Danielle Carlson (’10) jumps into the pool after a day filled with tests, projects, and presentations. With each stroke, Carlson falls into a meditative rhythm as her stress melts away.

“Sometimes I have to get away from all work I have to do,” Carlson said. “[Swimming] is my way of getting away from stresses in my life and thinking about calming myself down.”

According to The Viking, about 44% of Palo Alto High School’s student body participates in school sports. Athletes find peace under the depths of a sparkling pool, the fresh cut grass of the softball diamond, and the turf of the lacrosse field. Sports are a reliever from stresses, a time to focus solely on something enjoyable. However, there are kernels of stress embedded within every sport at any level.

Dr. Clyde Wilson, a professor at both San Francisco and Stanford Medical School as well as Stanford Department of Athletics, says that exercise relieves the both physical and mental stress. Sports physically relieve the stress that the human body feels. The brain releases certain hormones while engaged in exercise that relieves anxieties. Dr. Wilson views the relaxed state of mind as a result of two things occurring simultaneously. “First, it is the release of ‘reward response’ neurotransmitters and beta endorphins,” Dr. Wilson said. “Second, it is the absence of stress hormones.”

Reward response neurotransmitters help to increase focus and happiness, while decreasing anger and irritability. Overall, these neurotransmitters leave a person more relaxed in general.

According to the American Council on Exercise, these neurotransmitters — like endorphins — can mediate how people feel. When stimulated in physical activity, endorphins make people feel better, and, simply put, release a feeling of well being. Endorphins explain why soccer and lacrosse player Emy Kelty (’12) feels she is in a better mood after she plays a game of soccer or lacrosse.

“After a good workout, I feel more at ease with myself and the responsibilities I have to fulfill,” Kelty said.

In addition, Dr. Wilson stated exercise decreases the impact of cortisol, the dominant stress hormone. Cortisol may be dangerous to a person as it breaks down muscle tissue, increases accumulation of fat in the internal organs, and overstimulates the immune system.

“Muscle breakdown will keep an athlete from recovering, or adapting to, training. This will subsequently result in being over-trained very quickly,” Dr. Wilson explained. Athletes can combat their stress hormones and an unhealthy body through exercise.

In addition to the many scientific benefits of physical activities, sports give student athletes a time to release the tension they feel, and focus solely on the activity they are engaged in.

Junior varsity basketball and varsity water polo player Aaron Zelinger (’12) feels that practice or a game is a time in which he can release all the energy bottled up after sitting in a classroom all day.

“The feeling of adrenaline is a great outlet for me,” Zelinger said. “When I’m in the pool and on the court, none of the pressures or obligations I have outside the pool or off the court matter to me anymore.”

However, mental benefits of repetitive, simple activities such as swimming are very different from the benefits of mental and physically intensive sports, such as football and lacrosse.

Football player Kevin Anderson (’10) and lacrosse player Cory Valenti (’11) feel stress melt away in high contact sports like football because of the colossal physical and mental effort required by their respective sports.

“There is nothing else really on my mind, it’s all about what’s going on and what’s happening in the game,” Valenti said.

Anderson feels he has to be in the game one hundred percent both physically and mentally or else he will mess up. In addition, he believes the high contact element of football can reduce bottled up anxieties.

“It’s a good way to get stress out, if you are mad or something, you can go and hit someone really hard,” Anderson said.

On the lacrosse and football fields, the massive amount of focus required by the game forces their minds away from thinking about school related topics. Simple sports, such as swimming and running, creates an environment in which athletes can recuperate from the school day, mentally prepare for homework, or simply enter a relaxed state of mind.

Varsity cross country and track and field runner Susan Heinselman (’11) finds that stress dissolves within the physical stride of running and creates a peaceful rhythm through breathing and listening to her body. Heinselman loses herself within a workout, often dismissing the happenings of the day.

“Sometimes I forget about everything. I don’t even think. Running brings me into that calm spot,” Heinselman said. “If you can get into the zone, you can completely lose everything.”

No matter the length of a workout, a workout always leaves Heinselman feeling better.

