In this episode of "What the Health," host John Salak engages in a meaningful conversation with former NFL player Julius Thomas. The interview delves into the topics of concussions and mental health challenges in sports, shedding light on the importance of awareness and education in these areas. Julius Thomas shares his insights and experiences as a professional athlete, emphasizing the significance of identifying and addressing the hidden challenges that student-athletes may face. 

The episode encourages parents, athletes, coaches, and administrators to take charge of recognizing and dealing with these issues, providing guidance on identifying symptoms and seeking professional help when needed. The conversation also highlights the positive impact of sports on physical and mental health while emphasizing the need for a balanced and informed approach to protect the well-being of athletes.

Listeners are encouraged to visit Julius Thomas's website, ParentsPlaybook.com, for further information and resources related to youth sports, mental health and performance.

Take advantage of other health and wellness insights by joining our WellWell-Being community at WellWellUSA.com for exclusive discounts on a wide range of health products and services.

Chapter Summaries:

0:00:30 Introduction to the episode: The Impact of Concussions in Sports

0:02:55 Introducing Special Guest: Julius Thomas

0:04:58 Julius Thomas' Journey to Pursue a Doctorate

0:06:21 The Impact of Sports on Mental Health

0:09:35 The Reality of Concussions in Youth Sports

0:12:32 The Impact of Concussions in Professional Sports

0:17:40 The Importance of Concussion Evaluation

0:20:03 Julius Thomas' Personal Experience with Concussions

0:25:09 Mental Health Challenges in Sports

0:31:51 The Role of Parents and Coaches in Supporting Athletes

0:36:03 Julius Thomas' Personal Journey and Reflections

0:43:31 Health Hacks:The Importance of Awareness and Education

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Julius Thomas

Introduction to Sports and Its Benefits

And there's always a but, isn't there?

Drawbacks and Risks in Sports

Understanding Concussions in Sports

John Salak: Now concussions come mostly from contact sports like football, hockey, lacrosse, and soccer. And these head knocks are no small matter. They're drawing increased interest from parents, coaches, athletes, and even mental health professionals. The interest and concerns are justified. Concussions can present real dangers, although whether these concerns raise to the high level identified by some is uncertain.

These numbers, of course, don't take into account the millions of concussions and related brain injuries that occur for reasons that have nothing to do with sports. But let's stay [00:02:24] focused on sports for a minute.

The Impact of Concussions in Sports

John Salak: With Thanksgiving at hand and TVs across America tuned to college and pro football games, it's a perfect time to examine the scope, impact, and potential dangers tied to these injuries.

Thankfully, we've lined up a special guest to help us unravel all of this. He's going to provide a first hand perspective as well as a clinical analysis of what we're facing. We'll also touch on the lesser known mental health challenges for high school and college athletes. So keep listening.

Introducing Special Guest: Julius Thomas

Julius Thomas's Career and Current Roles

In addition to this Julius was a Division one athlete at Portland State, both in basketball and football, and then went on to a Pretty damn impressive NFL career drafted by the Broncos and also played for the Jaguars and the Dolphins.

Julius Thomas: Yeah, man, you nailed most of the things that I'm doing now, the things that I've been, I think that the thing that I would also add is that I'm a fifth year doctoral student in clinical health psychology, so, that's probably everything else that you did great. I appreciate it.

John Salak: And so when you group all of that stuff together the division one athlete at Portland State the impressive pro football career, all of these things you've done after retiring and the fact that you're working on your doctorate, that makes you about 117 years old.

Julius Thomas: Yeah, that's a lot to squeeze in right now, but I'm trying.

John Salak: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay. You've squeezed a lot in 35 years. So that's great.

Julius Thomas's Journey to Pursue a Doctorate

John Salak: We're going to get into this in a second, but just curious what inspired you to get a doctorate?

I mean, is it obviously it folds into your work?

Julius Thomas: Well, actually my work was part of my pursuit of getting a doctorate. When I was In my seventh year in the NFL, I just felt that there was a passion shifting inside of me and I was wondering where it went, what was going on and why I wasn't loving the game the way I used to.

I wanted to join the helping professions and the way I wanted to do it was by better understanding the mind, the brain, and people's health and wellbeing. So I decided seventh year in the league, starting tight end, you know what, I'm going to go follow this new passion. And I made this crazy ambition that, Hey, I'm going to go get a doctor.[00:06:00]

And psychology, I said, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but I stepped into it and I really started to learn a lot about the mind. Then I had a great mentor was a neuroscientist and she started teaching me and talking to me about the brain. So I bring them both together and kind of just try to help share information.

