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Harnessing the Athletic Mind

Pathways to Optimal Mental Performance

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51224/SRXIV.462

Keywords:

Athletic Identity, Athlete, Athletic Training, athletic performance, sleep, sleep quality, Performance analysis, mental health, Psychological well-being, Psychology, sports and exercise science

Abstract

The intense focus and commitment required for successful sports performance can often be harmful to athletes' well-being, causing burnout and negatively impacting mental health. To optimize performance, athletes must regulate factors that affect their overall quality of life, as well as be able to mitigate the negative side effects that intense commitment to sports performance often brings. They also must understand how different aspects of their mental state, such as resilience, loneliness, and athletic identity, affect each other. In being able to understand and control these factors, athletes will be able to improve their overall mental health and harness their athletic identity, allowing them to push harder and perform better. In this paper, we aim to identify what physical factors impact athletic identity, as well as identify the relationships between different mental performance-affecting factors.  

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2024-10-09