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Mental Health issues in Athletics: http://www.ncaa.org/sport-science-institute/mind-body-and-sport-psychiatrist-perspective

There is a lot of pressure that comes with being not only an athlete, but a student athlete. The time, energy, and effort put into developing skills in a given sport can result in imbalances in other areas of life. Developmental and environmental influences shape emotional, motor, and social aspects of the brain. Eating patterns, impulse control and interpersonal relationships are also affected by how much athletes stress about their sport along with balancing other things they have going on in their lives.

The most common psychiatric disorders in student- athletes are represented in the following categories:


 * Anxiety disorders: Performance anxiety, panic disorder and phobic anxiety after an injury are more likely to be sports-related. Many athletes can experience anxiety that is either related to a medical problem or induced by a medical problem or substance use. Performance anxiety is connected to the anticipation of the act and becoming overwhelmed during specific components of performance. Panic attacks are intense feelings of being overwhelmed with many physical symptoms such as racing heart, shortness of breath, shakiness and sweating that surface quickly.
 * Mood disorders:


 * Personality disorders: Fairly common in athletes. The most common personality traits in student-athletes associated with performance are extraversion, perfectionism and narcissism. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is common in athletes and presents with problems focusing, concentrating, learning, attention shifting and sustained attention. Males tend to be more hyperactive. Females more likely will have the inattentive type.
 * Eating disorders: Occurs in both sexes but are more common in females, and in sports in which lower body weight/fat improves performance or weight is divided into classes. Eating disorders are more common in gymnastics and swimming/diving, which are judged on aesthetics, and in wrestling, cross country and distance running.
 * Body Dysmorphic Disorder: a preoccupation with an imagined defect in appearance that causes distress. It is more common in males. Muscle dysmorphia is a subtype that is characterized by an unhealthy preoccupation with muscularity, mirror checking and dieting. Student-athletes in sports in which large physical size and physique are emphasized are more susceptible to the disorder.
 * Substance use disorders: Student- athletes most commonly use alcohol, marijuana, opiates, stimulants (such as Adderall), caffeine, tobacco and performance enhancers. Alcohol and drug use is more common in males and more common in the offseason for all student-athletes.
 * Impulse control disorders: can manifest in erratic behavior and performance. An individual who suffers from an impulse control problem might exhibit episodes of aggression, fighting, and risky sexual behavior.
 * Psychosomatic illnesses: Presentations include pain without supporting evidence, prolonged recovery from injury, frequent injuries and performance problems. Symptoms are often manifestations of an emotional issue and occur more commonly in collision sports. Individuals with pain are at increased risk for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use problems and adjustment reactions. A serious injury that leads to chronic functional impairment (or pain) in a student-athlete may manifest as a psychosomatic condition. There may be pressure to play through the pain for fear of loss of a position or status. An athlete who is injured may experience a loss of identity.