An athlete’s ability to adapt to stress and adversity is vital for their psychological resilience. While resilience has been traditionally considered from a physiological perspective in sports, in recent years, the importance of the mind–body connection has led to a growing interest in the field of athlete psychological resilience. In this Research Topic, we have received papers evaluating different approaches to psychological resilience in elite athletes, endurance athletes (ranging from competitive amateurs to professional athletes), and tactical athletes also known as high-performance military personnel. Three of the four articles of this collection primarily examined athlete psychological resilience and one article also focused on digital mental health implementation. Each article is presented separately because of the investigation of different types of athletes in addition to the exploration of cognitive and/or psychological resilience

Balcombe, Luke

De Leo, Diego

Turner, Martin

PubMed

E-space: Manchester Metropolitan University's Research Repository

Balcombe, Luke, De Leo, Diego and Turner, Martin ORCID logoORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1975-5561 (2022) Editorial: Athlete Psycholog-ical Resilience and Digital Mental Health Implementation. Frontiers in Psy-chology. ISSN 1664-1078 (In Press)Downloaded from: https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/630795/Version: Accepted VersionPublisher: Frontiers Media S.A.DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1082998Usage rights: Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0Please cite the published versionhttps://e-space.mmu.ac.uk  Editorial: Athlete Psychological Resilience and Digital Mental 1 Health Implementation 2 Luke Balcombe 1*, Diego De Leo 1, and Martin Turner 2 3 1 School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia  4 2 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, 5 Manchester, United Kingdom 6 * Correspondence:  7 lukebalcombe@gmail.com 8 Keywords:  9 1 Introduction 10 An athlete’s ability to adapt to stress and adversity is vital for their psychological resilience. While 11 resilience has been traditionally considered from a physiological perspective in sports, in recent 12 years, the importance of the mind–body connection has led to a growing interest in the field of athlete 13 psychological resilience. 14 In this Research Topic, we have received papers evaluating different approaches to psychological 15 resilience in elite athletes, endurance athletes (ranging from competitive amateurs to professional 16 athletes), and tactical athletes also known as high-performance military personnel. Three of the four 17 articles of this collection primarily examined athlete psychological resilience and one article also 18 focused on digital mental health implementation. Each article is presented separately because of the 19 investigation of different types of athletes in addition to the exploration of cognitive and/or 20 psychological resilience.  21 2 Cognitive Resilience to Psychological Stress in Military Personnel 22 The existing literature on cognitive resilience showed how cognitive functions oppose the effects of 23 stress (Staal et al., 2008). The individualized experience of psychological stress is related to the 24 perceived or anticipated stressor (Roesch et al., 2002) and mediated by cognitive appraisal, coping 25 and reappraisal (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). For example, the impact of physical and mental 26 training as well as competition in athletes emphasizes the need for developing and sustaining 27 effective physiological and cognitive functioning skills. Tactical athletes are expected to 28 operationalize a specific role. In addition to physical variations to achieve operational performance, 29 the high prevalence and significant consequences of intense psychological stress in athletes indicates 30 that understanding cognitive resilience is essential for appraising and coping with stressors inside and 31 outside of their occupation.  32 Flood and Keegan highlighted the complexity of underlying psychological stress experienced by 33 military personnel in a review of the situations where cognitive resilience is challenged. Findings 34 suggest that military personnel experience similar common occupational stressors as civilian 35 populations in addition to potentially traumatizing combat stressors related to injury and death. 