[HN Gopher] Getting over Gold: Athletes and Mental Health
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Getting over Gold: Athletes and Mental Health
Author : nohuck13
Score : 86 points
Date : 2021-07-30 20:59 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (davidepstein.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (davidepstein.com)
| lalos wrote:
| So let's recap:
|
| Olympics:
|
| - forces countries to invest in infrastructure, opening chance
| for corrupt governments to siphon money easily
|
| - incentivizes countries to treat humans like animals and train
| them since birth (in some cases separating them from their
| families)
|
| - countries 'dump' athletes right after they peak, few of them
| give them the support they need to survive with their highly
| tuned skills but with low demand
|
| - athletes don't get a single dime (unless they win and depends
| on their country), yet ads and ticket sales flow
|
| - allows coaches to have complete power over little kids, leading
| to abuse (mental/physical/sexual)
|
| Why don't we keep the Olympics at a single place (i.e. Greece)
| let them have the tourist revenue and we avoid having to build
| facilities all over the world every 4 years. Let's invest that
| money on the people that actually make the event what it is.
| Let's give medals to countries that take care of their own. It is
| hard for me to not think of the Olympics as some vestige of the
| cold war. We could do better. The recent supreme court case
| involving the NCAA might be a sign that athletes can recoup some
| agency, so that is motivating.
| jellyksong wrote:
| In the same theme, there's a recent documentary called "The
| Weight of Gold", narrated by Michael Phelps and other Olympic
| champions. Really poignant stories.
| [deleted]
| ca98am79 wrote:
| This makes me think of Bobby Fischer, who after becoming World
| Chess Champion, refused to defend his title in 1975 and
| afterwards did not play a competitive game in public for nearly
| 20 years.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Luc Longley, centre for Michael Jordan's champion Chicago Bulls
| NBA team, went through something similar, and came out the other
| side.
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-02/luc-longleys-chicago-...
| frereubu wrote:
| This was a great read - thanks for posting it.
| maverick-iceman wrote:
| Pfff...guy was an NBA star and made bank.
|
| Just because the revisitation didn't include him doesn't mean
| that he had a bad time in the 90s.
|
| He had it better than anybody
| acituan wrote:
| Is this really generalizable to all nations? Or is it the US
| treatment and perspective in play?
|
| US in general not being stellar in mental health, but also having
| a very specific cultural ground, it would surprise me if this had
| less to do with athleticism and more with not being adequately
| trained in having _robust_ structures for meaning which can
| contextualize these deep-focus targets.
|
| Many of what is described about gold medals or competition in
| general can be applied to extreme career or monetary focus too.
|
| Besides, US is the land of modern superhero myths with intense
| projections on any avatar that can be worshipped as one. That can
| be a projection too much for most real people to bear. They
| simply can't shoulder the lack in an entire nation's "meaning"
| needs. Blind leading the blind, we devour what we want to worship
| because they can't get us out of this mess either.
|
| With Biles it was a bit different but also not, she had been on
| prescription amphetamines with medical use exemption, but they
| are completely banned in Japan so she had to be off this time. It
| is not up to me to question the particular diagnosis but even a
| slight misdosing can be very performance enhancing for
| amphetamines; this is a territory that should be very familiar to
| some US programmers or college students.
|
| Nonetheless the effects of intense, and maybe unearned, hero
| projections was again we getting lost in finding our way to human
| excellence.
| [deleted]
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| I was satisfied to see him acknowledge the same pressures in
| other high-stakes jobs. During the 3/4 year period when I was
| completely committed to my startup I felt the most kinship with
| actors, directors, athletes and not other engineers/makers.
|
| Likewise, the same bereavement affected me when I got off the
| merry-go-round a few years ago, maybe more than I realised at the
| time. It's very hard not to have that one mission as the answer
| to who you are. Can anyone share good resources for dealing with
| the emotional wind down that comes after a long period of single-
| minded dedication?
| psychomugs wrote:
| I felt something similar after running my first marathon. I was
| always a sedentary kid who could barely finish a mile in grade
| school so this was a huge accomplishment for me, but the
| emotional roller coaster of training and racing and the post-
| marathon blues hit like a truck [1].
|
| I also felt the same after living in Japan, which was the brass
| ring I'd been chasing for as long as I could remember. I had to
| confront the realization that what I thought would make me
| happy ultimately didn't (these experiences yielded both the
| happiest and saddest moments of my life) and could never have
| lived up to my perfect idealization [2].
|
| What helps me is to think of myself as a verb instead of a noun
| [3]. This helps me avoid putting all eggs in one basket and
| realizing that my self-worth does not come from a single
| persona that I wear, but is a weighted combination of
| everything that makes me a human being.
|
| [1] https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-
| stories/a20804968/the-p...
