What happens when pressure to perform exceeds the ability to handle it?
In the performance culture of the AFL, mental illness is frequently ignored, drowned out by physical performance and publicity. The players are supposed to be tough, disciplined, and emotionally closed off, but this idealised version of them is frequently one that has little space for vulnerability or open communication.
The truth is that too many players suffer in silence with depression, anxiety, and emotional fatigue. Longer seasons, high-impact physicality, and round-the-clock media and public scrutiny mean AFL players carry a special mental burden that can’t always be helped by resilience. The cost of emotion doesn’t end at the siren.
With increased awareness comes the need for mental health treatment that is specifically tailored to the client. Psychotherapy, mindfulness, and hypnotherapy are under the spotlight for their ability to address stress, develop resilience, and facilitate sustained emotional health in high-performance sports.
While the physicality of the game is evident, the internal battles are most often hidden from view. This is what most players are silently experiencing behind closed doors.
This article explores the mental health challenges faced by AFL players.
1. Pressure of Performance and Public Scrutiny
Mental health in the AFL is an increasingly important topic, given the intense scrutiny and demands placed on professional players.
AFL players are monitored on a daily basis, with every on and off-field action available for critique. Coaches’, clubs’, and fans’ pressure to perform can be a covert psychological pressure. Including media and social media pressure, the pressure is doubled again. Errors are not soon forgotten, and the fear of failure can become self-doubt and brittle self-esteem.
Even in moments of success, the tension does not ease; it becomes a focus on the next problem. Eventually, the chronic stress becomes burnout and emotional exhaustion. Athletes are perhaps denying feelings or resisting assistance in an effort to keep up an image of strength.
Working with these traits through non-judgmental professional support can create a private environment and assist in the construction of healthier reactions to outside pressures.
2. Transitioning Out of the Game and Identity Loss
AFL retirement can cause an identity crisis on a deep level. For many such players, their very sense of identity has been built upon the sport, its organisation, function, and membership. When that door is shut, there remains largely a deep vagueness.
“Who am I without football?” or “What now?” is a chilling question when supportive frameworks vanish overnight.
This loss of routine and purpose may lead to depressive symptoms, withdrawal, and difficulties navigating everyday life. Without adrenaline, competition and ongoing guidance, former athletes may feel directionless.
Emotional regulation skills and therapy strategies that activate identity beyond sport can offer sound guidance in this process. Learning personal values, reconnecting with non-sport passions, and setting new goals are all part of rebuilding an enjoyable post-career identity.
3. Injuries, Isolation, and Psychological Impact
Injuries are a natural consequence of high-level sports, but their psychological impact is often underestimated.
Sitting on the bench can induce helplessness, frustration, and isolation. AFL players accustomed to being on the move and at the centre of team life find it difficult to adjust to the sudden transition to solitude, physiotherapy sessions, and spectating from the sidelines.
Chronic injury, however, can result in prolonged inactivity and a feeling of being forgotten. The risk of losing team status and an inability to re-acquire the previous form is another stressor.
Support at this time is needed emotionally. Therapy and mindfulness interventions can help the player process short-term or long-term losses and build self-compassion and emotional resilience during the recovery.
4. Stigma and the Culture of Toughness in Sport
The cultural expectation of professional sports has traditionally included mental toughness and stoicism. Players must tough it out despite pain, get their feelings in check, and avoid appearing vulnerable. Although this type of thinking is helpful for much of the performance, it tends to keep players from admitting emotional distress or seeking assistance when they need it.
This stigma around mental health has the potential to be most damaging in cultures where open dialogue is seen as a weakness. If left unchecked, problems have the potential to grow and manifest in dysfunctional coping strategies, relationship issues, or organisational disruption. It takes more than a recognition of the need to change this culture; it takes practical, stigmatisation-free means of entry.
Psychotherapy and other individualised resources provide refuge for athletes to process emotional difficulty without fear of retribution or professional sanctions.
How AFL Players Are Tackling Mental Health Through Mind-Body Strategies?
As more and more discussion is done around mental health, most AFL players are resorting to holistic interventions as an addition to mainstream care.
Mind-body therapies like hypnotherapy, mindfulness, and meditation are also emerging as successful means to decrease stress, manage mood, and create mental toughness. These therapies can address the inner world, enabling players to tap into their emotional space and unlearn self-destructive patterns of thinking.
Hypnotherapy specifically may alleviate performance anxiety, work with subconscious cues, and enhance concentration. It provides a relaxing, guided space in which athletes can reframe limiting thoughts and foster psychological flexibility.
That said, the hypnotherapy program at Bayside Psychotherapy, showcased in a May 2025 House of Wellness segment, as presented here and in this video, illustrates how integrative mental health care can be an influential force in athlete well-being. With tailored, evidence-based interventions, individuals can learn skills that support performance as well as internal balance.
Conclusion
Mental well-being in high-performance sports can no longer be pushed to the sidelines. AFL athletes are exposed to distinctive psychological pressures that have a significant impact on their emotional well-being, pressures that include public visibility, insecurity around careers, changing identity, and having to be seen as mentally invincible. Such pressures are fueled by an ambivalent sports culture that is inclined to suppress vulnerability.
Proper support starts with knowing and carries on with access to protected, personalised healing trajectories. Types of treatment, like psychotherapy, mindfulness, and hypnotherapy, can allow the player to get back into themselves, regardless of the game’s physicality. Treatment strategies can help players to cope with anxiety, develop emotional resiliency, and find space for mental sharpness in the long term.
