{"id":25545,"date":"2024-08-15T10:06:36","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T09:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=25545"},"modified":"2024-08-15T10:06:36","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T09:06:36","slug":"olympic-comedown-is-a-common-ailment-after-the-games-heres-what-it-is-and-how-athletes-cope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/around-ou\/ou-speaks-out\/olympic-comedown-is-a-common-ailment-after-the-games-heres-what-it-is-and-how-athletes-cope\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic comedown\u2019 is a common ailment after the games \u2013 here\u2019s what it is and how athletes cope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Helen Owton is Lecturer in Sport and Fitness in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies. Here she explains why athletes experience a ‘comedown’ after the Olympics.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cComedown<\/a>\u201d is a term usually associated with withdrawal from stimulant drugs. But the feelings experienced by athletes are not so different. The high athletes get from their sport has been linked to the\u00a0release of the hormone adrenaline<\/a>. The Olympic comedown is a response to the \u201chigh\u201d that is experienced from the release of adrenaline during the games.<\/p>\n

Adrenaline addiction is often connected to\u00a0extreme sport<\/a>\u00a0participants but\u00a0studies have shown<\/a>\u00a0that addictive disorders \u2013 including alcohol, drugs and gambling \u2013 can affect athletes across a range of sports.<\/p>\n

Success can become like a drug to elite athletes. And, unfortunately, for some the \u201chigh\u201d from winning and attention may be replaced with other addictions once the competition is over. Athletes report feeling like \u201crock stars<\/a>\u201d \u2013 one professional wrestler commented that\u00a0\u201cthere\u2019s no better drug\u201d<\/a>\u00a0than their sport.<\/p>\n

Prolonged media attention can delay a bout of\u00a0post-Olympic blues<\/a>\u00a0but for many athletes retiring from elite sport altogether, this transition from feeling like a celebrity to becoming a regular person again can present a significant risk to their psychological health and wellbeing. Replacing the sporting experience with something constructive\u00a0can be a challenge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Coping with post-event blues<\/h2>\n

Many athletes have a strong but narrow sense of identity \u2013 what they do is a huge part of who they are. Once athletes return from the Olympic games, they may experience an\u00a0existential crisis<\/a>, asking themselves \u201cwhat now?\u201d, or \u201cwhat does all this mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

But this doesn\u2019t have to be a negative experience. Studies have demonstrated that when athletes stop their sport it can be an opportunity for reflection, clarification of values, and a search for\u00a0alternative ways of living<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Preparing the mind and body to wind down for one\u2019s health is just as important as psyching up to perform. A\u00a02022 study<\/a>\u00a0reported that this sort of preparation and athlete support is still lacking.<\/p>\n

Days before 800m runner Keely Hodgkinson won a gold medal in Paris 2024, she\u00a0opened up<\/a>\u00a0about experiencing depression after coming second and \u201conly\u201d winning a silver four years earlier at the Tokyo Games, saying: \u201cI didn\u2019t realise Olympic comedown was actually a big thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Post-event slumps don\u2019t just affect Olympians, though. We can all experience depression after a long build-up to an important life event. While the following coping strategies were suggested by\u00a0elite sportspeople<\/a>\u00a0to help other athletes ward off post-competition depression, they could be helpful for anyone trying to navigate our way through the blues after a big event.<\/p>\n

The first step is to accept that you know the goal is finished, then take time off to enjoy and celebrate what you have achieved. Reflect on what went well, what didn\u2019t go so well and what you enjoyed. Most importantly, make a list of the pleasurable things you missed out on while preparing for the event \u2013 so maybe going to the movies, having more free time to devote to hobbies, friends and family, or going to the beach. Then, during your time off after the event, make an effort to go and do those things.<\/p>\n

Filling your life with meaningful activities after a big event can help all of us to deal with comedown \u2013 whether we\u2019re Olympic rockstars or more ordinary folk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Helen Owton is Lecturer in Sport and Fitness in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies. Here she explains why athletes experience a ‘comedown’ after the Olympics.\u00a0 \u201cComedown\u201d is a term usually associated with withdrawal from stimulant drugs. But the feelings experienced by athletes are not so different. The high athletes get from their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":25550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[862,1525,1577,2095,2096],"class_list":["post-25545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ou-speaks-out","tag-faculty-of-wels","tag-news-home","tag-olympics","tag-sport","tag-sport-and-fitness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}