As an athlete, it is very important that while you work on your skills at practice, you also need to make sure you keep your mental health in check. Mental health is a very serious topic and it really needs to be discussed more than it currently is. As an athlete or as a person in general, you need to find ways to help your mental health. From my experience, music is the best way to help my mental health both as an athlete and as a person in general.
When I was an athlete, I used music to help myself stay locked in and focused on practicing and improving my skills. Whenever I was preparing for a game or getting ready for practice, I would always listen to music because it would always make me prepared. I would always listen to my favorite songs or albums from my favorite artists because that is the music that really helped me and still helps me get into a better headspace.
There have been studies done on the topic of music and how it impacts athletes mentally and a lot of the results come back with positive results. Studies have shown that music can help enhance our mood and increase our confidence levels. From my experience, I have definitely noticed that it helps put me in a better mood overall and it made me feel more confident in my skills.
In an article written by pbs.org, it discusses studies done by Costas Karageorghis and his findings in these studies. One example that was made in the article was that listening to a more positive and uplifting song can raise your confidence due to a positive message being sent to your brain. On the other hand, if you listen to a song with a sadder message then it will lower your confidence levels back to a normal level.
One thing that Karageorghis said in this article is that “music can be like a performance-enhancing drug. It’s just that intoxicating.” This quote really stands out to me because this really shows how powerful of an impact music can have on a person or athlete and how they approach certain things. I also agree with this statement that he made because music impacts you the same way performance enhancing drugs do, but in a positive fashion.
Karageorghis also came to the conclusion that music also makes you want to move more. In his research, it shows that “syncing the tempo of the music to an athlete’s heart rate can have powerful outcomes, such as improved stamina, speed and athletic performance.” I also agree with the claim made by Karageorghis because I noticed in the past that when I’ve listened to a certain tempo of music, it can really impact my performance. For example, if I listened to a faster paced, hype song then it will make me react faster to different things and go faster in general.
The amount of impact that music makes on athletes should be understood due to how prominent music is in the sports world. For tens of years, music has been incorporated by sports organizations and it has been used as a tool for these teams and athletes to help with performance and health. Teams have been playing music for their players before and after games to help them with their stress levels, mental health, and to help get mentally prepared for a game. Leagues around the world have also been using music as a huge tool for their players.
A lot of the worlds biggest athletes have talked about the impact music has made on them and have even talked about how they have used music as a tool in their training sessions and in pregame. This can really be seen almost everyday when these athletes are walking into the stadium or arena before a game or when they’re doing pregame shoot around, almost every athlete that is shown on camera in these instances are listening to music. Athletes have also been making music in their free time as a hobby outside of sports but that’s a topic for another day.
As stated earlier, music can really help athletes mentally by helping enhance their mood, confidence levels, and help reduce anxiety. Based on the type of music you’re listening to, there can be varying effects with how much of an impact it makes, but in most cases, it’s a positive outcome.
Around the world, music has made or is currently making an impact on peoples lives. As an athlete or anyone in general, it’s very important to focus on the mental health aspect of your life. Athletes have a lot of stress on them due to how many people are watching them all the time so they have to find the right ways to relieve stress and help themselves mentally. Music has been and will continue to be a huge aspect of peoples lives due to their enjoyment for it and due to how it helps them through tough times.
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