It can be helpful for people to better understand what's going on upstairs.

The Impact of Sports on Mental Health

John Salak: Did other professional football players that you saw in your career, did they realize the impact the game was having on them? And there's a lot of positive, I understand.

Julius Thomas: I think it's very important to talk about the game of football objectively,

and let's just report on what the facts are. And so I think that from a lot of the work I've done with the football players health study at Harvard and different groups in the PA, one of the things we're starting to become more aware of is that the players aren't exactly aware and haven't had maybe the amount of education that I think players should have.

You want people to be able to make informed decisions and that takes a lot of education. So for us there's been a lot of research done on American style football, probably the most researched sport. There is for different reasons. And we have started to uncover a lot of information that I think is very helpful for anybody that's associated with the game of football to better understand.

Not that you can't get a concussion playing soccer or get an elbow to the head in basketball, or hockey or lacrosse or any of those things, but so much coverage has been put on football concussions especially for young players. Is that an overblown concern? Not just the numbers, but the potential impact of what these concussions may lead to for young athletes.

And this is very interesting because Grant Iverson, who is probably the most researched individual on concussion ever . Over 600 publications on concussion. His research group at the University of Harvard just wrote a systematic review that came out the spring of this year. And one of the big things they said when they looked at several different research articles and kind of said, what's the gist of all of these?

The Reality of Concussions in Youth Sports

But the research is not supporting that. The research is supporting that amateur athletes tend to do similar to the general population when it comes down to the long term consequences for their brain health. Which I think is really encouraging. We're talking about 1 [00:10:12] percent of the people are going to play past amateur status, but we have so many people that are very concerned, rightly so about, what's the future health and well being, especially from the mind and brain of their kids or youth athletes going to be like, and so I think it's good that we start to talk about how this narrative is changing from, Hey, here's what's happening to pros and we do have some things that we need to discuss and talk about particularly along the risks for pros.

Thank you. But for youth athletes a lot more research is showing that, hey, maybe we should slow down a little bit. Maybe it's been a little bit more sensationalized and the research is actually able to support.

Julius Thomas: It's really hard to talk about the why. I think, especially when we talk about the brain, getting down to the causation of what and what hasn't happened is really something that. We haven't been able to really elucidate from a research perspective. So I just want to make sure I say that clearly, but I have some suspicions or some hypotheses that I believe are contributing to that.

There's some biological things that I would like to investigate and think about in that area. But then I also know the difference between a 14 and 15 year old linebacker tied in safety and a 30 year old. The forces are much greater at the professional level. The frequency in which you're playing.

And so I think that there's some contributing factors that we have to look at. But. From what the research has shown and some really great quality research studies is that we haven't been able to see a significant difference between the brain health of individuals that just play um, what about, just amateur and people in general population.

The Impact of Concussions in Professional Sports

So you might have been on your junior high team. You might have made it your high school team. Chances of you getting to a Division 1 program, let alone a Division 2 or 3 program it gets narrower and narrower.

What about those athletes that make it up to the, out of high school and are still playing competitive football? Have you seen research as to how concussions may be affecting them or because they're older and. They've sustained more hits.

The more often you do something that has the risk to it, the greater your risk is going to be over time. And, we talk a lot about American style football and when we talk about sport related concussions, repetitive head trauma there's other sports that are involved in that, right? You've got soccer, you have hockey, lacrosse, like other boxing,

And so that's something that really jumps out at you. It's like, really, in the general population, males get about 75 percent of all concussions. But in sports, women are getting a two to one on a concussion ratio in comparison to men. And that's very interesting. And I think that's something that we have to start looking into because we very rarely assess the risk to female athletes when we talk about concussion.

Julius Thomas: So I think the research has started to look into what some of these can be there's different theories to why females may have higher reported concussions in men.

It controls the head and its movement can sort of be protective for males. It's not there in females. And I think that would probably be the most promising direction to look at. And I think it just makes mechanical sense when we think about a concussion, just being a Joel bump blow to the head. It starts to create cognitive symptoms because of the forces that were just at play.

Julius Thomas: I mean, I think that there's definitely some opportunity for that to be one of the cases.

I think that if we're looking at college, like maybe, I actually probably couldn't comment really well on the weight training for high school female athletes, but I know at the college level. The female athletes and the male athletes, they train about the same, but I think there's just huge differences in the amount of lean body mass, especially in the neck and trapezius area.

And she kept playing, though they then held her out of the next game or two afterwards. Do you think... Especially at the high school level, are coaches and athletic directors in schools aware of watching that?

Like, Oh, somebody may in the NFL now or in baseball, their concussion protocols. Do you think schools are aware what precautions to take?

