Mental Resilience and Mindfulness in Athletes: A Preliminary Study Across Sports and Experience Levels
S. Stoyanova, Nikolay Ivantchev, Teodor Gergov, Bilyana Yordanova
Sports October 1, 2025 DOI: 10.3390/sports13100334 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Cross-sectional survey Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 177 |
| Population | Athletes, mean age 21 years, averaging 8.7 years of sports practice; 68.4% professional; practicing individual (48.0%), combat (26.6%), and team (25.4%) sports |
| Measures | Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (Bulgarian adaptation), Brief Resilience Scale (Bulgarian adaptation) |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key findings | Mental resilience and mindfulness correlated significantly and positively among athletes. Resilience correlated positively with years of practice for amateur and team-sport athletes; mindfulness rose with age in combat and team sports but fell with more practice years among amateurs and individual-sport athletes. Combat-sport athletes reported higher resilience than individual- and team-sport athletes, and male athletes higher resilience than female athletes. |
Abstract
It is important to study if and how athletes’ mental resilience and mindfulness are connected, because both could promote mental health, as well as facilitate coping with stress and successful athletic performance. It was hypothesized that mental resilience and mindfulness would correlate, and also that mental resilience and mindfulness would differ in both means and correlation strength according to the type of sport. The possible nexus of mental resilience and mindfulness with the longevity of sports practice was also examined. The sample consisted of 177 athletes whose mean age was 21 years old and whose average sports practice lasted 8.7 years. Most of them were professional athletes (N = 121, 68.4%). They practiced individual sports (N = 85, 48.0%), combat sports (N = 47, 26.6%), and team sports (N = 45, 25.4%). The Bulgarian adaptations of the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale and the Brief Resilience Scale were used. The athletes’ mental resilience and mindfulness correlated significantly and positively. The athletes’ mental resilience correlated positively with the years of sports practice among the amateur athletes and among the athletes practicing team sports. The athletes’ mindfulness increased with age for the athletes practicing combat sports and team sports. Mindfulness diminished with more years of sports practice for the amateur athletes and for those practicing individual sports. The athletes practicing combat sports had higher mental resilience than those practicing individual sports and those practicing team sports. The male athletes had higher mental resilience than the female athletes. The established positive nexus between the athletes’ mental resilience and mindfulness means that training mindfulness could be a mechanism for strengthening mental resilience, as well as higher mental resilience could facilitate mindful awareness of the present moment and focus attention on what is happening now. The athletes practicing individual sports are those who need more training for enhancing mindfulness and mental resilience. Physical activity and sports participation may contribute to mental health improvement by strengthening mindfulness and mental resilience.