>We shouldn't neglect the impact on the brain a professional sports career has. I've seen it many times. The amount of sacrifice and energy put into something l

>We shouldn't neglect the impact on the brain a professional sports career has. I've seen it many times. The amount of sacrifice and energy put into something like this leads to a very unbalanced lifestyle, which is usually encouraged from all sides (parents, coaches, friends). I think you might have the causal relationship backwards, at least for a lot of athletes. Elite sport is a really good way of not dealing with your emotional problems. It's a socially legitimate form of obsession, a path in life that makes eating disorders and self-harm look like the determination to win. You can lead a lifestyle that would be obviously pathological for anyone but an elite athlete and people will applaud you for it. It's an all-consuming kind of avoidance coping that nobody scrutinises too deeply. When athletes retire, they lose their structure, they lose their support network, but they also lose their excuses. All the problems you used sport to escape from are now front-and-center, and you've got nowhere left to run. It's like sobering up after a 20-year bender.