Shifting Mindsets to Escape Mental Slump

Participating in an extremely time consuming sport all while taking the hardest courses your school can be very strenuous and tiresome. To all the student-athletes out there, I know how hard it can be — I’m currently a junior in high school, starting my first year in the full IB program. In addition, I am also a competitive swimmer who trains 15-18 hours a week for both my club and high school team. Although I am not planning on continuing to swim in college, I am still very much committed to my goals within this sport. 

Of course, I am just one of the many, many hardworking student athletes out there. However, I believe that there are many unspoken challenges that we face on a daily basis due to our busy schedules. With this website, I plan to help many upcoming and current student athletes how to deal with this tough lifestyle in the healthiest way possible. But before I begin, I’d like to share my own story of how I managed to pull myself out of a seemingly endless mental slump.

It all started when I was around eight years old. I had begged my mom to put me on a swim team right after I passed every level of swim lessons. Surprisingly, within just a year of being on the team, I became one of the fastest swimmers on the team for my age group. To provide some context, my club team uses motivational time standards, starting with a B time and going all the way up to an AAAA time, which is a nationally recognized standard. A B time would be the slowest one, and each one after (BB, A, AA, AAA, and AAAA) would be progressively faster. At that time, the average time most of the swimmers in my group had was a BB time.

Initially, I was a backstroker, not because I was fast at it, but because my other strokes were far worse. However, during this one particular meet, my coach put me in the 100 yard breaststroke, and unexpectedly, I earned my first A time. This caught me completely off guard, as I had never imagined myself being remotely good in this event and stroke. At my next swim meet, I dropped even more time, earning a AA time. I soon began to realize that I didn’t achieve my time by pure luck, but rather due to the talent and skill I had in this stroke. From then on, I put all my effort into improving my breaststroke, hoping I could be the first to earn an AAA time in my group. I only had a couple months to do so, as I would soon turn 11, moving me to the older age group with faster time standards. My race against time was on. 

Pacific Northwest Swimming 10&Under Long Course Champs. My last meet as a 10 year old. I only had two chances left to get this cut: the 50 and 100 meter breaststroke. I got on the blocks, dove in the water, and swam as fast as I could. Although I had just missed the cut by a mere couple of milliseconds in the 50 breaststroke, I made it in the 100. Words couldn't describe how happy I was — I was on top of the world. By the end of the meet, I earned myself two medals. Fourth place in the 100 meter breaststroke and seventh place in the 50 meter breaststroke. 

Ever since then, I was pretty much known as the breaststroker of our group. Whenever the set included any sort of breastroke, everyone would immediately move out of the way and let me go first. My breaststroke grew to be as fast as the people several years older than me. The amount of confidence I had in myself was immeasurable. In less than a year, I qualified for my first state-recognized meet: Regionals. There were only two people in my group, including me, who had qualified for this meet. Saying I was proud of myself would be an understatement — I was ecstatic. 

Unfortunately, that year's Regionals took place in March of 2020. I’m sure we all know what the year 2020 had in store for us. Covid-19 cases had increased to the point where everything had to be shut down, including Regionals. I was devastated that I couldn’t go — this would have been my first time experiencing a faster meet, and I couldn’t even swim in it. Unbeknownst to me, this is where everything started falling apart.

Thankfully, after only a couple of months we were able to go back to the pool, with many safety protocols, of course. 

In addition to being out of shape, I was also completely unaware of the fact that at this age, the guys in my group would be starting puberty, meaning they would be growing and improving at a much faster rate than me. I watched the teammates who used to be slower than me rapidly reach times I’d never seen before. With my confidence plummeting, I stopped seeing improvement in my times, and my mindset quickly deteriorated.

I had gone from basically being at the top to now being at rock bottom. 

““Why are they so much faster than me now?”
“How did I get so slow?”“How did I fall off this hard?”
“What happened to me?”
“Is swimming even worth it anymore?””

— Quote Source

These questions rushed through my head. Where did it all go wrong? I knew I didn’t do the workouts, but even so, it couldn’t have made such a big difference.
So, why?

Why am I unable to do what I used to do? Why am I unable to swim fast anymore? What are they doing that I’m not? 

No matter how hard I tried or how much effort I put in practice, they would always be faster than me. So I stopped trying.

Throughout the next couple of years, my teammates would slowly become faster and faster. Although I never fully plateaued, it was clear that I was improving at a much slower pace than the others. With that, all the motivation I had for swimming completely vanished. 

I started skipping the portions of the set I didn’t want to swim. I saw a couple of my friends just sitting on the wall taking a break whenever they wanted to, and it wasn’t long before I found myself planning out and strategizing when to “go to the bathroom” or when to “get a leg cramp.” I just stopped trying altogether and fully accepted that I would never be as good as the others.