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5R8gduPZw4
|
| [3] "We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an
| actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I
| act - and I never know what I'm going to do next. I think you
| can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun." -
| Stephen Fry
| paulpauper wrote:
| The Olympics sure sucks..low pay and a major toll on mental
| health.
| muybasado wrote:
| Unbelievable amounts of cope.
| ballenf wrote:
| Maybe we haven't come that far from Roman Coliseum days and are
| basically still throwing people to the lions after they start to
| bore us with their performances.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| This clause stuck out for me: "he would recognize and get help
| for his own depression."
|
| I don't know if anyone watches Ted Lasso, but in Season Two, they
| bring in a sports psychologist. No spoilers here.
|
| He talks about never showing vulnerability and the destructive
| effects of that. But also: "Everything in life is a skill, and
| you've got to learn when to use it and when not to use it."
| Bingo.
|
| Any sports trainer who doesn't force his or her way past the
| athlete's reflexive "I'm fine; I don't need any help." is guilty
| of malpractice, IMHO. Looking after their mental health is just
| as important as looking after their cardiovascular fitness.
| winslett wrote:
| People can inadvertently fall into a bad career by being good at
| something.
|
| Take a goal oriented person with outstanding genomics for sport.
| Their binary decision tree of life is skewed in one direction by
| compliments and dopamine. They build up to the ultimate outcome
| to be an extrinsic release. The day comes for the ultimate test.
| The world watches for 30 seconds and moves on. Win or lose, the
| world doesn't care the way they cared. The release never came --
| just silence (with no monetary reward).
| bobthechef wrote:
| Why the weird technical jargon? All you had to say was: people
| with certain talents can more easily fall into an unhealthy
| career when they are rewarded in ways that encourage them to
| continue on that career path.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| At least in the cases described by the author, the comedowns
| weren't because the world didn't care about if they won or lost
| - or if they got the release or not (or monetary reward).
|
| The comedown was about the loss of structure, degree of
| control, and clarity of goals.
|
| It's analogous to what I hear from many people (including in my
| head) when you finally get out of school into the real world.
| It's also (based on what I've read and heard - I certainly have
| no first hand experience), analogous to something that many
| veterans feel going into the "real world".
|
| The structure, clarity of purpose, knowing that everyone has
| more or less the same goals, knowing that you have non-trivial
| control to advance yourself towards your goal (winning gold,
| getting the grade, surviving the deployment, etc) which you
| know no-one will question.
|
| We live our normal lives never quite sure if we're trying to do
| aim for the right things, and never quite sure if we're doing
| it the right way. We spend our whole adult lives coping (and
| perhaps thriving) with that uncertainty. Some of us fantasize
| about "more simple" lives, ultimately because the reduction in
| choices and things to consider mean we can (hopefully) go about
| our lives with greater clarity.
|
| I don't know if "the real world" could be any other way. But
| perhaps on some level, we keep pushing people along this "bad
| career" (I don't think it's bad really... but that's a
| different discussion) because we all on some level want to
| believe that that idyllic, focused life can exist.
| golemotron wrote:
| Having known some veterans I can't cry for gold medalists.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| I hope one day you can find enough simpathy to feel sorry
| for any good person who commits suicide regardless of how
| hard you judge their life to have been.
| feoren wrote:
| Can we be OK with comparing things without assuming they're
| being equated? GP never said gold medalists have it as hard
| as veterans. Comparison != equation. Taking someone's
| comparison and elevating it to an equation is a strawman.
| (This fallacy is so common it deserves its own name. Is
| there one?)
| dalmo3 wrote:
| Fallacy of relative privation?
| golemotron wrote:
| This isn't about argumentative logic, it's about
| proportion and perspective. When we feel we have it rough
| recognizing that others may have it rougher lends a
| perspective that leads to gratitude and less self-
| centeredness. People who suffer often find release from
| their suffering when they help others. A program where
| ex-Olympians volunteer to help veterans might do both
| some good.
| Retric wrote:
| It's not about suffering. Olympians, Students, Soldiers,
| Prisoners, Widows, Retirees, and anyone else who goes
| from regimented patterns to increased freedoms are all to
| a greater or lesser degree cast adrift.
|
| It's rare for people to only be facing a single issue,
| and the degree that any one issue is impacting them can
| very wildly. Still, dismissing similarities because of
| differences in intensity is counter productive. Grief
| counseling often involves encouraging people to go
| through their daily rituals, but all of those transitions
| can benefit from similar advice.
| [deleted]
| scott_s wrote:
| > When we feel we have it rough recognizing that others
| may have it rougher lends a perspective that leads to
| gratitude and less self-centeredness.
|
| Sometimes, for some people. For some people, when they
| express their feelings, and the response they are met
| points out that others have it worse, they sometimes feel
| worse. It can sometimes feel like a dismissal,
| invalidating their feelings and experiences. I'm using
| qualifiers here, but I personally think _most_ people
| want to feel validated.
| sjg007 wrote:
| The only constant in life is change. The sooner you embrace
| uncertainty the sooner you move on and thrive.
| alexanderdmitri wrote:
| Worth noting, calculus and differentiation help alleviate
| some of the uncertainty around determining the rate and
| effects of change.
| temp0826 wrote:
| I hope I can get my doctor to prescribe some
| alexanderdmitri wrote:
| I'm not sure I've ever heard of a doctor prescribing
| calculus. They usually prescribe medicine, a regimen, or
| some other combination of things.
