DS Blog #9




Participating in a sport has so many amazing and potentially life changing benefits. Sports give people the opportunity to engage in physical activity which has an extremely positive long term impact on your physical and mental health. According to the CDC, engaging in regular physical activity like participation in sports can improve cognition skills, improve sleep,  and reduce the risk of anxiety and depression. Physical activity also helps people manage their weight which can reduce their risk to other weight related health issues.



Although physical activity in general has lifelong positive impacts, participating in organized sport provides individuals with structure and community in a way that independent activity does not. According to the National Institute of Health, organized sports participation has direct links to improved psychological wellbeing, self esteem, emotional stability, stress resilience, and social integration. Sports also force participants to use cognitive skills they might not use often otherwise. For example, sports can improve brain function due to using working memory and concentration. 



Not only does participation in sports give physical and psychological benefits to participants, it also improves people's social skills and communities. Teams create social networks that are vital to people's lives and can provide emotional support for each other. The National Institute of Health also mentions that sports participation is linked to better grades in school, improved graduation rates, college enrollment, and even better employment outcomes. 





If I had a close friend with a disability that was interested in getting involved in sports but was too afraid to try, I would give them all of the information I previously mentioned, while also being empathetic to their experience of living with a disability since it does come with some additional challenges that can be contributing to their fears. I would listen to their specific fears and address them individually and see how I could support them through this journey. I would work with them to find inclusive sports that would be accommodating to their disability with a team that would be supportive of them as a player. 



I would tell them how sport participation has positive physical and psychological benefits for them and that adaptive sports could improve their quality of life due to these benefits. I would suggest sports that are inclusive of their specific disability. For example, if they were a wheelchair user I would suggest wheelchair rugby or basketball since those are popular sports for wheelchair users and they would be able to find a team that was inclusive to their disability. 



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