Lately, I've touched on eSports and the growing boom that surrounds the competitive gaming sphere.

But in the world of eSports there is another recognition that is going hand in hand with this sport. That is the mental state of those that play.

During physical sports, teammates are assessed for their abilities, their strength, their weaknesses, and their physical health. When a teammate is injured, they are sidelined, cared for immediately. Tended to, bandaged, looked over, and taken for the medical care they are needing.

In eSports, a mental sport, the same cannot really be said. Although these changes are being implemented, there are still countless examples of players being pushed to unreal limits with little to no regard for their mental health.

As a professional gamer, your whole life revolves around competition. Around perfecting your game. These players quite literally eat, breathe, and sleep the games that they are competing in. Be it from being in team housing where meals are taken together between breaks of training, to sharing rooms. Sprinkled between the times where they are meant to be training with their teammates, they have to practice solo. Let's not forget streaming, as well. Where they are expected to interact with the fans of their team, promote, put on a good public face and get that money rolling in.


There is quite literally no time to switch off, save for when they sleep.

In physical sports, the team numbers are greater, the work, more evenly distributed. In eSports, there are typically only five players and one stand-in. All of that pressure and millions of dollars at stake rests on very few shoulders.

To say that this is only "a little pressure" is the understatement of the century.

Even though mental health is beginning to become acknowledged, players still face backlash for crumbling under the insane pressure to perform. This can come from "fans" that will bully them, send hateful messages, to even the manager of the team replacing them because... well, they aren't "strong" enough.

Under the circumstances these players face, it is perfectly acceptable, possibly even expected, for panic attacks, anxiety, and other stress-related breakdowns to be common.

And yet, players face losing their entire career and being replaced by a younger and less war-ravaged counterpart simply for not being able to perform once.

There are many articles out, especially since the recent mass shooting at a gaming tournament in Florida, beginning to talk about how prevalent mental health issues are in the gaming community.

Mental health in the eSports community can be a bit of a "chicken and the egg" conundrum.

Are there mental health issues because most of the people that turned to a more solitary sport already had mental health issues that excluded them?

Or are there mental health issues because the pressure on professional gamers is so great?

Naturally, it is a case by case basis, but a good bet can solidly be put on both.

There has always been the cliche about professional gamers being a loner, not fitting in in "regular" society, and having poor social skills. As sad as it is, some cliches are founded in some form of truth.

For those that find that they have far more brains than brawn, it is only natural that eSports would be the perfect avenue for those that seek intense competition, and perhaps even companionship and comradery.

For those that are expected to function under the kind of pressures put on professional gamers, it can only compound these issues, especially when they encompass stress-related health. It is unreasonable that any person is expected to be emotionless and immune to the stressors and function like the computers that they play on.

Especially when so many gamers are as young as in their teens.

There are people out there, like Weldon Green that are attempting to implement sports psychology into the world of eSports. Green is a sport psychological skills trainer with a master's degree in sport science and sport psychology.

He is very active in the eSports community, and weekly puts up videos talking about the struggles professional gamers face in an attempt to open up a dialog. Or in the hopes that a player that needs it can take something away from it.

Only time will tell if the professional gaming community will get the kind of care required for them to continue competing and avoid such extreme levels of burnout.

But one thing is for sure, the pressure is real, and the stakes have never been higher since the spotlights have begun to point in their direction.


Stay tuned for more similar content and e-sports!!

Have a fantastic day,

@SammoSK