Hypothesis:

• By examining research about mental health and its effect on student-athletes, looking at the specific cases of student athletics, it is illustrated that swimmers are more likely to experience anxiety and depression throughout their athletic and academic careers. 

Topics for smaller papers:

• Explore ways to deal with the anxiety from overtraining
• The effects of swimming and academics on an athlete’s mentality
• Explain how different types of stress reliever methods help athletes perform in training and the classroom. 

10 sources, purposeful summaries, link, and Bibliographic info:

• Source:
  • J.S. Raglin, W.P. Morgan, P.J. Conner
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Changes in the Mood States during Training in Female and Male College Swimmers
  • 1991
• Link:
  • https://bit.ly/3du358m
    
• Summary:

This study tested the changes in moods during physical training for collegiate swimmers, both across genders and gengender-specificlthough moderate exercise has supported mental health benefits, the same is not true for higher intensity training, such as that often practiced by swimmers and track athletes. Additionally, it is unknown the effects of this training on other mood states such as anger, vigor, and fatigue. Raglan’s purpose in this experiment is to determine how when training is reduced, what happens with mood disturbances.

Varsity swimmers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s men’s and women’s teams all completed the Profile of Mood States (POMS), every 3 to 4 weeks throughout the training season. The men’s and women’s teams both completed similar workouts to keep constant the data POMS’ collected. For the beginning of the season, the teams started swimming around 3,000 meters a day and increased to a peak of 13,000 meters a day, and then back again to 3,500 meters a day towards the end of the season. After analysis, it was found that “total mood, depression, anger, vigor, fatigue, and confusion changed following the training schedule for each of the seasons,” (pg. 2). For both females and males, as distance increased so did mood disturbance, however, the “magnitude of the change differed among the mood factors,” (pg. 3). The only factor to not show change across the season was tension, as it remained constant throughout, and more elevated for females than males. Therefore, the results of this study concluded the following. During physical training during the season, swimmers of all genders experience similar mood state changes, and the data support a correlation between these changes and the training volume, or distance swam for this sport. Lastly, tension is higher in females both before and during, and throughout exercise and is the only mood that remains the same no matter the magnitude of distance covered.

• Source:
  • Sean Cia
  • Physical Educator
  •  Physical exercise and mental health: A content integrated approach in coping with college students’ anxiety and depression
  •  Spring 2000
• Link:
  • https://search.proquest.com/docview/233005480?pq-orgsite=gscholar from openview=true

• Summary:

This study tested different combinations of training exercises in three different groups to determine the effects on anxiety and depression after an 8-week conditioning program. Typical for college students, school-related stress and lack of sleep are both leading lifestyle attributes that can lead to anxiety and depression. In turn, this may lead to drug abuse and skipping classes. However, despite readily accessible help on campus, “Substantial proportions of mentally ill students do not obtain treatment,” because of potentially having to face difficult personal problems (paragraph 3). Cai argues that by implementing relaxation exercises, such as yoga, tai chi chuan, and guided imagery, into physical education, there will be immense mental benefits. Tai Chi Chuan “is a physical and mental exercise characterized by slow, gentle and graceful movements that come from a continuous flow from one’s mind,” (paragraph 9). Therefore, Cai’s experiment’s purpose is to test the effects of mindfulness exercises on anxiety and depression relief.

71 college students were divided into four classes, two of which implementing guided imagery and integration respectively in conjunction with self-defense, and the third and fourthsolely with self-defense. During the last 15 minutes of the classes of the first two classes, students practiced their mindfulness exercises, while the other two continued their physical activity. The results of the study after 8 weeks indicated that the imagery and tai chi chuan groups had lower anxiety scores than the control groups, supporting his idea that these practices ease mental illness. However, after just one week there were no real benefits. Therefore, these valuable practices should not be ignored as practical ways to tackle college mental illness through physical education classes.

• Source:
  • Rosalyn Stoa, Jana Fogaça, and Logan Johnsen
  • Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics
  • Feel the Pressure: Stress and Intrinsic Motivation in Collegiate Swimmers
  • 2020

• Link:
  • http://csri-jiia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/RA_2020_13.pdf

• Summary:

The purpose of this study is to determine if there is a correlation between stress and motivation in college-level swim athletes. As a college athlete, motivation is a driving factor in wanting to compete at such a high level. However, as the stakes increase this motivation has the potential to turn into pressure and stress. Academic stress is an additional factor that student-athletes must handle on top of their athletic lives. Although some argue that athletes are better equipped to deal with the mental struggles of stress, others disagree, as they may not want to use the resources that they have. Before the experiment, the following were hypothesized. First, changes in internal motivation can predict the same stress throughout the season. Second, Stress will peak just before winter break, and third, the relationship with the coach is a factor in motivation and stress during the peak of the swimming season.

