After American artistic gymnast Simone Biles wavered on her vault landing at the Tokyo Olympics and decided to pull out of the all-around competition, an event she hadn’t lost once since 2013, hence what may have been the end of an era started a conversation instead.
From the Olympics arena to millions of homes, the issue of mental health is been now talked about the corners of high-wired professions like sports and showbiz and a lived issue for countless others balancing everyday stresses, and depressions was back at the centre stage of discussion.
Psychologists and other mental health experts have too showed their attention which is more than welcome for those battling with depression and anxiety.
“For anyone saying I quit. I didn’t quit… my mind & body are simply not in sync,” Biles had written on Instagram. “I don’t think you realize how dangerous this is on hard/competition surface,” she added.
“Nor do I have to explain why I put my health first. Physical health is mental health.”
According to reports, Delhi-based development sector consultant Bhawna Khattar said, when influential people like Biles who is one of the world’s biggest sports stars, talk with such candidness, it validates the existence of mental health as an issue in the general public.
“Where it helps is to generate conversations, for instance, when Sushant’s case happened or when a Deepika Padukone talks about it,” Khattar, who has been taking professional help for her mental health issues for the last two years, told PTI.
On the other hand, late actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found hanging in his Mumbai home last year, Padukone, among India’s biggest stars, has opened up in public about her depression. Both sports and films are professions with high conspicuousness that demand steep verges of unrelenting stress and dedication.
“Awareness is really important, and knowing when to stop is the most important thing. Many don’t know when to stop, and many feel it is not right to stop. It takes awareness and courage to quit at a highly competitive level,” sports and exercise psychologist Keerthana Swaminathan told PTI.
As important as it is for athletes to prepare themselves to perfection, mental health professionals believe the true form of a sportsperson lies not just in pushing a little bit more but also in knowing when it is ok to quit.
In her view, the taboo around mental health hampers a conversation from happening in India.
“You’ll find foreign players talking about mental health care. In India they use words as stress because people are not taught that these things exist. In the US, they welcomed her (Biles) decision to quit mid-way, they said it’s fine. With us, it’s always about ‘what would people say’ (if you quit). The taboo around mental health is very much there in our society,” Swaminathan said.
Biles, adds to the small yet strong line up of sportspersons who have spoken about the pressure of a sporting stadium, while she is the one who has frequently championed the cause of mental health during her career.
Earlier this year, Japanese tennis sensation Naomi Osaka pulled out of the French Open after refusing to attend press conferences reporting that she gets “huge waves of anxiety” before speaking to the media.
In the same way, American former swimming superstar Michael Phelps too spoke of the “weight of gold” in his documentary of the same name. He is the most successful Olympian of all time has 28 Olympic medals, including 23 gold, to his name.
Closer home, shooter Abhinav Bindra has also talked about encountering mental health issues right after winning the 10m air rifle gold medal at the Beijing Games in 2008.
“It’s ironic my biggest mental crisis in life came when I actually succeeded. A lot of people talked about dealing with failure, but for me, dealing with success was probably the hardest time in my life,” Bindra had said.
Other Indian sportspersons like Shuttler PV Sindhu, cricketers Virat Kohli and Harmanpreet Kaur, footballers Gourmangi Singh and Sunil Chhetri are also among the ones who have frequently addressed mental health issues.
According to sports and performance psychologist Nanaki J Chadha, there has been a “paradigm shift” when it comes to the awareness of mental health importance in sports. “…Like any physical injury, athletes are realising that mental health concerns can also be crippling for their performance,” Chadha said.
“In India, we do not give equal importance to sport psychology, as we do to other performance domains such as the physical, technical, and tactical aspects. There is a stark disparity,” she said.
While the recent incidents have yet again opened up conversations on and around mental wellness, they are far from enough in the Indian context as the stigma persists. The ramifications of ignored mental health have manifested themselves in another high-stress profession, the film industry, too often to be ignored. The likes of actor-director Guru Dutt, actor Jiah Khan, Sushant Rajput, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, and comedian-actor Robin Williams gave up on life working in an industry known to be harsh and demanding. The list is as varied as it is long. Equally, several who battled their spectrum of mental health problems came out worn but victorious.
