podcast2

The episode discusses the mental effects that college football players face. Social media can negatively impact their mental health, as fans can attack and criticize them. The pressure of school work is another factor, as the busy schedule leaves little time for studying. Coaches can also contribute to mental health problems by constantly criticizing players. Financial struggles and the lack of time for a job can further worsen mental health. However, there are outlets available for athletes to seek help. It is important for athletes to prioritize their mental well-being in order to give their best performance. In today's episode, we will be talking about the mental effects of a college football player. I think there's a lot of different news stories or a lot of media talk about the mental effects of student-athletes and I think some of it can be blown out of proportion or dramatic and some of it's true. A lot of athletes deal with mental health and it's kind of a thing that a lot of people can deal with, but especially in student-athletes, it's kind of more susceptible to happen. I would say right off the bat, the first thing that kind of like can start mental health for like student-athletes is social media. Let's say you're playing at a popular institution and you're playing in the game and you make a mistake, social media, I mean fans are great and everything, but sometimes they can get after you and they can get on you. I've never had anything quite like that before because I'm just a freshman here and in high school I've never dealt with anything like that because they're just high schoolers. You never really tweet bad stuff about high schoolers, but in college you're more prone to do it because they're older and they're supposed to be more mature and they can take these things because they signed up to play college sports, but social media is a huge part because fans will go on there and like attack these athletes or send them things and ask them why they didn't do this or what they could have done better and that's kind of like, it's just a negative thing that comes with being a student-athlete, but it's something you've got to learn how to deal with and something that, you know, it's just a tough thing. The school pressure, the school work pressure is another huge topic that can affect our mental health because, you know, you've got a lot of stuff to do. In the daily schedule during the season for football, we wake up about 6, we've got our first meetings, do a 6 to 8, you've got to get ready, get some food in you and practice starts at, pre-practice starts at 8.15, you get some more work in, the warm-up starts about 8.30 and practice lasts for about two hours. You're not back in the locker room until about 10.30 and then you've got to shower real quick, grab some food, go to class right away, get another snack, go to your next class, then you've got meetings right after that that take about an hour and that's without counting like study table or if you have a job, I mean, you don't have the greatest amount of time to work on school work and that's probably not the best thing, but you've got to find a way and you've got to be really, really smart with your time about how you can work with your school work and sometimes that just causes breakdowns and mental breakdowns inside of you. I mean, it's just a lot of anxiety and pressure and sometimes you have no time to do what you want to do, so there's no fun in you and that can start depression. Another thing like coaches get on you and can cause mental health problems. I know in my experience, I've dealt with some problems where I make a mistake in practice and on film we watch it and it kind of stays in your head and it sticks with you and it's just something that you've got to get better at, but the coaches get on you about that and it makes you rethink everything and it ruins your day and it can start a series of bad days and that starts depression, anxiety, I mean, all that can set in. That's kind of like the main thing when I think about mental health in sports is like we base our mental health and how we feel and our emotions off of how we perform like everyone does and it's just not a good thing, but it's something that we do and we got to fix because that's just not how you should go about it. Another thing that can cause bad mental health problems is you might have money problems, you're a college student, you might not be living off of your family, your family might not be helping you out and you got to do it all on yourself and that's just, that's a really tough thing to do, especially with the schedule I talked about earlier. You got all day things and you got school and then you got to get money too to provide for your family and then you play on Saturdays and then you got to practice again on Sunday and watch film. Mondays you're really true off day out of the entire week during the, in season, so I mean, you can't really get a job during the season, you just can't and that can cause mental health and like bad habits, but out of season there's a lot more time and that's something that it's more time for you to do and you can help get back on track with everything. There's a lot of mental health outlets for student athletes and I think that's a good thing at UND we have one and you can go talk to them and tell them about your feelings and everything like that and it's just, I think it's a good thing because college sports can be hard and it's tough sometimes, but it's just, it's something that if you want to do it, you got to give it your all and if you're not there mentally, you can't give it your all. Thank you for listening to the second podcast of the Sam Schindel Show and have a great rest of your week.