Julius Thomas: Yeah, absolutely.

That come with concussion . And one of the biggest ones that I make sure that I always mention when I talk about concussion, because this is what people need to be most aware of, in my opinion, is second impact syndrome . And second impact syndrome is basically when you've got the first concussion.

So that's something that everybody should be aware of, right?

The Importance of Concussion Evaluation

Julius Thomas: If I was talking to high school, I would say, look, let's take concussion evaluation serious. If you think you had a concussion or if you think that an athlete had a concussion, we have to hold them out of play and we have to tell them that even when you go home, don't do anything that might put you at risk for getting another blow to the head.

So, I think it's really important that we all understand that concussions are real things, there's serious health risks that can come if we're not evaluating them or if we're not taking them serious. And so I think that what I would encourage people to do is.

John Salak: Over the time you were in the NFL, did you see an increased awareness and concern protection or better protocols for dealing with concussions?

But I think there is absolutely a big difference. When I first started playing football, there was a bravado, a kind of macho mentality of, if I got my bell rung, I'm going to get up there and I'm going to keep playing because as a contact sports athlete. Nothing takes you out of the competition.

play again.

John Salak: Do you know how many concussions you had when you were playing pro ball?

Julius Thomas:

Julius Thomas's Personal Experience with Concussions

Julius Thomas: I was never diagnosed with a concussion, but if I had to give you some anecdotal evidence, I would say it's probably two times. One time I got hit, for some reason I felt like I was at the grocery store. And I couldn't remember what I was in that aisle for, then it all came back and I was like, Oh, wait, you're in an arena.

But I had very blurry vision and that blurry vision lasted for, 10, 15 minutes. So that was when they got me checked out. I think it's also important to say this concussion is not just a part of contact sports concussion. Unfortunately, it's just a part of life.

And so it's good that we start to educate people about concussions and they become more aware of the risks.

John Salak: What are the long term ramifications for somebody who has multiple, because again, that's, I mean, it was comical 10 years ago, the punch drunk fighter, the something like that.

Let's look at people later in life. We want to see what's the long term effect. You get people that play contact sports and they're completely CTE.

They don't get it there was actually a really cool article in the Wall Street Journal the other day and They did a neuropsychological test on a guy that has the second most hockey fights in NHL history. He was like the bruiser. He spot, I mean, so many times they looked at his brain, did a neuropsych assessment and he was completely normal in comparison to the average older adult male.

But unfortunately, we just don't have all of them.

John Salak: So I want to get into another topic the whole mental health but Actually, the work that you see or you watch an NFL game. I mean, four or five times a game, you see a player brought into the tent.

While this may raise concerns, it also raises awareness, which probably is a good thing. I would assume, would you, is it a good thing? Or does it create unwarranted fear?

And this is starting to understand the psychology of an athlete. An athlete may be willing to push through some pain because they don't want to go into the locker room. Cause once you go into the locker room, it just feels like, you're more steps removed from the game. It's going to be that much harder for you to remain in the competition.

I think we all would admit, when you see your doctor. You don't want the world to see, so it's good to be able to have those blueprints there, I think for the players and for the game.

John Salak: And also, I was thinking for spectators, saying, oh, this is an issue, but it can be dealt with. I mean, for parents who are watching, or kids who are watching, saying, hey, it's okay to have a concussion. To check it out if you have a problem.

Julius Thomas: Absolutely. And it's important for people to see, some of the best athletes in the world saying, Hey, I want to get this looked at because that means it's going to make a young athlete much more likely to want to do that on their own.

And getting that into the dialogue when we talk about

John Salak: So, so, that is the hot button when it comes to student athletes and a high level athlete and professional in concussion. There's a whole nother... area that you're exploring and dealing with.

Mental Health Challenges in Sports

Julius Thomas: Yeah, for the parents playbook, and this is really well, going to become a psychologist one day, but I think I had to summarize, some of the biggest mental health risks that we think, study, think about and study when we're looking at mental health and sports is number one, anxiety, number two, depression.

The pressures on young athletes have been greater than they've ever been. Young athletes are having exposure for everything from their videos of their games playing and making it on the Internet to getting sponsorships and advertisements. And the pressure that can come with this can really start to create a lot of [00:26:24] anxiety in athletes who also have depression.

Depression can come from being chronically stressed. Depression can come from being injured and depression can also come. When your career comes to an end, that's a particularly vulnerable time for athletes as well, for movement, sort of like depression. Then we have suicidality, which is really unfortunate when we see high school, college, or even professional athletes take their life.

