Getting over Gold: Athletes and Mental Health | Hacker News Reader

Getting over Gold: Athletes and Mental Health

davidepstein.com

93 pointsnohuck1345 comments

People can inadvertently fall into a bad career by being good at something.

Take a goal oriented person with outstanding genomics for sport. Their binary decision tree of life is skewed in one direction by compliments and dopamine. They build up to the ultimate outcome to be an extrinsic release. The day comes for the ultimate test. The world watches for 30 seconds and moves on. Win or lose, the world doesn’t care the way they cared. The release never came — just silence (with no monetary reward).

I remember a presentation I listened to years ago by a woman who knew someone who decided to become an accountant or something like that instead of going into pro-football, which would have conflicted with some of his personal values. He never regretted the decision and had a very happy life as a successful normal person with plenty of time for his family and hobbies.

There are normally a lot of wins before you end up at the Olympics, those wins simply aren’t televised. Roughly, 1 in 750,000 people end up at each Olympics, simply going is a big deal.

Even then most people realize they have zero chance of winning their event. Many would consider making the final to be a huge accomplishment.

> with no monetary reward

Many countries have a financial reward for medals. Russia gives you a new Mercedes, a six-figure USD sum and a lifetime pension for a gold (the Mercedes is for any medal, but the model gets worse.) (This was in 2014, I think they may have jiggered the reward since then). The US pays five-figures to any medal winner.

I'm not saying that it's a good business decision, but it's definitely some compensation depending on the country.

I also wonder how it works in smaller countries. If you are the gold medalist from your country do you get endorsements? Like, sure, the US team won X, but we have a lot of medals and how many people really care about that sport. As of today Iran has won one medal (a gold) and Kuwait has won one medal (a bronze). Are those people heroes back home?

*Edit: Thanks to the person who corrected my spelling

Mercedes (if you mean the car)

Thanks, fixed.

Every medal is cherished here in India and gets lot of coverage in media.

There are some countries, which reward their athletes handsomely, either financially or via some form of compensation through benefits. However, you will generally find that they don't have a comprehensive program or a support network in place, and the historically low medal count might have a role to play. There are also detractors, who don't agree with the practice of paying for medals.

https://old.reddit.com/r/olympics/comments/orije1/check_out_...

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/29/tokyo-olympics-how-much-athl...

https://techpolicyinstitute.org/publications/miscellaneous/d...

Even looking past the direct monetary benefits, I wonder if having "Former Olympian" on your resume will give you a boost looking for jobs.

I've noticed that even after a small stint at a prestigious aerospace company, I still get calls that stem from folks seeing that on my resume, I would imagine being a former Olympian would give you a similar leg up.

That $ also pales in comparison to sponsorships for the more popular sports. Even the 'medium' sports, Brooke (climbing team USA) is in car commercials now.

Though the small sports can still struggle to even get enough resources to train full time, USOC should work on that.

Why the weird technical jargon? All you had to say was: people with certain talents can more easily fall into an unhealthy career when they are rewarded in ways that encourage them to continue on that career path.

To be an Olympian itself is a long time social reward for an individual. That will never lapse.

Yes! Am I supposed to feel bad for olympic athletes now? That label instantly propels you into an higher status in society.

> Am I supposed to feel bad for olympic athletes now?

No. That would be sympathy, where you feel bad because they feel bad. But empathy, where you understand their feelings would be good. Not just for Olympic athletes, but in general.

At least in the cases described by the author, the comedowns weren't because the world didn't care about if they won or lost - or if they got the release or not (or monetary reward).

The comedown was about the loss of structure, degree of control, and clarity of goals.

It's analogous to what I hear from many people (including in my head) when you finally get out of school into the real world. It's also (based on what I've read and heard - I certainly have no first hand experience), analogous to something that many veterans feel going into the "real world".

The structure, clarity of purpose, knowing that everyone has more or less the same goals, knowing that you have non-trivial control to advance yourself towards your goal (winning gold, getting the grade, surviving the deployment, etc) which you know no-one will question.

We live our normal lives never quite sure if we're trying to do aim for the right things, and never quite sure if we're doing it the right way. We spend our whole adult lives coping (and perhaps thriving) with that uncertainty. Some of us fantasize about "more simple" lives, ultimately because the reduction in choices and things to consider mean we can (hopefully) go about our lives with greater clarity.