“I finish running and I feel more at peace with myself, more at peace with everything,” she said.

Long distance swimmer Carlson (’10) finds solace below the surface of the water, following the black line at the bottom of the pool for about 8,000 yards every afternoon. Carlson often uses swimming as an opportunity to reflect upon the other aspects of her life.

“Rather than thinking about swimming, which sometimes I do, I mostly think about other things,” Carlson said.

The Paly varsity swim team spends almost 20 hours in the pool every week. Carlson uses her time in the pool to recover from the day and relax. Though swimming, and other sports, is a large time commitment for students, swimming provides a mental break from school and time to prepare for work and obligations.

“Even though I’m spending my time swimming and not doing my work, it almost is beneficial to me,” Carlson said. “If I’m just sitting at home, I’m freaking out, but at swimming, I’m calming myself down, telling myself its okay, and organizing what I’ll do that night and how I’ll make things less stressful.”

Additionally, completing a physically difficult swim practice adds a feeling of reward, and Carlson described the feeling as amazing. “Sometimes I come into practice not wanting to swim at all, but then I do a super hard workout, and I’m super tired, but I get out of the pool, and its just a huge relief,” Carlson said. “I feel really proud of myself after a hard workout.”

Nevertheless, no matter the activity, level, or intensity of exercise, sports can be stress inducers in and of themselves. However, sport induced stress is not often rooted within the actual physical activity, but rather within hype around the sport such as team dynamics and college recruiting.

The recruiting process and anticipation around an athlete’s future in a sport can be a large contributor of stress. Contacting coaches and having the scrutinizing eyes of a prospective college coach on the sideline of a game can be extremely daunting. “It’s stressful knowing if you mess up, they are going to see you no matter what,” Anderson said. “It’s a lot of pressure,” Anderson said.

Anderson tries to combat this stress of having college coaches watching him by not thinking too much before a game.

“You kind of have to think that they are not there or else you will make a mistake,” Anderson said. “Thinking about if you will make a mistake, you will make a mistake.”

Aside from the potential worry of performance in front of college coaches and focus on playing, constantly leading a team as captain can add an additional stress.

Lauren Bucolo (’10), captain and short stop on the varsity softball team, feels that being a team leader is extremely rewarding and fulfilling, yet feels some stress in the responsibility of keeping the team at its best.

“If people are goofing off or not practicing as hard as they could, you feel like it is kind of your responsibility to say something, but you don’t want to act like the coach,” Bucolo said.

Bucolo had few qualms coming into her senior year season about team dynamics and leading the team as she feels the varsity girls’ softball team works very well together.

Though not a captain, volleyball player Trina Ohms (’11) feels obligated to perform well because of her age and experience, especially since the girls’ volleyball team had only four upperclassmen on varsity this year.

“There is expectation to perform your best because, as an upperclassman, all the younger eyes are on you and you have to set an example for them next year,” Ohms said.

Yet a dive lasts seconds, a game is nine innings, two thirty minute halves, four seven minute quarters. The stress before a game builds up, then passes and turns into concentration and focus once the starting buzzer sounds.

Stress in a sport is often more short lived than in academic classes. Alcott, who in addition to coaching heads the English department at Woodside Priory High School, compared the two as sports stress to be much more intense and in the moment, whereas school stress in contrast is more ongoing.

“The urgency around a bad grade cannot easily be rid of, yet your next assessment in sports, the next game, the next practice, it replaces in your mind what happened before,” Alcott said.

Paly varsity wrestling coach David Duran believes that stress felt in sports is not related to the physical activity.

“It’s all the other stuff, a lot of it mostly has to relate with not having enough hours in the day, or days in the week for everything they need to get done,” Duran said.

Despite all the internal stresses within sports, athletes feel sports are worth it. In a student-athlete’s hectic life, sports provide the escape from the rest of his or her life. Exercise provides the relief for the rest of a student athlete’s life.

“Everything off the field doesn’t matter anymore,” Kelty said. “All the problems are put on hold until practice ends. All that matters is playing the game, you, your team and the ball.”