36 However, more work is needed to assess these combat stressors or potentially traumatizing events 37                                                                    Athlete Psychological Resilience and Digital Solutions  2 through a validated measure of appraisal and coping in addition to a qualitative interview to clarify 38 that they are appraised as stressful. The results have shown that the psychological stress of modern 39 warfare has exacerbated the impact on cognitive performance. For example, the ‘persistent conflict’ 40 state marked by the unpredictability of insurgent attacks and the increased use of technology such as 41 operating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) justifies provoking stress in an ecologically valid way. 42 Virtual Reality (VR) exercises may help prepare combatants to be adaptive in their cognitive 43 functioning when experiencing the subjective accumulation of stress.  44 The beneficial effect of cognitive resilience is reinforced by existing theoretical models about 45 mitigating the effects of stress on cognitive performance through effortful allocation and reallocation 46 of attention to achieve task effectiveness. The integration of these models into military settings in 47 addition to the detection of decreased processing efficiency was proposed by Flood and Keegan to 48 contribute to a better understanding of cognitive resilience to psychological stress. Consequently, it 49 was suggested to extrapolate the subjective experience of stress and its impact on the performance of 50 cognitive operations through broader use of self-report measures and mixed methods approaches to 51 enhance cognitive resilience. Additionally, it was recommended to use tailored technology for 52 examining the evolving environment in which tactical athletes operate.   53 3 An App-enhanced Cognitive Fitness Training Program for Athletes 54 The existing literature on using technology to improve fitness is focused on translating physiological 55 biofeedback signals into meaningful and actionable insights. The next frontier for utilizing 56 technology in sports is to explore brainwave patterns from training cognitive fitness to enhance both 57 physical and mental performance in addition to wellbeing and better results in competition. 58 Aidman et al. introduced digital mental health implementation to operational performance in elite 59 athletes through the development of a cognitive fitness training smartphone app. The Cognitive Gym 60 program applies the Cognitive Fitness Framework (CF2) which is based on the Research Domain 61 Criteria (RDoC) Framework. The app aims to identify the cognitive processes underlying normal and 62 abnormal functioning to improve psychological resilience and reduce stress. The prototype involves 63 30 minutes of daily practice with the app for 3 weeks. Training drills address the domains of 64 confidence, self-belief, and a mastery versus outcome focus. The training is primarily delivered 65 through educational videos and reading adapted from the CF2 model. The app includes guided 66 cognitive workouts, breathing sessions, user engagement tools, completion trackers, leaderboards, 67 and a social feed. A pre- and post-training evaluation is conducted by a machine learning algorithm 68 in addition to the users' and coaches' evaluation of the users' performance.  69 Although qualitative feedback found there is promise of efficacy and user acceptance, the expectation 70 is that use of the Cognitive Gym app and its supporting materials will lead to better overall cognitive 71 fitness and wellbeing because it is 1) based on the CF2 model 2) targets constructs throughout the 72 performance cycle 3) uses drills that passed rigorous testing 4) applies a comprehensive psycho-73 educational package and 5) provides the core sequence of the prototype for external evaluation. The 74 athlete-focus of the Cognitive Gym app may counter COVID-19 disruptions to sports industry 75 support programs through providing self-guided, gold-standard training for mental capacities, mental 76 readiness and adjustment skills to assist athlete psychological resilience in competition.  77 4 Coping and Resilience Among Endurance Athletes during COVID-19 78 The existing literature on the effect of pandemics on psychological wellbeing focused on stress and 79 social isolation which can negatively impact mental and cardiovascular health. Similar findings were 80                                                                    Athlete Psychological Resilience and Digital Solutions  3 reported for COVID-19 lockdowns which invoked increased stress (Di Fronso et al., 2020), reduced 81 physical activity (Ruiz et al., 2021) and decreased wellbeing (Lades et al., 2020), as well as an excess 82 of negative psychological outcomes: primarily anxiety, depression and stress (Chtourou et al., 2020). 83 Although the worst of COVID-19 and associated lockdowns appear to be in the past, the threat of 84 future pandemic disruptions provides the context for obtaining insights into athletes’ resilience and 85 general coping strategies. It is relevant because athletes were constrained in their training 86 opportunities resulting in physical and mental adversity. Resilience theory is well-established in the 87 athlete population marked by appraisal before emotional and coping responses leading to a positive, 88 protective impact. Coping theory was described as a response to stress with differing effectiveness in 89 resolving significant issues.  