|
| Calculus helps here too: https://nmmra.org/calculus-and-
| its-use-in-medicine/
| epa wrote:
| To be an Olympian itself is a long time social reward for an
| individual. That will never lapse.
| reidjs wrote:
| Yes! Am I supposed to feel bad for olympic athletes now? That
| label instantly propels you into an higher status in society.
| scott_s wrote:
| > Am I supposed to feel bad for olympic athletes now?
|
| No. That would be sympathy, where you feel bad because they
| feel bad. But empathy, where you _understand_ their
| feelings would be good. Not just for Olympic athletes, but
| in general.
| [deleted]
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| This hasn't been true in Olympic sports in decades, even for
| minor athletes who didn't place.
|
| "Olympian" is a good enough selling pitch for endorsement
| contracts.
| gilbetron wrote:
| The giant names in the giant sports get money, the rest, not
| so much: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22586868/olympics-
| athletes-pay...
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| I remember a presentation I listened to years ago by a woman
| who knew someone who decided to become an accountant or
| something like that instead of going into pro-football, which
| would have conflicted with some of his personal values. He
| never regretted the decision and had a very happy life as a
| successful normal person with plenty of time for his family and
| hobbies.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| The average NFL player career is 3 years. So any profession
| is better financially long-term than the NFL, on average.
|
| Head coaches are well-paid, but often change cities, which
| causes family and housing issues (some build large, custom
| houses for occasional team meetings.)
| Retric wrote:
| There are normally a lot of wins before you end up at the
| Olympics, those wins simply aren't televised. Roughly, 1 in
| 750,000 people end up at each Olympics, simply going is a big
| deal.
|
| Even then most people realize they have zero chance of winning
| their event. Many would consider making the final to be a huge
| accomplishment.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > with no monetary reward
|
| Many countries have a financial reward for medals. Russia gives
| you a new Mercedes _, a six-figure USD sum and a lifetime
| pension for a gold (the Mercedes_ is for any medal, but the
| model gets worse.) (This was in 2014, I think they may have
| jiggered the reward since then). The US pays five-figures to
| any medal winner.
|
| I'm not saying that it's a good business decision, but it's
| definitely some compensation depending on the country.
|
| I also wonder how it works in smaller countries. If you are
| _the_ gold medalist from your country do you get endorsements?
| Like, sure, the US team won _X_ , but we have a lot of medals
| and how many people really care about that sport. As of today
| Iran has won one medal (a gold) and Kuwait has won one medal (a
| bronze). Are those people heroes back home?
|
| *Edit: Thanks to the person who corrected my spelling
| asicsp wrote:
| _Every_ medal is cherished here in India and gets lot of
| coverage in media.
| 45ure wrote:
| There are some countries, which reward their athletes
| handsomely, either financially or via some form of
| compensation through benefits. However, you will _generally_
| find that they don 't have a comprehensive program or a
| support network in place, and the historically low medal
| count might have a role to play. There are also detractors,
| who don't agree with the practice of paying for medals.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/olympics/comments/orije1/check_out_.
| ..
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/29/tokyo-olympics-how-much-
| athl...
|
| https://techpolicyinstitute.org/publications/miscellaneous/d.
| ..
| TGImemegen wrote:
| Mercedes (if you mean the car)
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Thanks, fixed.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| That $ also pales in comparison to sponsorships for the more
| popular sports. Even the 'medium' sports, Brooke (climbing
| team USA) is in car commercials now.
|
| Though the small sports can still struggle to even get enough
| resources to train full time, USOC should work on that.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| Even looking past the direct monetary benefits, I wonder if
| having "Former Olympian" on your resume will give you a boost
| looking for jobs.
|
| I've noticed that even after a small stint at a prestigious
| aerospace company, I still get calls that stem from folks
| seeing that on my resume, I would imagine being a former
| Olympian would give you a similar leg up.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| We are always pushed to competition, I did sailing when I was
| young, despite being 4 times national champ I didn't really like
| competition (logistics, wait time), I just loved endless practice
| sessions, surfing/waves/wind sensations.
|
| I'd have definitely exchanged all my trophies (that I gave to the
| club anyway) for just more practice and fun. I have that same
| spirit on my bike, no electronic, nothing, just enjoying the
| moment, pushing a bit occasionally. I don't watch sport either,
| what's the point watching other practicing it, once you know a
| sport?
| stinos wrote:
| _I don 't watch sport either, what's the point watching other
| practicing it, once you know a sport_
|
| Depends on the sport: for sports with really technical goals
| (think climbing, skateboarding) just 'knowing' isn't the same
| as thay way you know how to run or cycle. Watching others do it
| can give you new ideas for things to try and can definitely
| help you gettig better by seeing how others do it.
|
| Apart from that, for all sports: watching sports has been a
| thing since sports came to existence, so the other reasons for
| doing it seem to be somtehing quite natural for most people out
| there.
|
| _We are always pushed to competition_
|
| Heavily depends on culture/family/education I think. I was
| never pushed to competition. At least not against others. There
| was some urging towards trying to do things as good as
| possible. You could call that competition with yourself, but I
| dont think that's the competition you mean.
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