
With NIL compensation a factor, some ambitious high school athletes might increase their time on social media hoping not only to land collegiate scholarships, but endorsement deals that begin with social media presence. That potentially places “increased pressure” on student-athletes’ social media presence, Xanthopoulos said.
“Schools and educators should support student-athletes in providing education and information about safe social media use and bring awareness and resources on navigating NIL opportunities,” Xanthopoulos said.
4. Encourage extracurricular activities outside of athletics
Athletes must balance their academic demands with athletic demands.
“Successful athletes tend to show higher levels of...conscientiousness and extroversion, and have more positive emotions such as being more [energized], efficient and [organized],” John Bradley, exercise physiologist and coaching scientist said.
Students who perform well academically show similar characteristics.
“Being successful in an extracurricular activity alongside academic pursuits has the potential to enhance the academic achievement and lead to greater success [academically and athletically],” Bradley said.
Extracurricular activities outside of sports can help academic achievement. Bradley recommends educators use these strategies to promote the best development:
- Student-athletes should participate in the extracurriculars as much as possible during the week.
- The extracurricular activity should include a competitive component, such as music, debate, or arts activities.
- The extracurricular activity must be of interest to the student-athlete and in addition to normal, timetabled classes.
“Schools can promote this by offering a range of extracurricular activities to allow their students to try a range of activities, to then pursue the activities that they like the best,” Bradley said.
5. Provide a healthy line of communication
From extra time to complete assignments to potential financial support, student-athletes may need help balancing their workload with their athletic obligations. This can be done through a constant line of communication between the student and a counselor or school representative.
Communication enables the student and educator to understand the expectations on both sides and come to an agreement on what may be needed for the student’s academic success.
This communication shouldn’t only be about academic deadlines and expectations. It should also be about student-athletes’ well-being.
Stigma—a general feeling of shame or disgrace resulting in social exclusion, isolation, and embarrassment—may be a barrier to mental health support and treatment, and student-athletes can be less likely to use mental health services than their peers, Xanthopoulos said.
“Educators can help to reduce stigma by having consistent, open, and nonjudgmental conversations about mental health promotion,” Xanthopoulos said.
6. Ensure adequate access to mental health resources
When students want to participate in school sports, they must provide evidence of a physical examination to verify good health or raise any mental or physical health concerns.
Schools could use this process to determine whether any student-athletes might need mental health support.
“Schools should have a team in place, consisting of a team physician, athletic trainer, school nurses, counselors, and connections to community-based behavioral health professions...to receive referrals for student-athletes,” Xanthopoulos said.
Balancing the competing demands of school, sports, and social lives may contribute to anxiety, depression, and a lack of focus, which can hinder academic and athletic success, Xanthopoulos said.
“NCAA best practices recommend schools, educators, and coaches should develop a multi-system mental health promotion plan that starts with a culture of wellness that normalizes health care seeking; diversity, equity, inclusion; and acknowledges a trauma-informed approach for student-athletes,” Xanthopoulos said.