90 Harman et al. investigated the extent that endurance athletes exercised during lockdown to 91 understand how they enacted dispositional resilience and coped with subjective perceived barriers to 92 training. The analyses indicated that endurance athletes who exhibited greater athletic levels also 93 exhibited a greater lockdown resilience and adaptive cognitive-emotional coping strategies in 94 addition to perceived lower barriers to training during lockdown. The experience of lockdown 95 hardship depends on the level of the athlete, with elite athletes having more contextual adversity than 96 amateur athletes from disrupted training plans.  97 Overall, the mixed methods study supports previous findings on psychological resilience that it is a 98 personal asset critical to promoting functional adaptation to the potential negative affect of stressors. 99 In this case, endurance athletes were found to have been likely to overcome unfavorable lockdown 100 conditions. The cross-sectional study also supports the previous claim that the resilience of elite 101 athletes depends on the accessibility of resources and the context. However, COVID-19 was noted as 102 a particularly unique disruption in terms of the barriers to training resources and psychological 103 support. Remarkably, the study applied the commonly used Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-104 RISC-25) which focuses on an individual’s ability to regain biopsychological balance through 105 maintaining goal focus in challenging circumstances. It was recognized as a limitation that there is a 106 need for a sporting resilience measure that integrates athlete-specific mental health considerations in 107 a biopsychosocial approach. Subsequently, it was recommended that future research extend into a 108 longitudinal design to capture the factors internal and external to sport that influence resilience. 109 5 The Sporting Resilience Model  110 Psychological resilience has grown incrementally in the past two decades and is broadly used as a 111 common language to efficiently thwart socio-cultural differences. The disruptive impact of COVID-112 19 changed the structure of sport, making sporting resilience of even more consequence. The existing 113 literature on athlete psychological resilience emphasized how athletes are confronted by adversity 114 and intense experiences that contribute to their unique stressors and mental health issues. However, 115 narrative reviews preceded the recent increase of publications in the sporting domain. 116 Gupta and McCarthy conducted a systematic review of resilience research in sport and exercise 117 psychology with theoretical considerations also from positive and clinical psychology to provide an 118 up-to-date summary of the evidence base and future directions for research. The integrative and 119 inductive review found that the foundational definition of athlete psychological resilience required 120 updating to improve empirical precision specific to the sporting domain. For example, the 121 operationalization of resilience to-date is comprised of different components including the influence 122 of environmental and sociocultural contexts inside and outside of sport in addition to the maintenance 123 of positive equilibrium in one’s biopsychosocial system when confronted by multiple challenges. The 124                                                                    Athlete Psychological Resilience and Digital Solutions  4 review found a need to go beyond protection from stressors/adversities to also encompass positive 125 adaptation over time including rebounding when new challenging situations arise.  126 Fundamentally, the existing theory on dynamic process-trajectory underpins sporting resilience 127 whereby performance and adaptation capacity increases while sustainably engaging with protective 128 resources.  The collation of empirically supported sporting resilience components was synthesized 129 into a distinct process involving dynamic person-environment-adversity interaction. The new 130 definition centered on an athlete’s ability to assess their experience in the face of adversity which lets 131 them perform in line with their existing level and continue adapting beyond that. The Sporting 132 Resilience Meta-Model presented a new theory suggesting that a resilience filter comprised of 133 biopsychosocial protective factors controls the impact of adversity and determines the course of 134 positive adaptation. However, the protective factors differ between individuals and environments 135 may change over time. Thus, the new definition of sporting resilience proposed a quite stable notion. 