Clearly, during this part of my life, swimming was not making me happy at all. I dreaded having to haul myself out of bed for morning practices or having to sacrifice nap time for afternoon practices. And it got worse each day. I was staying the same speed while all of my teammates were improving to the point of qualifying for national level meets, such as sectionals and futures. But the only person I could blame was me. I wasn’t putting in the effort I needed to if I wanted to improve. I made excuses to skip the hardest parts of the sets, and avoided anything I didn’t want to do. What started as something out of my control became something I shaped and created. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to quit. 

I felt as though it was too late for me to quit swimming. If I really did want to quit, I should’ve done so years earlier. That way, I would’ve had enough time to become good at another sport. But that was already out of the picture.

I mean, I wasn’t the worst at swimming. But I was also nowhere near the top anymore. I was just another average swimmer. After going from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, I didn’t think it could get any worse. 

I was in a slump. Every swim meet, I would set my expectations so low, I was guaranteed to meet them. In my eyes, this was the only way I could be somewhat okay with my results. There would be no way for me to be disappointed in myself if I would reach my goal each time. Of course, I wasn’t happy with my times. But my goals of “gain less than a minute!” and “sub two in the 100!” weren’t exactly helping the situation I was in. I didn’t even understand myself. I didn’t hate how slow I was, as I had already accepted it. But, I wasn’t happy with my times either. I knew I could do better. But how? How could I get myself out of this deep hole that I had dug myself into. How could I recover when I was already so far lost?

My coach already knew about how unmotivated I was; it was pretty obvious just by looking at my meet and practice performance. However, all she said was a single sentence. A sentence I’ve asked myself many times. But this time, I really thought about it.

Why do you swim?

I’d already answered this question in my head so many times. Because I can’t quit. Because I have to. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized. Without any sort of goal, there really was no point in me continuing to swim. So, since I was so stubborn, I managed to find myself a temporary goal to keep me going.

Get the pink cap.

That was my goal. Yes, it sounds incredibly stupid, but I’d gaslight myself into saying that it really was my goal. And with enough time, it actually did become my goal. For context, our team gives out different colored caps for the people who qualify for larger and faster meets, and the pink one happened to be the futures cut (the official qualifying time for D1 athletes), which honestly is a bit of a stretch for me, but it was silly enough to go along with. 

In the end, I honestly find that gaslighting works best for me. Although shifting my mindset is still very hard, whenever I’m at practice facing a seemingly endless set with pretty fast sendoffs, I try my hardest to think more positively. I just tell myself that I’m the best, and that this set should be light and easy – I was basically just giving myself a god complex, and repeating it over and over until I started to actually believe in myself. This strategy may not work for everyone, but I can say that it has definitely worked for me. Just changing my mindset from thinking negatively about everything to thinking positively has really helped me with getting through tough sets at practice and intimidating tests in school. It may sound quite basic and useless, but trust me, it really does help. Hopefully, hearing my perspective has helped even just a little bit. And whatever you may be going through right now, I can guarantee it will end.

Overcoming the Struggles of Hypoglycemia and Burnout

This is written for all the student-athletes out there who have big dreams of their own. Whether or not you have gone through your own set of personal struggles while on your journey as an athlete, this article is meant to relate your experiences as an athlete with my own, helping you get to know me better while understanding the purpose of this blog. It’s designed to help people like you understand the types of individual struggles student-athletes can go through, as well as how to overcome them. While reading this article, I want you all to think about your lives as student-athletes, and how your shortcomings as an athlete have shaped you into the person you are today. Here, I will tell you all my experience as a passionate athlete, perhaps relating my life as an athlete to a few of the experiences that you’ve had, but also adding a personal touch in learning a little more about me (your co-founder) and my own personal story.

Before I begin, I want all my youth readers to understand that I’m pretty similar to all of  you. I was born in a family down in the suburbs of Washington, and never went through any crazy issues as I grew up. This article won’t be about some other-worldly experience I had, but rather one that could have happened to you, or even something you are struggling with right now. I’m one of the millions of athletes in our country, and probably one of the few who speaks out about the things I’ve experienced. This is what happened to me, and I want to make sure it doesn’t happen to any of you.

Now, without further ado, here is my story.

I discovered my love for swimming at a pretty young age. In elementary school, I joined a sports club, and I started my adventure as an ‘athlete’ while also living out my life as a happy child. There, in the tiny little kiddie pool at my 3rd grade swim party, I discovered my passion for the water. Starting in the summer of 2015, I became the coolest curly-haired swimmer on the block. But as the years passed and middle school started, my life took a turn, and I started to struggle with anxiety and stress both at practice and at school. Without my parents taking me to a doctor to find out why I was having so much anxiety, panic attacks, or why I wasn’t dropping time in my swims for the past 3 years, I wouldn’t have known that I struggled with more than just ‘the usual stress overload.’

I found out that I had developed a moderate case of hypoglycemia at just 14 years old. All simply because I wasn’t eating enough while over exercising.

