Making way for wellness
Four years after the advent of the pandemic, mental health issues persist, but sports psychologist Jarrod Spencer ’96 says we’re opening up about it more than ever before, and that’s a good thing.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ADAM ATKINSON
The COVID-19 pandemic may largely be in the rearview mirror, but its psychological ramifications are still reverberating throughout the country. Despite the ongoing hardships many are enduring, Jarrod Spencer ’96 sees a kernel of promising news: The stigma around mental health may finally be evaporating across our society. “It’s the best thing that came out of the pandemic,” Spencer says. “It’s no longer a taboo topic.”
According to a recent survey of mental health practitioners by the American Psychological Association, by the end of 2023 the demand for psychologists was greater than in 2022, and the need was so acute that mental health practitioners were having difficulty seeing all the patients who needed help. The report found that cases of anxiety, trauma, stress, and depressive disorders were all higher in 2023 than the prior year, symptoms were more severe, and treatment periods were longer.
Spencer is an author, public speaker, and licensed clinical psychologist who has worked with numerous professional sports franchises, including clients in the NFL, WNBA, and other top leagues. His book and training program, Mind of the Athlete, delves into the psychology of sport to help athletes attain better performance; this summer, he is advising the United States wrestling team at the Olympic Games in Paris.
Spencer’s interest in sports psychology stems in part from his own time on the gridiron. During his first year at Lafayette, he played tailback for the football team that won the Patriot League title in 1992. However, after concussions sidelined his collegiate playing, he became more interested in how the mind worked. “Dr. Alan Childs was teaching a class in health psychology at the time, and I loved that class so much I got a doctorate in the discipline,” he says.
While many continue to deal with higher levels of post-pandemic stress and anxiety, Spencer explains why things may feel so heavy lately—and what we can do about it.
Lingering pandemic issues
According to Spencer, it’s no surprise that psychological aftershocks of the pandemic are still with us. He has noticed in particular that those who were on the front lines during the pandemic—like teachers and health care workers, for example—are now hitting the wall. “Two years later, they are now the ones saying they are really struggling with burnout and emotional fatigue,” he says. “The leaders in particular had a lot of added stress, and what I’m seeing is a delayed crash.”
The pandemic also had a particular generational effect on children and adolescents. “Whatever developmental steps they did not get properly during the pandemic can cause a significant lasting impact,” he says. “Skills children did not learn from attending kindergarten, or if kids did not go out dating, there’s a delay in those skill sets.”
It’s a good time to talk
While the pandemic played a role in bringing mental well-being into the public conversation, so did some sporting events, notes Spencer. “When Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open, that’s when I marked the mental health stigma falling in all the sports.” Osaka, a Japanese tennis phenom who has won four Grand Slam singles titles, quit the tournament in 2021 after being fined for skipping a press conference in order, she explained at the time, to protect her mental health. “That’s when the entire world said, ‘It’s OK to not be OK,’ and from that moment forward it seems everyone has been willing to speak openly about mental health, and it’s been a beautiful thing to see.”
The impact of screens
Technology during the pandemic, as critical as it was to managing work, school, and socializing, is also the source of some of the current problems, Spencer says. “For two years, we basically said to kids, you can have your phone in your room or stay up talking to your friends on Xbox. Now kids are getting dopamine from electronic interactions and aren’t learning interpersonal skills. We’ve essentially given them a drug.”
Phones are exacerbating another mental health issue, sleep deprivation. “It’s the biggest mental health concern in America, and sleep epidemic problems are directly linked to phone addiction,” Spencer says. “Changing your phone habits is the biggest piece of mental health advice I could give someone.”
First, he suggests to stop using the phone an hour before your ideal sleep time to give your brain time and space to slow down.
Also, always charge your phone away from the bed, he says, which puts the temptation to look at it out of reach. “Around 90% of people use their phone as their alarm clock,” says Spencer. “That little habit keeps the brain stimulated.”
