Professional athletes feel enormous pressure coming from several different sources, which in the end, puts an extra burden on their already heavy shoulders. Along with their own aspirations, they have to deal with the world’s expectations, sports agents’ interests, sponsors’ demands, media attention, public perceptions and opinions or even bettors’ interests when there are stakes in action of any sports betting in the Philippines, or everywhere else in the world.
There has been a considerable growth in the demand for sports psychologists in the past few years. In fact, as more and more athletes from all over the world and across sports, reveal their strugglings and speak freely about the psychological problems or mental health issues that they are dealing with both during and in their post-career lives, the whole issue of well-being is coming at the forefront of everyone’s attention.
The fact that sports psychology as a discipline is attracting an increasing number of practitioners and students, reveals just how important the mental health and the psychological well-being of athletes is and just how much the demand for support is increasing, no matter the sport, no matter the league, no matter the country, and generally ‘no matter what’.
Athletes need to be able to seek help, support, and advice when they feel like it or in some cases they should be able to have easy access to counseling even if they don’t really feel like it. Sometimes it is imperative to do so because the pressure from all the competition or the burden to remain on top is definitely not easy to manage.
The problem in the whole support of athletes thing is that the focus is placed predominantly on how to make them have a good psychology in order to perform well, instead of providing them support in order to deal with the pressure of being on top. You see, the question that we should be asking is “Do athletes need support to perform well, or do they need support to deal with their exceptional performance?”
The short answer is both, but the long and more sophisticated response is that these two should be one thing. The same thing. Athletes’ psychology should be at the top of the hierarchy from the very beginning one decides to go pro, up until the athletes decide to retire and go on with their lives.
For professional athletes, who are making their living from their sport and who are striving to get on top of what they do, seeking psychological support should not be a difficult thing to accomplish. Rather this support should be mandatory and should be provided from the very beginning they are stepping their foot in the world of professional sports.
It is only through counseling, support, and advice that they can easily manage their way to the top and handle failures, possible performance decline, and retirement. Also, it is only through proper psychological interventions and mental health activities that they are able to handle all the pressure while they are developing their career and during all those times when the pressure is so intense that without a proper mentality, anyone else would have quit.
Ever since top athletes such as the 23-time gold medal winner Michael Phelps, the 4-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka, or the NBA phenomenon Yiannis Antetokounmpo -whose performance has largely been the object of wagers in every top NBA betting site, such as those listed at https://allbets.tv/ph/bookmakers/nba/app/, have spoken freely about their struggles and counseling’s central role in helping them deal with any problems pertinent or non-pertinent to their active professional sports life and career, there has been a reconsideration of how much necessary any intervention for preventing or preserving well-being is.
The world of sports is getting more attention than ever and it is becoming more popular than before, when the internet and digital technologies did not allow widespread access to any event taking place in every part of this planet.
Added to this, the growing popularity of online betting on sports enabled by the growth of online sportsbook markets, brings sports to the spotlight and athletes under the eyes and scrutiny of billions of people. These have made the pressure even stronger for the athletes and for this very reason, they have pushed the need for mental health and psychological support at the center of interest.