WesternU provost to give Team USA a mental boost at Beijing Olympics

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles withdrew from the team finals last summer, calling it a case of the twisties.

Tennis champion Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open, citing depression and social anxiety.

NBA star Kevin Love‘s anxiety and depression got so bad at point, he said, he did not leave his bedroom for months.

As more elite athletes reveal their mental health struggles, it makes Dr. David Baron, sports psychiatrist and provost for Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, very happy. Not because these athletes suffered through dark times, Baron explains, but because they found a way out, received professional help and are lifting the stigma attached to mental health care.

“We are starting to turn the corner for the sports world to realize mental health is a critically important component of physical health,” said Baron, who will board a flight Jan. 27 to Beijing to serve as the sports medicine/psychiatrist for Team USA at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Baron will stay in the Olympic Village, set up as a bubble with no one leaving for city sight-seeing, and return to his home in Pasadena on Feb. 24.

He brings with him decades of experience, including stints at the 1984, 1992, 1996, 2004 and 2012 Olympic games, sometimes working on doping control, other times treating both physical and mental ailments. After the bombing during the 1996 summer games in Atlanta, he soothed a lot of frayed nerves, he recalled.

With the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, his job becomes more complicated, Baron said. He knows that isolation from loved ones and not being able to socialize with other athletes, plus anxiety about contracting COVID-19, will be on top of the list of athletes’ concerns affecting their mental well-being and, possibly, their performances.

COVID-19 has disrupted training regimens due to social distancing, adding to emotional stress, Baron said.

“That affects them, especially those athletes shaving tenths or hundreds of a second off their time in order to win a medal,” he added.

Biles dropped out of the team all-around competition in Tokyo in July because of mental-health issues that she said would have downgraded her performance or caused her to have an accident. She returned for an individual event later in the games, winning her seventh Olympic medal. Osaka’s social anxiety added to her fear of press conferences. And Love, both as a Minnesota Timberwolf and a Cleveland Cavalier, struggled greatly, even experiencing a panic attack on the court.

Though Baron was not at last summer’s Olympic games, he surmised that Biles was going through personal issues and could not concentrate — a clear example of how mental health affects physical well-being.

“She was putting herself at risk by not being laser-focused,” he said. “Emotionally, the things she was going through clearly affected her ability.”

When American diver Greg Louganis hit his head on the spring board in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, and was bleeding, a media firestorm erupted years later when Louganis revealed he was gay and had been diagnosed as HIV-positive six months before the Olympic games.

The incident did not result in anyone at the Olympics getting HIV and Louganis was treated with new drugs that saved his life. He was inducted into the diving hall of fame and won the gold medal that year.

“His ability to laser focus, to put everything else out of his mind — that was part of his athletic genius,” Baron said.

Divers, runners, skiers and ice skaters envision their routine in their minds’ eye, like re-running a mental video tape over and over, Baron said. Also, he teaches cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, such as mindfulness.

“A CBT therapist challenges negative thoughts,” he explained. “So it involves quieting your mind.”

To tamp down anxiety, Baron counsels athletes to control what they can and not go down the rabbit hole of “what ifs,” which can get in the way of a peak performance.

Basketball players think about plays and shooting during practice, under the watchful eye of a coach. But in the game, Baron tells them to just play and not think too much. To elite Olympic athletes who’ve sacrificed to get to the games, his advice is simple:

“I tell them enjoy it,” he began. “To keep perspective. Do your best. And then in 10 or 20 years you can tell your kids or grandkids ‘I was a member of that Olympic team.’ “

Ashley Samson, a professor of kinesiology with a specialty in sports psychology, works with student athletes at Cal State Northridge and has been busy. The university counseling center received many more calls for appointments during the pandemic than in prior years, she noted.

She said social media can interfere with the mental state of a celebrated athlete. But those who’ve talked about their struggles have broken through stigmas and dealt with hateful comments on social media, she said.

Part of an athlete’s competitive makeup is to be self-motivated and push through limits. That can be a two-edged sword and make an athlete more susceptible to anxiety and depression, Samson said.

“Those are all well and good but there comes a point when they don’t know when it is good enough,” Samson said. With Biles and others who’ve already achieved much success, they carry the weight of high expectations going forward and sometimes those can’t be matched.

“The expectations get bigger and bigger. Now it becomes ‘you have to do these things every day to meet everyone’s expectations,’ ” Samson explained. “Going to the top of the mountain is one thing. Staying on top is another.”

Samson said the counseling she offers student athletes is a good take-away for all people during the COVID-19 omicron surge. When people are staying home or not seeing loved ones or friends, the emotional toll can be huge.

“Try to be patient with yourself. Be flexible in your mind. We challenge rigid thinking,” she said. “I tell my athletes not to get frustrated that you are having emotions; acknowledge you are struggling.”