Frontiers in sports and active living
January 1, 2025
Bence Kelemen, Renátó Tóth, Ottó Benczenleitner et al.
5 citations
A six-week Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement (MSPE) program adapted for elite distance runners improved flow and cognitive anxiety, with no changes in a control group. Twenty Hungarian national and international-level athletes participated; the experimental group of ten showed significant gains across most psychological measures, including mindfulness and emotion regulation. The structured, group-based format offers a practical alternative to traditional sports psychology for high-performance athletes.
Frontiers in sports and active living
January 1, 2024
A El Hajj, M Noulhiane, B Andrieu et al.
4 citations
During the COVID-19 pandemic, stress and anxiety increased among university students. A mixed-methods study of 218 students at two French universities found that most (64.68%) reported moderate stress levels. Regular participation in wellness activities such as sophrology, meditation, and yoga was associated with lower stress. Motivations for mental health support and stress management correlated with higher stress. Lockdowns reduced sports participation for many, but some students increased fitness and wellness engagement. Incorporating wellness practices into educational settings may strengthen students' mental resilience.
Frontiers in sports and active living
January 1, 2025
Tim Birnkraut, Michael Kellmann, Sarah Jakowski
2 citations
Among 33 elite judoka, higher mindfulness—especially acting with awareness—was linked to better subjective sleep quality, shorter sleep onset times (both self-reported and measured by actigraphy), and improved recovery-stress states in the morning and evening. Daily fluctuations in mindfulness also predicted these outcomes. Objective sleep duration and efficiency were not consistently related to mindfulness. The findings suggest that mindfulness may help athletes feel more rested and fall asleep faster, but its effects on quantitative sleep measures are limited.
Frontiers in sports and active living
January 1, 2026
Brandon A Ally, Paul A Mentele, Scott A Wylie
Chronic THC use slows game-speed cognition in NCAA football players. Eighteen Division I athletes who tested positive for THC completed the S2 Cognition Football Battery at baseline and after 12 months of verified abstinence. At baseline, users showed approximately 20% slower reaction speed compared to their own post-abstinence values, consistent with an 80-100 ms delay in decision execution. Significant improvements after abstinence occurred in Decision Complexity, Distraction Control, Impulse Control, Multiple-Object Tracking, Speeded Target Detection, Improvisation, and the overall S2 Composite. Effects persisted after controlling for reaction speed, indicating domain-specific recovery beyond global speeding. The findings suggest that chronic THC use imposes a measurable performance cost that is partially reversible with abstinence.