Hypoglycemia is a glucose disorder. No, it’s not Diabetes, but rather a condition where your blood sugar levels go below the average range your body needs to properly function, putting it in simple terms. My brain, consequently, thought I was starving, stealing packs and packs of glucose from my muscles whenever I ate food, and thus putting me in a danger zone. In a future article, I will explore the effects and causes of this disorder more in-depth, but for now, this is a good summarization of my case of Hypoglycemia. Here’s how I got it:

Throughout my time in middle school, I struggled with my physical appearance. Quarantine led me to overdose on my phone usage and took me down a Tik Tok spiral. Seeing skinny influencers made me believe that those bodies were ideal in our society. For the next 4-5 months, I exercised rigorously. Not just an average 45 minute workout, but repeating that intense volume multiple times a day, working out up to 3 different occasions daily. I was barely eating, losing weight, and lost my self-confidence. All I cared about were those 3 “skinny” lines down my stomach.

I bet any girl reading this can relate when I say social media really spiraled my perception of a “normal” body image. From doing those 10-minute ab workouts all the skinny influencers recommended to eating an average of 2 meals daily, my body was suffering. This, later on, caused my ‘freak outs’ during my practices. My brain was on overdrive; not only was I not fueling my body properly, but I was also overworking myself due to the strenuous amount of exercise I was doing. My muscles and body were weak and starved. This had caused my head to think all about how horrible and hard the next swim workout would be, or how slow I was compared to my teammates. I’d cry in the locker room stalls to get out of swimming. I was in a pretty bad mental and physical place.

I cared about my sport — I always have, and I always will. Since I was young, I have always been a committed swimmer. I’d go to all 18 hours of weekly training, push myself above what I was asked to do, and yet I still suffered. I still didn’t drop time and qualify for big meets, and I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. 

My brain and body weren’t receiving enough nutrients because of the lack of calories in my diet. Hence, my immune system weakened, and my body started ‘freaking out,’ leading me to have panic attacks for no reason at all. I remember an instance that triggered a panic attack simply due to a lunch lady denying me a cookie in 8th grade. Funny, but not funny. In a nutshell, my visit to the doctor told me that all these problems could be fixed if I started eating more and moderating my training. 

Wouldn’t that make me fat and bloated? I thought. That would make me feel too full and slow at practice. 

News flash! It didn’t.

I gained 20 pounds healing from this condition, and I can confidently say that I have never been happier with my body image or my self-esteem. Oh, and trust me, you won’t get fat. I admit I still had my own sets of typical worries, but my anxiety slowly decreased, and pretty soon the locker-room crying sessions at practice soon became a distant memory. I started resting more throughout my in-season training, making sure I had time to relax and recharge as school, swim, and extracurriculars started to pile up. Eventually, I felt happy, stable, and motivated about my sport, as well as my life in general. I started improving in my races, and pretty soon, I ended up qualifying in the Top 8 best swimmers at Regional competitions, being a varsity swimmer on my high school team, and being close to Pro Swim Series qualification times. 

In school, I began to overthink less about my grades and friendships. I was able to manage the life of a high-achieving student by developing study habits and time management skills, allowing me to participate in my daily practices while having time to relax. I learned that I love to help people, so I started participating in my school’s suicide prevention programs, outside medical internships, and even creating my own projects, such as this blog!.

All of my successes started by simply eating more and resting when my body needed it.

It is incredibly important to take care of your body. Forget any social standard of looking ‘skinny’ or following certain weight loss diets that cause painful lifestyles. I cannot stress this enough: you need to listen to your body, because eventually, it won’t give you a choice. Those panic attacks I had were certainly not my choice.

As a young athlete, you shouldn’t feel hungry or frequently get sick throughout the season. Over two thirds of America’s high school athletes have gone through burnout due a lack of knowing how to take care of themselves. If you believe something isn’t right, or if your stress levels seem a little too hard to manage, don’t be afraid to find some professional guidance that can help you figure out what’s wrong. Trust yourself, and trust your body. If you feel tired beyond what is normal for you, take a break. Trust me, it may actually be the key to your athletic success and overall well-being. 

Balancing your academics with sports, extracurriculars, personal life and mental health is no easy feat. I want my personal experience to resonate with those going through similar circumstances in order for you all to become aware of your bodies, to train in healthy ways, and to take action if necessary. My experience with burnout is just one of the many that exist out there. We need to normalize that feeling anxious and fatigued as athletes can be more than just being ‘lazy’ or ‘not training enough.’

I encourage you to think about your experience as a student athlete, or to talk to someone who is one, and ask them about their ups and downs with this lifestyle. It’s difficult to balance everything all at once — from school, to training, to friends, and to mental health. Our platform invites athletes like you to grow aware of your struggles, and to take action if necessary. You deserve to have a normal life, and no matter how far you wish to take your athletic or academic careers, you need balance.

You need to be healthy. 

In the near future, our blog staff plans to talk with doctors who are more knowledgeable about this topic, as well as interviewing student athletes like you about your experiences to highlight the different struggles we face and how to overcome them.

We strive to build a personal, passionate community where student athletes can learn more about balancing their lifestyle in a healthy way. Being aware of our bodies takes us one step closer to working towards a more efficient approach to our sports and daily lives.