How Playing Youth Sports Helps the Mental Health of Adults

In January of this year, I wrote a blog about the positive mental health aspects of youth sports on our youth.  While recently going through old emails, I came across one from the National Alliance for Youth Sports discussing this subject and the article gave me a chance to see how youth sports not only help our youth, but how they can help adults who participated as children. This made me want to follow up to my earlier post, taking a look at the positive aspects of youth sports, with a focus on the mental health of adults who played youth sports as a child.

As I wrote in my January post, in an article written by the Caris Sports Foundation the mental health benefits of youth sports are as follows: 

SLEEP

According to the American Academy of Sleep, children ages 6 – 12 should sleep 9 – 12 hours per night and teens should get 8 – 10 hours of sleep per night. Just how important is sleep? Experts say children and teens who do not get enough sleep have a higher risk of obesity, injuries, poor mental health, and problems with attention and behavior. An afternoon on the field or the court prepares the body for a restful night’s sleep, something we all could use.

RESILIENCE

No team wins all the time, every time. Dealing with a loss builds resilience and prepares children and teens for setbacks in life like not getting your dream job the first time. Playing poorly and making mistakes teaches children and teens to learn from those failures so they can do better next time.

SOCIALIZATION

Recreational and club sports give children and teens the opportunity to socialize with others outside of their typical peer groups they interact with at school or the neighborhood park. Additionally, it gets them away from their tablets, smart phones, laptops, computers, and TVs. Human connection is important for maintaining mental health, a lesson in the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic.

COMMUNITY

Structured sports programs are not just about practice, winning, or drills. Youth sports provide a sense of community for children and teens the same way we rely on our circle of friends as adults or our churches. Cristiane Chiacchio, AIG Americas Head of Accident & Health, wrote for the National Council of Youth Sports, “Properly structured programs can provide a safe, wholesome and nurturing environment for children and teens, instilling a sense of community where they feel supported and are engaged with adults who care about their mental and physical wellbeing.”

CONFIDENCE and CHARACTER

Winning a game, hitting your mark, landing a routine, or simply making the team can build confidence and self-esteem. Children and teens are rewarded for their hard work, building character that will last a lifetime. Former MLB player for the White Sox and Blue Jays, Samuel Ewing, explained it this way, “Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.”

DISCIPLINE and DEDICATION

To excel in youth sports, to win the game, to hit your mark, to land your routine, to make the team, requires discipline and dedication. You must be disciplined and dedicated to doing well in school to stay on the team. You must be disciplined and dedicated to listening to the advice of coaches. You must be disciplined and dedicated to the success of your team as a whole… all of which build character.

Now, a study by Ohio State University shows that playing youth sports is linked to better mental health in adults.

         A study dated June, 2004 done by Ohio State University, authored by Chris Knoester, states that “adults who continuously played organized sports through their youth have fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression than those who never played or those who dropped out and those who dropped out of sports had poorer mental health than those who never played at all.”  The study, published in the Sociology of Sport Journal, further states that “most people dropped out of sports because they weren't having fun or felt they weren't good enough.” That suggests ways youth sports can be improved to help kids, said study lead author Laura Upenieks, assistant professor of sociology at Baylor University.  "Our findings about why kids drop out of organized sports suggest that the current environment is less than ideal for everyone, and that the barriers to participation need to be given greater attention," Upenieks said.  Finally, the report states that “those who participated in organized sports continuously while growing up reported lower depressive symptoms and symptoms of anxiety than others.  Those who dropped out had the worst mental health profile, with those who never played in the middle. Knoester emphasized that most participants didn't have clinical levels of depression or anxiety, and the differences between the three groups were relatively modest. But the differences still mattered.”  Finally, Knoester stated “many previous studies have focused on the impact of playing sports – or not playing – on adult outcomes.  But this study is one of the first to look at what happens when youth quit sports, Knoester said, and it shows that persistence in playing is an important issue.”

While I tend to write about the problems with youth sports and I may come across as an old curmudgeon who does not like youth sports that would be totally wrong.  I was a youth sports coach for many years and I loved every minute of my coaching experience and I saw first-hand how youth sports gave children an outlet to run around and burn excess energy and learn new skills in a “non-traditional” learning setting…the playing field, but admittedly, I never gave any thought how the youth sports experience of the children that I coached may have helped their mental health into their adult years.  Statistically, 70% of all youth drop out of youth sport by the time they are 13 years old and the causes of them dropping out range from “not having fun, feeling they are not good enough to play, wanting to focus on school, not being able to afford youth sports, having interests in other activities and being abused by a coach.” 

While all of that above reasons are good reasons for a child to lose interest in youth sports it’s the first reason that always stand out to me….”not having fun.”   As stated by Upenieks earlier, the current environment for youth sports is less than ideal for everyone and the barriers to participation need to be given greater attention.  Most children today are under more pressure than when I was growing up.  Parents are pressuring children to be great in school, great in sports and great in any other activity that they participate in causing so many more issues than children had in the past and these problems usually continue on into adulthood so if youth sports can help children grow into adulthood without mental health issues then maybe the adults of today need to reexamine how youth sports are handled to help our youth become stress free adults in the future.