Athletes can experience mood swings on a daily basis. Their body language will become stiff, become angry for the simplest reason, or develop a short temper from daily stressors because of a current injury.
Mood changes can happen from an injury and can develop depression and anxiety. Depending on how the athlete views the injury depends on how they are able to cope with the situation.
If the athlete develops a combination of depression and anxiety, coordination during competition will be off, start to easily become fatigued, and can become injured again. Other side effects due to mood swings are muscles becoming tight, vision is narrowed, the body feel exhausted, and easily distracted.
Now, let’s talk about how to avoid the dreadful mood swings from happening.

  1. Surround yourself with a positive social support. The more positive people you are around, the easier it will to think positive about coming back to sport play.
  2. Stay on top of your academics. You are always a student first before an athlete. You go to school to get an education. Once you do not have to worry about grades, there will be one less stress to worry about.
  3. Find friends to partake in your hobbies. It can be easy to forget what joy your hobbies gave you at one point. Having friends to be there during your hobbies will make you realize why you got into the hobby in the first place.
  4. Remember everything you have accomplished. Don’t dwell on where you might be right now but remember how much you have grown since then. It took someone mentally tough to get there. This is a small maidstone in your life and it does not define who you are now. Life is a marathon and not a sprint!
  5. Convert the “I can’t” to “I will”. Life can be hard, but it is only going to be so hard until your accept what you are going through. Do not let one little setback define your whole life. It might seem bad now, but it is not going to be bad forever. Instead of saying something like, “I can’t perform my defense as well as before” change it to “I will give my all and defend my opponent to the best of my ability”. Wording of phrases mean everything!

Written by:
Sarah Grippi
Director of Basketball Mindset