There is one common motif shared between Buddhist meditation practice and Olympian training: that of the finely tuned lute. Strung too tightly, the strings will break; strung too loosely, the strings will sound off:

The image of an emaciated Siddhartha Gautama, beautiful yet withered and gaunt, reminds us of two things: first, that any journey, whether to attain enlightenment or become a sporting champion, is inevitably filled with hardship and tribulation. Second, that self-deprivation and forgetting to attend to one’s well-being are no way to accomplish goals. 

These ideas are not contradictory. This year’s Olympics in Tokyo have showcased some amazing athletes at the top of their game. One legendary athlete who has not been at the top of her game is Simone Biles, who has come up short at several events. In late July, she withdrew from the women’s finals, citing the need to protect her body and mind after being unable to land satisfactory moves on every apparatus during training. (CNN)

“I didn’t have a bad performance and quit. I’ve had plenty of bad performances throughout my career and finished competition. I simply got so lost my safety was at risk as well as a team medal,” she declared. “I don’t think you realize how dangerous this is on hard/competition surfaces. Nor do I have to explain why I put my health first. Physical health is mental health.” (CBS)

While her decision might hurt her team’s chances of winning more gold medals, Biles has brought renewed attention to the long-neglected primacy of mental health. She is far from alone: despite enduring stigma and misconceptions, her withdrawal has resonated with many around the world, feeding into a growing awareness of mental health.

Tennis star Naomi Osaka foreshadowed Biles in many ways, stepping away from press conferences and then from tournaments earlier this year and asserting the need to attend to herself. “It’s OK to not be OK, and it’s OK to talk about it,” she famously wrote for Time magazine after considerable negative media attention. She asserted that fame, publicity, and pressure should not negate the need to “exercise self-care” and “preservation” of mental health. (Time)

In Osaka’s home country and host of the Olympics, interpersonal connections, emotional well-being, and mental health have traditionally been sidelined in favor of a workaholic culture. As with Osaka, Biles has received little sympathy in certain circles in Japan as well as overseas. As The Globe and Mail’s US correspondent Nathan Vanderklippe recently observed: “In Japan, like elsewhere, public expectations of celebrity are high and sympathy for the travails of the wealthy and successful not always plentiful.” (The Globe and Mail)

Some prominent commentators have harshly criticized Biles, hyperbolically accusing her of being selfish, weak, or not a team player. These critics, few of whom are professional sportspeople, have also strongly condemned Osaka in the past, seemingly failing to exercise compassion and remember that sportspeople have valid mental health concerns, just like anyone else.

Like celebrities and politicians, who tend to receive little public sympathy when sharing their emotional difficulties, athletes’ mental health has also been affected by over-the-top judgments. However, there is an increasing generational shift in many countries. News website Vox has observed that Generation Z, in particular, is leading the charge on increased awareness of mental health in the US. Young people seem better than previous generations at recognizing mental health problems. Gen Z members also report worse mental health than their elders, with just 45 per cent saying their mental well-being was good or very good in a 2019 survey, compared with 56 per cent of millennials. 

In a separate survey conducted in the same year, Gen Z members also seem more likely to seek help for mental health problems, with 37 per cent reporting that they had sought therapy compared to 35 per cent of millennials, 26 per cent from Gen X, and 22 per cent of baby boomers. Last year, a CDC survey found that 62.9 per cent of American 18–24-year-olds reported symptoms of anxiety or depression due to the difficulties during the pandemic. 

Paradoxically, as mental health awareness becomes more mainstream, there has also been a backlash against what is seen as “coddled” or “spoiled” behavior by those who prioritize personal mental health over traditionally valued goals such as popularity, wealth, or status. Critics assert that Biles made up her mind too quickly without considering her duty to represent her country as an ambassador of American Olympic prowess. However, arguments over whether her call was self-serving, careless, or unpatriotic seem to miss the core point and overlook Biles’ own experience. Not only has she already represented her country estimably for years, the entire point of Biles prioritizing her mental health over more abstract ideals such as national pride or a new gold medal is an affirming statement that there are things in life more valuable than fame, glory, and accomplishment. Someone as accomplished as Biles probably knows this, given the fact that she is already considered by many sports writers and historians to be the greatest gymnast in American history.

Yet we do not need to have reached Biles’ heights of achievement to have valid concerns about our mental health. Even for a perfectly ordinary person with an unremarkable life, there is every reason to be cautious of the narrative that certain goals are necessarily more valuable than others and worth significant sacrifices. We are all familiar with stories of burnout at work, of being so focused on a goal to the point that other demarcations of flourishing are forgotten or left behind. People around the world are discovering, especially post-COVID, that mental health and a balance of work or public service and self-care is its own reward or objective, a worthwhile victory in and of itself.  

The lesson in the story of Siddhartha’s ascetic phase of extreme self-denial is that he was too focused on his goal, enlightenment, and as a result he hindered himself from actually attaining it. It was only after he accepted nourishment from a humble village girl, Sujata, and left his five ascetic companions, that he could find himself on firmer ground to discover the truth of the cosmos. When the five ascetics found out that Siddhartha was eating and taking care of himself, their disparagement had slight echoes of the criticism directed at Biles, with the future Buddha being accused of cowering away and accepting compromises when he should be laser-focused on his attainments.

Those ascetics later became the Buddha’s earliest disciples at his first sermon in Sarnath, the Turning of the Wheel of Dharma.

See more

‘I have to focus on my mental health,’ says Simone Biles after withdrawing from gold medal event (CNN)
Simone Biles opens up about withdrawal from Olympic competitions: “I don’t think you realize how dangerous this is” (CBS)
Naomi Osaka: ‘It’s O.K. Not to Be O.K.’ (Time)
Olympic athletes pained by online bashing, mental health care sought (Kyodo News)
In Tokyo, Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka share mental-health struggles as Japan confronts workaholic culture (The Globe and Mail)
America’s mental health moment is finally here (Vox)
Stress, mental health, and Generation Z. (Western Governors’ University)
Gen Z more likely to report mental health concerns (American Psychological Association)
Young Adults’ Pandemic Mental Health Risks (The New York Times)

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