2. With so many adolescents playing sports, it’s worthwhile to talk about the various benefits athletics bestows upon teens. Here’s a list of why getting involved in sports is good for you:
Sports Keep You Healthy
3. The exercise involved in most sports improves teens’ health, strength, emotional balance, and life years. Exercise releases cortisol, which reduces stress; and endorphins, our bodies’ natural feel-good chemicals. Sports participation is linked to reduced heart disease and diabetes, among other health benefits.
Playing Sports Can Improve Academic Performance
4. Participation in high school sports is linked to better grades and professional success in the workforce. If you’re an athlete, you tend to have a more positive attitude toward school, improved academic performance, and higher aspirations for college.
Sports Help Shape Identity
5. Like other extracurricular activities, playing sports affords you the unique positive benefits of identity formation. Sports are a great way for teens to form an identity outside their family. And since most sports take place after school hours, teens have a chance to forge their own path outside of their identity in the classroom. Teens take pride in the fact that they are athletes, which helps them establish their identity and differentiates them from peers.
Sport Provide Social Benefits
6. Sports participation also provides the benefit of peer membership. When you’re on a sports team, you belong to a group, an entity greater than yourself. You have a built-in social network, and you know that you can have the support of your teammates when you need it. Since social acceptance is so important during adolescence, having positive relationships with one’s teammates can do wonders for a teen’s wellbeing. In fact, being part of a sports team is a protective factor against depression. (Of course, all this is only true if you’re on good terms with your teammates. If you’re not, then obviously these benefits don’t apply.)
Sports Let You Learn From a Role Model
7. Additionally, belonging to a team also allows teens to form an attachment to a mentor. Sports coaches – while they’re coaching– are neither teachers nor parents. They help teens learn and grow in new and different ways, under a unique set of rules and norms, all while teaching them skills they don’t learn at home or in class. A good coach can inspire his or her student athletes to become better, more mature young adults. Coaches can instill a sense of responsibility, hard work, discipline, and sportsmanship in their athletes. They can also boost up a student’s self-esteem through praise and constructive feedback. In these ways, good coaches can become role models and mentors who inspire their athletes.