163 people initially enrolled in the study, but only 108 of those were able to be included in the analysis as they completed the necessary data collection tests. The tests were administered five times, and each contained a section with demographic material, a motivation scale, and a stress scale. After the season concluded, the analysis did not support that motivation could predict stress levels, which was the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis was somewhat supported as “intrinsic motivation changed over the season in a quadratic manner, hitting its lowest point where stress was also at its highest,” (284). Although this study did not support the hypotheses, it does lend itself to the importance of continuing to use psychology and different techniques to help athletes and “prevent burnout and increase motivation when needean and often overlooked topic among sports (286).

• Source:
  • Herbert Simons, Derek Van Rheenen, and Martin Covington,
  • Journal of College Students Development
  • Academic Motivation and the Student-Athlete
  • April 1999
• Link:
  • https://bit.ly/3v0USyG
    
• Summary:

It seems with student-athletes have to find a balance between their academic studies and training schedule. These can add extra pressure for athletes to find the perfect balance for their work. According to Herbert Simons, Derek Van Rheenen, and Martin Covington, in their article called “ Academic Motivation and the Student-Athletes”, they talked about how stress from training and school can affect a student’s motivation to do their work. They conducted a study to see how student-athletes deal with the pressure of their school work and training, and if there are any methods that they can do to improve there in academics and their training.  This study was done over the school year from 1993 to 1994, student-athletes at Univeristy  of California, Berkeley were used to completing the study. They were given a survey to fill out at teammeetings that were based on their attire towards academics and athletics. At the end of the study, it was found that student-athletes that are success-orientated are more likely to die better academics than student-athletes that focus more on their athletics than their academics.

• Source:
  • Stephen J. Page
  • The Sport Psychologist
  • The Effects of imaginary on Female College Swimmer’s Perceptions of Anxiety
  • 1999
• Link:
  • https://web-a-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.rowan.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=c4ad7709-1034-4531-92a9-a2bc6d2cd265%40sdc-v-sessmgr01
    
• Summary:

It seems that the added pressure of being a college athlete can lead to anxiety or depression in an athlete. This added pressure it can lead to bad performance in training or a competition, while also hurting an athlete’s academic studies. According to Stephen J. Page, a sports psychologist who did a study on the “Effects of Imagery on Female College Swimmers’ Perceptions of Anxiety”. With this study,, he was able to form an understanding of how to help deal with anxiety. In Swimming it is an individual sport that will lead to a higher chance of preconceptions anxiety, whereas with team sports that anxiety of computing is not as high. This is due to the idea that you are coming as a team, where swimming is realized off of the success that you have in the pool. Stephen J. Page did a study of imagery that would help athletes deal with their anxiety, it was a year-long study, where athletes took a baseline test on their anxiety when it comes to their sport, then after using imagery for over the year, they took another test to see if there anxiety decrease or stayed the same. The result of the study showed that athletesanxiety decreased but there was no way that this anxiety would be taken away once the study was complete. 

• Source:
  • Hongmei Li, Jennifer J. Moreland, Corinne Peek-Asa, and Jingzhen Yang
  • The American Journal of Sport medicine
  • Preseason Anxiety and Depression Symptoms and prospective Injury Risk in Collegiate athletes. 
  • 2017
• Link: 
  • https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0363546517702847
    
• Summary:
  • Looking at the study done on preseason anxiety and depression, look at how this  will affect if an athlete will experience an injury during the season. This research helps to add more information on how anxiety can affect an athlete. The study was conducted on 5 different NCAA sports, one of them benign swimming. The study lasts throughout when the battles will be in season. At preseason there were about 276 athletes that suffered from anxiety symptoms and 208 reported symptoms of depression. This is out of the 958 athletes involved with the study. After the study athletes that were suffering from anxiety were at a higher risk of injury, than athletes that suffered from depression. There Is a chance that athletes will suffer from anxiety or depression that does not get injured this season, but there’s still a chance that they will injure themself. The study proves how it happens adn the best way to keep athletes from getting injured. With the help of this study, it has helped to give another look at how anxiety and depression can affect how an athlete performs and acts in their sport. 