I don't know if "the real world" could be any other way. But perhaps on some level, we keep pushing people along this "bad career" (I don't think it's bad really... but that's a different discussion) because we all on some level want to believe that that idyllic, focused life can exist.

The only constant in life is change. The sooner you embrace uncertainty the sooner you move on and thrive.

Worth noting, calculus and differentiation help alleviate some of the uncertainty around determining the rate and effects of change.

I hope I can get my doctor to prescribe some

I'm not sure I've ever heard of a doctor prescribing calculus. They usually prescribe medicine, a regimen, or some other combination of things.

Calculus helps here too: https://nmmra.org/calculus-and-its-use-in-medicine/

Having known some veterans I can't cry for gold medalists.

Can we be OK with comparing things without assuming they're being equated? GP never said gold medalists have it as hard as veterans. Comparison != equation. Taking someone's comparison and elevating it to an equation is a strawman. (This fallacy is so common it deserves its own name. Is there one?)

This isn't about argumentative logic, it's about proportion and perspective. When we feel we have it rough recognizing that others may have it rougher lends a perspective that leads to gratitude and less self-centeredness. People who suffer often find release from their suffering when they help others. A program where ex-Olympians volunteer to help veterans might do both some good.

It’s not about suffering. Olympians, Students, Soldiers, Prisoners, Widows, Retirees, and anyone else who goes from regimented patterns to increased freedoms are all to a greater or lesser degree cast adrift.

It’s rare for people to only be facing a single issue, and the degree that any one issue is impacting them can very wildly. Still, dismissing similarities because of differences in intensity is counter productive. Grief counseling often involves encouraging people to go through their daily rituals, but all of those transitions can benefit from similar advice.

> When we feel we have it rough recognizing that others may have it rougher lends a perspective that leads to gratitude and less self-centeredness.

Sometimes, for some people. For some people, when they express their feelings, and the response they are met points out that others have it worse, they sometimes feel worse. It can sometimes feel like a dismissal, invalidating their feelings and experiences. I'm using qualifiers here, but I personally think most people want to feel validated.

The question to ask then is: after validation, what's next? How do they build their sense of self-worth? Fortunately, that sensitivity can dissipate.

Fallacy of relative privation?

The fact that that this "fallacy" has just been coined in 10K years of human history should make us suspicious. The fact is, gratitude and volunteering are healing. Recognizing when others have it worse and helping is something we should all do more.

https://xkcd.com/2368/

[Fallacy of appeal to xkcd]

I hope one day you can find enough simpathy to feel sorry for any good person who commits suicide regardless of how hard you judge their life to have been.

But it's not about your feelings or mine, right? It's about their situation.

This hasn't been true in Olympic sports in decades, even for minor athletes who didn't place.

"Olympian" is a good enough selling pitch for endorsement contracts.

The giant names in the giant sports get money, the rest, not so much: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22586868/olympics-athletes-pay...

Luc Longley, centre for Michael Jordan's champion Chicago Bulls NBA team, went through something similar, and came out the other side.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-02/luc-longleys-chicago-...

This was a great read - thanks for posting it.

We are always pushed to competition, I did sailing when I was young, despite being 4 times national champ I didn't really like competition (logistics, wait time), I just loved endless practice sessions, surfing/waves/wind sensations.

I'd have definitely exchanged all my trophies (that I gave to the club anyway) for just more practice and fun. I have that same spirit on my bike, no electronic, nothing, just enjoying the moment, pushing a bit occasionally. I don't watch sport either, what's the point watching other practicing it, once you know a sport?

I don't watch sport either, what's the point watching other practicing it, once you know a sport

Depends on the sport: for sports with really technical goals (think climbing, skateboarding) just 'knowing' isn't the same as thay way you know how to run or cycle. Watching others do it can give you new ideas for things to try and can definitely help you gettig better by seeing how others do it.

Apart from that, for all sports: watching sports has been a thing since sports came to existence, so the other reasons for doing it seem to be somtehing quite natural for most people out there.

We are always pushed to competition

Heavily depends on culture/family/education I think. I was never pushed to competition. At least not against others. There was some urging towards trying to do things as good as possible. You could call that competition with yourself, but I dont think that's the competition you mean.

