What does mental rest mean to professional athletes? A study of National Football League players

To better understand the concept of mental rest in professional athletes. Mental rest appears to be important for recovery and movement skill learning, yet there is limited understanding of this concept in the professional athlete context.

A qualitative description study design was employed.

Sixteen NFL athletes were interviewed about what mental rest means to them. A codebook thematic analysis was undertaken to examine the analytical generalizability to the professional athlete context of an extant model of mental rest proposed based on a study of college athletes (Eccles & Kazmier, 2019).

The Eccles and Kazmier model offers considerable analytical generalizability to the professional athlete context. Consistent with the model, the process of resting mentally in professional athletes includes (a) sleep and (b) resting while awake, involving multiple resting experiences including a break from thinking about one's sport. Departures from the model were also observed. For example, in the original model, to achieve a break from thinking about one's sport, college athletes spent time on a rest day in public locations (e.g., restaurants) within which there were few cues to think about their sport (e.g., no teammates). In contrast, for recognizable professional athletes studied here, public locations often offered no escape from these cues due to uninvited questions from the public about their sport.

The findings advance understanding of the constituents of mental rest in professional athletes and inform education about how athletes can obtain the mental rest needed to perform effectively and stay healthy.