Mental Health vs Mental Toughness: Know the Difference
I think we need to have a discussion about mental health and mental toughness when it comes to athletes (all professional athletes, not just specifically bodybuilders and fitness competitors based on this website’s content).
We’ve been seeing a lot of news and opinions floating around revolving the Olympics and even some other professional sporting events that took place over the last few months where athletes withdrew from competition for mental health reasons. Even the mainstream media is covering it with mixed opinions. But who are they to cast doubt on someone’s mental health and stability?
Now, we would be naïve to say that there aren’t going to be people on both sides of the fence who either think they are strong for deciding to take a step back or on the other side of the equation, weak for pulling out. There are plenty of people who back the athlete’s choice to take time off while there are others who want to, all of a sudden, throw these champions under the bus like they’re some bum who never accomplished anything in their career.
Let’s discuss.
Mental Health vs Mental Toughness
To kick things off, let’s define exactly what both of these things are. According to the dictionary:
Mental Health – A person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being.
Mental Toughness – A quality of mind or intellect characterized by, among other things, a refusal to be intimidated, a determination to finish a contest even when things are going badly, and an ability to control emotions and remain highly focused when under the pressure of intense competition.
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With all of that being said, other than the sense of emotion involved with both, there really is no overlap between them, so we need to look at each of them independently and treat them as two separate entities.
Just because someone is mentally tough does not mean they can’t suffer from some sort of mental health issue. They’re not “immune” just because of who they are or what they do. They are under a ton of pressure, not just from an athletic standpoint.
Do you think for one minute that the athletes we’ve seen pull out from competition got to where they are on a professional stage and platform without being mentally tough? You’d be insane to think they weren’t mentally tough.
But I think there’s something else we need to look at here.
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