136 The flexible list of protective factors may be tested and adjusted to reflect future interaction and 137 dynamicity as well as a resource for mapping the trajectory of an athlete’s resilient adaptation.  138 6 Conclusions 139 The Research Topic is timely and topical after COVID-19 related sporting disruptions lifted interest 140 in athlete psychological resilience as an important concept for achieving optimal performance in the 141 face of stress and adversity. Primarily, the systematic review synthesized the evidence base into a 142 new theory that typifies how resilient athletes overcome various challenges to procedurally adapt to 143 adversity over a course of time. This was integrated into a testable model based on the individualized 144 experience of filtering biopsychosocial protective factors inclusive of environmental and 145 sociocultural influences inside and outside of sport.  146 This collection’s 3 other articles discuss innovative cohort engagement. A review of cognitive 147 resilience in military personnel found the need for tactical training for efficient and effective high 148 performance in operationalizing warfare tasks (e.g., applying VR training to prepare against the 149 threat of UAVs). The promise of tailored digital solutions is also exemplified by the Cognitive Gym 150 app protocol which describes a program that contributes to self-guided training in elite athletes to 151 increase their cognitive capacity to be psychologically resilient in competition. The research findings 152 with endurance athletes revealed the importance of the context in which athletes train and compete – 153 the more that was at stake from barriers and adverse disruptions, the more resilience was exhibited. 154 Overall, the articles point towards the next steps such as implementing mixed methods in 155 longitudinal studies to grow the evidence base and evaluating the new model with international 156 comparisons. Future studies are recommended to 1) build upon the evidence-based foundations for 157 athlete psychological resilience; 2) integrate technology in high performance-resilience interventions; 158 3) test and provide an outcome measure for mapping the trajectory of athlete psychological 159 resilience; and 4) advance a model of delivery for effectively measuring athlete psychological 160 resilience. 161 7 Conflict of Interest 162 The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial 163 relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. 164 8 Author Contributions 165                                                                    Athlete Psychological Resilience and Digital Solutions  5 LB contributed to the writing and DDL and MT contributed to the review – all authors have made a 166 direct and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication. 167 9 Acknowledgements 168 We appreciatively acknowledge the collaboration of the reviewers, editors, and staff of Frontiers. 169 10 References 170 1. Staal, M. A., Bolton, A., Yaroush, R., and Bourne, L. (2008). “Cognitive performance and 171 resilience to stress,” in Biobehavioral Resilience to Stress. eds. B. J. Lukey and V. Tepe (Boca 172 Raton, FL: CRC Press), 259–299 173 2. Roesch, S. C., Weiner, B., and Vaughn, A. A. (2002). Cognitive approaches to stress and 174 coping. Curr. Opin. Psychiatry 15, 627–632. doi: 10.1097/00001504-200211000-00012 175 3. Lazarus, R. S., and Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. New York, NY: 176 Springer 177 4. Di Fronso, S., Costa, S., Montesano, C., Di Gruttola, F., Ciofi, E. G., Morgilli, L., et al. (2020). 178 The effects of COVID-19 pandemic on perceived stress and psychobiosocial states in Italian 179 athletes. Int. J. Sport Exerc. Psychol. 20, 1–13. doi: 10.1080/1612197X.2020.1802612 180 5. Ruiz, M. C., Devonport, T. J., Chen-Wilson, C. H. J., Nicholls, W., Cagas, J. Y., Fernandez-181 Montalvo, J., et al. (2021). A cross-cultural exploratory study of health behaviors and 182 wellbeing during COVID-19. Front. Psychol. 11:3897. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.608216 183 6. Lades, L. K., Laffan, K., Daly, M., and Delaney, L. (2020). Daily emotional well-being during 184 the COVID-19 pandemic. Br. J. Health Psychol. 25, 902–911. doi: 10.1111/bjhp.12450 185 7. Chtourou, H., Trabelsi, K., H’mida, C., Boukhris, O., Glenn, J., Brach, M., et al. (2020). 186 Staying physically active during the quarantine and self-isolation period for controlling and 187 mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic overview of the literature. Front. Psychol. 188 11:1708. doi: 10.3389/ fpsyg.2020.01708 189 

Editorial: Athlete Psychological Resilience and Digital Mental Health Implementation

Turner, Martin J.

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Editorial: Athlete psychological resilience and digital mental health implementation

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