NOVA MARIE O.

MARANGUIT

Athletes Coping Injury

Sport participation can be a stressful experience for some athletes. Sustaining a sport injury can
further increase athletes' stress levels. Some of the techniques of emotion-focused coping are watching
television, playing video games, venting alone or to others, and reaching out to friends, family, teammates,
coaches, and medical staff. Sports injury recovery typically focuses on physical rehab, but it's also
important to include sports psychology techniques to help recover mentally. That's because athletes can
experience a wide range of emotions with injury, which may include denial, anger, sadness, and even
depression. Avoidance coping is a strategy that an athlete may use in an attempt to separate themselves
from a stressful even coaches may feel uncomfortable interacting with injured athletes and can
unconsciously or purposefully marginalize them. An injury often seems unfair to anyone who has been
physically active and otherwise healthy. Coping with the stress of an injury requires both physical and
psychological resilience. Although these feelings are real, it’s important to move beyond the negative and
find more positive strategies to cope with this setback. Dealing gracefully with an injury helps an athlete
become more focused, flexible, and resilient. These seven sports psychology strategies can help. Instead
of focusing the decreased performance, it can be more beneficial to simply accept in case there’s an injury.
This helps take responsibility for the recovery, which can change the outcome. By taking responsibility for
the recovery process, it can find a greater sense of confidence. It also helps to progress in the recovery
rather than pushing to perform at the pre-injury level. However, coaches have a responsibility toward all of
their athletes, including those who are injured. Injury is often accompanied by depression, tension, anger
and low self-esteem, particularly in competitive, seriously injured athletes. Mood disturbance seems to
relate to the athlete's perceived progress in rehabilitation and has been shown to negatively relate to
attendance at rehabilitation sessions. Interventions such as positive self-talk, relaxation, goal setting and
healing imagery, all used by a faster healing group of athletes, and although not well researched, seem
appropriate to assist athletes in coping with injury. Modelling interventions during injury rehabilitation have
also been shown to have a positive effect on rehabilitation and should be used. These relationships are
described in more depth and in the context of a theoretical model.
Injuries, while hopefully infrequent, are often an unavoidable part of sport participation. While most
injuries can be managed with little to no disruption in sport participation and other activities of daily living,
some impose a substantial physical and mental burden. For some student-athletes, the psychological
response to injury can trigger or unmask serious mental health issues such as depression, anxiety,
disordered eating, and substance use or abuse. individuals cope with illness and injury in different ways.
Despite the ineffective and sometimes counterproductive coping behaviors, a number of approaches may
be effective in assisting psychological recovery. Beyond the physical impairments relating to sport,
limitations and disabilities associated with injury and recovery may cause additional distress. Concerns
over reinjury, regaining status on a team, and failing to perform at preinjury levels are common and can
affect the rate of recovery through overuse, avoidance, and other compliance issues. In some cases,
clinical or sports psychologists will best provide the psychological care for an athlete who is recovering from
injury.  Athletes may train excessively for return to play and quickly become the biggest threat to successful
recovery from injury. In many cases, educating athletes on the process of recovery and the physiological
process taking place throughout each component may help to offset a natural inclination to overtrain injured
tissues.