Depression

Depression is the most common mood disorder and involves a low mood that lasts for a long time and affects a person’s everyday life. In its mildest form, depression can mean just being in low spirits whereby everyday tasks feel harder to do and seem less worthwhile. At its most severe, depression can be life-threatening because it can make a person feel suicidal or simply give up the will to live.

• Bodily symptoms include restlessness, agitation, no appetite and losing weight, or eating too much and gaining weight, physical aches and pains with no obvious physical cause.
• Behavioural symptoms include avoiding and / or losing interest in social events and activities, self-harming or suicidal behaviour, using more medication / other substances than usual, difficulty sleeping, or sleeping too much.
• Thoughts include having low self-confidence or self-esteem, thoughts about death, hopelessness and despair.
• Feelings include feeling down, upset or tearful, irritability, feeling guilty, worthless, empty and numb.

Depression – Consideration for Elite Athletes

Players may feel that the symptoms they experience, such as low mood, poor motivation, low self-esteem clash with what the feel is expected of them (e.g. unshakable confidence, pushing through the pain). There may be a tendency to try and mask symptoms in the sporting context.

Sport specific stressors that may increase risk of onset of depression include physical injury, particularly when associated with long absence from sport and / or chronic pain and retirement from sport. Men experiencing depression can show more avoidant and action-orientated behaviours than women and this is thought to be represented in the elite athlete population too.

Sport specific symptoms that have been suggested in the literature include reduced enjoyment in sport, early recognition of an overtraining syndrome and traditional depressive symptoms being more apparent in environments other than sport.