• Source:
  • Graham Jones and Sheldon Hanton
  • Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology 
  • Interpretation of competitive Anxiety symptoms and goal Attainment Expectancies
  • 1996
• Link: 
  • https://web-b-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.rowan.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=31b3cdae-62b6-4260-a510-956389b63cea%40sessionmgr102
    
• Summary:
  • The point of this study was to look at how creating goals will affect an athlete’s anxiety. Competitive Anxiety is a certain type of anxiety that usually only comes up when an athlete is at a meet or competition. Where They get nervous or start to overthink their performance or races they are about to do. In the study focus on the different connection between the stressor in an athlete and their goals. With finding the problems that cause athletes nto to reach their goals, it can be beneficial to finding a way to stop this from happening in everyone. The study took 91 swimmers that participated, were asked before each competition what they wanted their goals to be. With the information that was proved that there is a connection between anxiety and goals. Coaches can take this information into consideration when they are creating goals with their swimmers.

• Source:
  • Sheldon Hanton and Declan Connaughton
  • Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport
  • Perceived control of anxiety and its relationship to self-confidence and performance
  • 2002
• Link:
  • https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.rowan.edu/docview/218503534?accountid=13605
    
• Summary:
  • The purpose of this study was to show the effects that anxiety has on a swimmer’s self-confidence. Looking at text relationships that a swimmer has with their self-confidence is extremely important to look at. Having a high anxiety level will lead to having lower self-confidence when it comes to their sport. The study was conducted by Sheldon Hanton and Declan Connaughton, who are both sport and exercise psychologists at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Looking at the effect of a swimmer’s self-confidence is connected to anxiety is through cognitive and somatic information. Taking cognitive and somatic information can help us gain a better understanding of how to help athletes with controlling their anxiety and helping to build up their self-confidence. This should be noted that the increase or decrease in a swimmer’s self-confidence can be perceived as either improving or lowering performances. 

• Source:
  • Philippe Vacher, Michel Nicolas, Guillaume Martintent, and Laurent Mourot
  • Frontier in Psychology
  • Changes of Swimmer’ emotional States during the Preparation of National Champion: Do Recovery-Stress States Matter?
  • 2017
• Link: 
  • https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01043/full

• Summary:
  • This study was done to look at the change of emotion that a swimmer goes through leading up to their championship meet. With focusing on swimmers heading into the French national championship. The swimmers were looked at over the courses of 4 months leading up to their races. Over the 4 months, swimmer’s emotions are put onto an emotional rollercoaster where they are going from highs to lower very quickly just from either having good or bad practices. The importance of recovery after a race is extremely important, if a swimmer is not given a little cut back in their training or given time to recover after training, this can lead to them either benign overwhelm or burnout. This is common among swimmers that are big overtrained or need to take a step back. Overall, the study provides insight into the key role that stress and recovery play in the emotional state of a swimmer. 

• Source:
  • Sarah Jean Hatteberg
  • Indiana University
  • Institutional stress and compromised social support in collegiate athletics: The student-athlete experience
  • 2015
• Link: 
  • https://search.proquest.com/docview/1709243641?pq-orgsite=gscholar from openview=true
    
• Summary:
• The focus point of this is to look at how the effects of anxiety have on a swimmer and the support system that they have in places. An important part of the article is to look at the relationship between coaches and athletes that are in college. When an athlete comes to a coach about their anxiety or depression, the coach is going to help them out, but at the same time, the coach wants to do what best for the team. By saying that a coach may not play a player if they know that the title is suffering from anxiety or depression. Sarah Hatteberg takes into account personal accounts on how athletes have created a support system and how it has affected them as a person. For example, she looks at an athlete’s relationship with a coach and how they can lead to anxiety from them. Hatteberg also goes into detail about what some of the stress is that can lead an athlete to have anxiety. Form the amount of work that is put on them from their sport or school can lead them to burn out. There’s also a pressure to perform in athletes because that is why they were chosen to come to that school, with not performing can cause a lot of stress on an athlete. Overall, the point of this article is to show how battles are affected and where they need support from others. 

The Current States of Research:

• At this state my research is basiclly compelte. I have found sourcces that can help me build up my arguments. Having a wide variety on how anxiety effects  a swimmer and hwo it is formed is goign to help me a lot. I’m feeling preety comnfidecnt that all my essay are going to have a good amount of information and facts to support my hypothesis. The outcome of these papers are going to get people to stop ignoring the signs of anxiety in swimmers.