by KYW’s Lynne Adkins
A local psychiatrist will help athletes in Beijing deal with the stress of the Olympic Games.
How hard is it to be an elite athlete traveling around the world involved in the sport you love? Harder than you think, according to Dr. David Baron, chairman of psychiatry at Temple University Hospital. For some this will be their last competition:
“Their life has been so regimented, people told them what to eat, how to eat, everything from the time they woke up in the morning until they went to bed at night, was pretty much planned and patterned; the idea of what life's going to be like outside of athletics when I don't have those measured goals and when I can't prove that I'm better than the person next to me cause I don't finish ahead of them.
He says it's also hard to be removed from everyone and everything they know, including long-time coaches and training facilities.
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