Mental health is important! – Steve’s Badminton Blog and Website

We all heard about the physical injuries which hamper players, but there is one other aspect which is neglected, and that is mental health. Recently Fred went through a traumatic event, which affected him deeper than I expected and it in turn, affected his game badly. Let’s discuss.

Viktor Axelsen wrote about Beiwen Zhang’s challenges with mental health some time back, and it is indeed a serious issue. When competiting in tough conditions for very long, it is mentally draining. In every tournament, there can only be 1 winner, and all the other players would have to lose. It is dealing with losing which is mentally draining. What went wrong, what could be improved, where there gaps in the preparation, were there tactical errors, were there gaps in skills, etc. All these takes a huge mental toll on the players.

For a teenager like Fred, even some life events can be traumatic. Fred has a traumatic experience at a school event, and that lingered in his mind for quite a while. It got so bad that he was not able to concentrate in his latest tournament and lost tamely.

As a seasoned IT professional who have experienced this personally, I could recognize the symptoms. This requires quick action to help Fred get closure on the incident, so that he can move on. I had to have long heart to heart talks with him to let him know that incident was not his fault, and that sometimes accidents do happen. I have to help him get the incident out of his mind, so that he can have closure and move on. I even wrote to the teachers explaining what actually happened. Thankfully the teachers were very supportive and had counselling sessions with Fred to help him calm down.

We have to help Fred recover from his traumatic experience quickly as there is another tournament in a few weeks time. And that is where the challenge is for professional athletes: time. The lifespan of an athlete is short, just a decade or so. In my professional career, I have already been working for 25 years, and I do expect to continue for another 15 years. That is 4 times the duration of a professional athlete’s career. Taking a year off to do a sabbatical is fine in a career spanning 40 years, but athletes can’t afford that.

And so, the recovery time for athletes need to be quick, and in order to do that, the diagnosis must be quick. Had we not recognized Fred’s trauma, he might have been stuck in a depressive state for a year or more. That would have ruined his career.

Despite that mental health has no physical symptoms, the risks are very real. We must not brush it off, or discount its effects.

As part of Fred’s recovery process, I have decided to take part in a parent-child doubles tournament in a couple of weeks. Hopefully Fred will find the joy of badminton again, sooner rather than later!

That is it for this entry.

Until the next update, eat well, get plenty of rest, and keep the badminton going!