Mental Health in Sports

Dear Colleagues,

Mental health influences how we think, feel, and act. Our mental health, mood, and emotions help determine how we handle pressure, stress, and the decisions and actions we make. Mental health influences how we relate to others and how others relate to us. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood through adolescence into adulthood and old age. Mental health affects people across different cultures. For this Special Issue, we need to emphasize that people who engage in sports and physical activity, however that is defined, are not immune from mental health issues. Further, participation in sport can be a contributor to poor mental health.

The strategies we use to try to maintain or improve our mental health vary hugely. Physical activity in all its different names appears to form a key part of many strategies for many people. There is a lot of positive evidence for the effects of exercise on mental health, but there are many questions about exercise that require more information and better answers. 

This Special Issue seeks to look at theoretical and practical approaches that researchers and practitioners have used to tackle poor mental health. A common thread to all the work is physical activity and all its different terms. Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches to studying mental health are encouraged. We encourage challenges to methods that are used, as the balance between finding evidence is practically relevant, and the need for internal validity can be a strain. The importance of mental health to the well-being of the world population calls for high-quality research, and it is hoped that this Special Issue of Sports will collate such high-quality articles themed together by the common element of physical activity (and all variations of the term).

Prof. Dr. Andrew Lane
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sports is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• mood
• emotion
• resilience
• emotional intelligence
• stress
• well-being
• positive psychology
• depression
• anxiety
• eating disorder
• clinical
• suicide