Is this really generalizable to all nations? Or is it the US treatment and perspective in play?

US in general not being stellar in mental health, but also having a very specific cultural ground, it would surprise me if this had less to do with athleticism and more with not being adequately trained in having robust structures for meaning which can contextualize these deep-focus targets.

Many of what is described about gold medals or competition in general can be applied to extreme career or monetary focus too.

Besides, US is the land of modern superhero myths with intense projections on any avatar that can be worshipped as one. That can be a projection too much for most real people to bear. They simply can’t shoulder the lack in an entire nation’s “meaning” needs. Blind leading the blind, we devour what we want to worship because they can’t get us out of this mess either.

With Biles it was a bit different but also not, she had been on prescription amphetamines with medical use exemption, but they are completely banned in Japan so she had to be off this time. It is not up to me to question the particular diagnosis but even a slight misdosing can be very performance enhancing for amphetamines; this is a territory that should be very familiar to some US programmers or college students.

Nonetheless the effects of intense, and maybe unearned, hero projections was again we getting lost in finding our way to human excellence.

So let's recap:

Olympics:

- forces countries to invest in infrastructure, opening chance for corrupt governments to siphon money easily

- incentivizes countries to treat humans like animals and train them since birth (in some cases separating them from their families)

- countries 'dump' athletes right after they peak, few of them give them the support they need to survive with their highly tuned skills but with low demand

- athletes don't get a single dime (unless they win and depends on their country), yet ads and ticket sales flow

- allows coaches to have complete power over little kids, leading to abuse (mental/physical/sexual)

Why don't we keep the Olympics at a single place (i.e. Greece) let them have the tourist revenue and we avoid having to build facilities all over the world every 4 years. Let's invest that money on the people that actually make the event what it is. Let's give medals to countries that take care of their own. It is hard for me to not think of the Olympics as some vestige of the cold war. We could do better. The recent supreme court case involving the NCAA might be a sign that athletes can recoup some agency, so that is motivating.

This clause stuck out for me: "he would recognize and get help for his own depression."

I don't know if anyone watches Ted Lasso, but in Season Two, they bring in a sports psychologist. No spoilers here.

He talks about never showing vulnerability and the destructive effects of that. But also: "Everything in life is a skill, and you’ve got to learn when to use it and when not to use it." Bingo.

Any sports trainer who doesn't force his or her way past the athlete's reflexive "I'm fine; I don't need any help." is guilty of malpractice, IMHO. Looking after their mental health is just as important as looking after their cardiovascular fitness.

I was satisfied to see him acknowledge the same pressures in other high-stakes jobs. During the 3/4 year period when I was completely committed to my startup I felt the most kinship with actors, directors, athletes and not other engineers/makers.

Likewise, the same bereavement affected me when I got off the merry-go-round a few years ago, maybe more than I realised at the time. It's very hard not to have that one mission as the answer to who you are. Can anyone share good resources for dealing with the emotional wind down that comes after a long period of single-minded dedication?

I felt something similar after running my first marathon. I was always a sedentary kid who could barely finish a mile in grade school so this was a huge accomplishment for me, but the emotional roller coaster of training and racing and the post-marathon blues hit like a truck [1].

I also felt the same after living in Japan, which was the brass ring I'd been chasing for as long as I could remember. I had to confront the realization that what I thought would make me happy ultimately didn't (these experiences yielded both the happiest and saddest moments of my life) and could never have lived up to my perfect idealization [2].

What helps me is to think of myself as a verb instead of a noun [3]. This helps me avoid putting all eggs in one basket and realizing that my self-worth does not come from a single persona that I wear, but is a weighted combination of everything that makes me a human being.

[1] https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/a20804968/the-p...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5R8gduPZw4

[3] “We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I'm going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.” - Stephen Fry

This makes me think of Bobby Fischer, who after becoming World Chess Champion, refused to defend his title in 1975 and afterwards did not play a competitive game in public for nearly 20 years.

In the same theme, there’s a recent documentary called “The Weight of Gold”, narrated by Michael Phelps and other Olympic champions. Really poignant stories.

Maybe we haven't come that far from Roman Coliseum days and are basically still throwing people to the lions after they start to bore us with their performances.

The Olympics sure sucks..low pay and a major toll on mental health.

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