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Sports and Counseling Psychologist Mugdha Bavare said mental health remains a neglected area in professional sports despite growing focus on performance psychology. Speaking at the Yuva Kshamata Sports Conclave, she stressed that emotional well-being, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and eating disorders affect athletes beyond on-field performance, and require dedicated attention and support.

Mumbai: Sports psychology is a critical part of a sportsperson's growth and crucial when it comes to the athlete's ability to achieve success and the topic was discussed in detail at the Yuva Kshamata Sports Conclave, here on Thursday.

Among the panelists who attended the conclave was Mugdha Bavare, Sports and Counseling Psychologist, who is also associated with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

Bavare spoke about the challenges that mental health posed to professional sportspersons, who are looking to excel at the highest level.

"First of all here we have to understand the definition of mental health because when I represent myself as a psychologist, whether it is at the Olympic stage or when I go ahead with the World Cups for cricket, they mean sports psychology is only where we are talking about performance enhancement but the aspect of mental health is missing and there's a huge difference in both these elements," she added.

"Sports or performance psychology is where we are helping athletes to perform well on the ground, on the court, in water maybe if not dealing with swimmers but mental health is what goes beyond performances. We are talking about mental health in terms of their emotional health, whether they are able to carry their mental health on ground, whether they are able to perform well and that is what we talk about, mental health, their emotional health and what we mean by mental health is depression, anxiety, panic attacks, eating disorders and that is something which does not come as a highlight when we are talking about mental health and as I said that's still a lot of work to be done in that area," Bavare explained.

The senior psychologist dissected sports psychology into two aspects and delved deep into them.

"So sports psychology has two aspects to it, one is performance enhancement but the second one is mental health which still needs a lot of awareness because first of all in terms of athletes they are not really well aware of the symptoms of mental health. The second is they don't know who to approach for any kind of help and third when we are talking about psychology or mental health it's still considered a stigma or a sign of weakness or they still feel that we are weaker if we talk about mental health or our emotional health," he added.

When it came to the sporting scene in India, one of the panelists, Kinita Kadakia Patel, sports nutritionist, felt India has a long way to go before catching up with the likes of China.

"When you talk sports in general, even today we have got an approximate total of about 41 medals in our Olympic history. China has 700 plus.

India does not lack talent, we lack infrastructure, we lack an ecosystem from a grass root level and that basically starts from scouting. You see a player in a tier 2, tier 3 city, you scout them from the time they are a child, you bring them to an urban life, you get them there, you groom them there and that's where they become your world class athlete. Let's say today you get someone from tier 2, tier 3, you picked up the athlete, you got them to a city, they are working, they have not got anything extra, okay, they have not got nutrition support, they have not got psychological support and then suddenly you tell them, okay let's play international," he added.

Bavare stressed further on the importance of mental health in an athlete's development.

"You are understanding the mindset, so yes you have mental health which is everything that she said but that is also a lot of training which is required from mental, physical, nutritional and that ecosystem is lacking, that DNA does not exist. So, I am not saying it's not there, I am saying it's, we have the potential but a lot of such conclaves need to happen for people to know that there are people like us who exist in this country to provide that kind of service. I think people don't even know that," she added.