The Emotional Recovery Gap: When Emotional Burnout Overtakes Physical Fatigue in Athletes

Today’s athletes are facing what seems like unprecedented pressure to consistently compete at a high level. From 12-year-olds in club sports to college players navigating NIL deals, the year-round grind is becoming much deeper than just physical training. Scholarship offers, star rankings, and brand deals are driving the stakes higher causing athletes to not only burnout physically and mentally, but emotionally as well.

When an athlete experiences the emotional recovery gap, athletes may report or demonstrate the following signs:

• Dread playing the game they proclaim to love

• Showing flat or no emotions even after a win

• Feeling lost or numb about their sport

• Playing with low confidence despite being talented and skilled

• Struggling to recover mentally and physically, even when provided days to rest

Over time, emotional fatigue compromises their performance, their love for the game, and ultimately, their mental health.

What is Emotional Recovery?

It is the process of acknowledging, processing, and resetting emotions after an emotionally intense game, loss, injury, or team culture. Unlike physical recovery, emotional recovery is internal and intangible, making it easily to be disregarded.

According to Gustafsson et al., 2017, emotional exhaustion is one of the strongest predictors of athlete burnout, even more than workload or training volume.

Throughout history, the culture of sports has often praised athletes who display stoicism, or the “just shake it off" mentality, which is why emotional fatigue is missed.

From a mental health perspective, emotional burnout can show us as:

• Irritability

• Loss of joy or excitement

• Lack of motivation

• Overthinking

• Disconnection

Without awareness and the appropriate coping skills, athletes will either shut down or push harder until they also start to experience physical burnout.

How to Help An Athlete Recover Emotionally

Yu, Xing, & Yang (2025) found that athletes with higher psychological capital such as hope, optimism, and resilience experienced less burnout due to having better coping strategies. Dišlere et al. (2025) further reports that burnout does not occur overnight and that it builds over time, especially when emotional recovery is neglected. Tools that have proven to be effective in helping athletes reset and recover emotionally, include:

1. Emotional journaling that asks, “What did I feel today, what triggered it, how do I want to respond in the future?”

2. Reset and Reconnect exercises such breath work (e.g., 4-2-6 breathing, box breathing, tapping (EFT) etc.)

3. Guided or Mindfulness meditation to enhance emotional awareness

4. Create space between games that focuses on non-sports related topics

Emotional recovery is not optional, but necessary for an athlete to perform at a high level. Grinding nonstop without taking time to reflect emotionally is a surefire way for an athlete to enter into the emotional recovery gap. Therefore, choosing to recover emotionally might be the most powerful move an athlete can make all because when an athlete protects their emotional energy, they protect their mind, body, and performance.

Want to bring emotional recovery strategies to your team or organization?

Visit www.doronwillis.com to learn more about The Self-Possessed Athlete workshop