Sports that are very weight conscious. Then you start to see people get eating habits that are unhealthy, and this can lead to eating disorders. So there's a lot of mental health things that we really do need to make sure that we're supporting athletes across all levels of competitiveness. But especially our youth athletes, because that high school time.

mental health challenges in adulthood, they began in high school. So getting people through this critical period of being at risk for their mental health is really important.

And I think it's something that we can do a better job of. And if I'm being honest, I think that's an area that we must improve.

John Salak: There's been a fair amount of coverage, of these issues for high level Division I athletes, and probably for lower level Division I athletes, but you just hear more about the high level Division I athletes.

Julius Thomas: Honestly, in my opinion, I'm very biased when it comes to this because

I think in general, there's just not enough awareness. We don't get enough time to talk about health. If you think about sports. News and media. If you had to break it down into a pie, how much time on that do we actually spend talking about health, educating parents, coaches, players, fans? We don't get much time.

He can start giving me more information, but we have to find more avenue and get more opportunities where we can talk about health. And I think that's really going to lead to seeing. Impact in changing the outcomes, but it's hard, getting a spot to talk about health isn't always easy.

All I remember is the coach poking me in the chest all the damn time and I wasn't very good. But I mean for a high school coach, it must be, for any athlete, it's going to be this major figure in their lives. Men and women may be pushing the wrong buttons, I assume, or could be pushing the wrong buttons.

I don't want to blame them entirely, but they're going to have an impact.

So the first people I'm going to point at our mental health professionals, right? Ultimately, it's on us. Those coaches and those parents didn't go get five, six year doctorate degrees. They didn't have to study the DSM. They haven't spent thousands of hours working with patients. It's hard for me to say they should know all these things.

I think as healthcare professionals, we need to be more vocal. We need to start creating programs, training opportunities. I think it would be beautiful one day. If coaches were in the high school youth sport level, they had to get certified in understanding mental health and being able to recognize that.

You have the ability to learn more about how you can support your child's mental health, what mental health is, how to have conversations with them about that. And that's essentially why I started the parents playbook to give parents that opportunity, but it takes that extra step trying to go get educated and learn more.

The Role of Parents and Coaches in Supporting Athletes

John Salak: So, The Parents Playbook, how are we activating that? What's the next step? Certainly it's certification, but between now and mandatory certification, there's probably a pretty wide gap. So how do parents, coaches, administrators get involved? What are the next steps they can take?

Julius Thomas: Well, like I said, I pointed the first finger in at myself.

Social media platforms. One of the other ways that it's one of my first efforts to start disseminating quality information about mental health and performance. It's through my newsletter, right? So I have a free newsletter that I release every Friday and it just talks about different things related to really the journey of being a youth athlete.

How it's declining in the U S how that leads to other risk for health and illness due to sedentary behaviors, how kids respond. If the next day at school, if they've had gotten the opportunity to do sports the night before that day, so to really just start educating, take a second, two or three minutes to read more about something that could be really important and impactful for your youth athlete, I think, is going to go a long ways over [00:33:36] time.

John Salak: If you're a star quarterback, or you're even a starting football player, or it could be basketball player, anything else, sure, there's a lot of pressure on you.

But what about the guys who, or the women, who are sitting on the bench, not getting a lot of playing time, but may also be feeling these pressures? I assume they're at risk and maybe less aware they're at risk of some of these anxiety problems just because of the environment.

But what if you're the person that's on the bench, right? Like I've spent a lot of my time as an athlete on the bench, unfortunately, but when you're on that bench, it's really hard to keep your mood up. Number one, you're not getting the opportunity to play. Number two, you have whatever your thoughts and feelings are about not being good enough to play or coaches and giving you the opportunity to play.

If any point in your life, whether you're an athlete or a non athlete, [00:35:24] if you have too many consecutive weeks where the net is negative for your mood, it's not going to be long before you develop a mental health issue. So mood is the first area that we should be looking at when we want to help people prevent mental health challenges and sustain positive performance and mental health.

John Salak: You have a very successful career both as a Division 1 athlete and a professional athlete.

Julius Thomas's Personal Journey and Reflections

Julius Thomas: I have truly loved what has transpired in my life overall. I've had challenges of injuries. I got an injury that took two years to rehabilitate from. Like I said, I've been on the bench at times and I've had low mood, low self confidence, low self belief. I've got hit with the storms of the big challenges with being an athlete. But I think that what built within me is a resilience and a drive, and it's really defined my character.

So yes, have I had to experience highs and lows that come along with the game of football and basketball and other sports? Absolutely. But would I do it again? Yes. In a heartbeat. Because for me, it's not about going through life saying, and I don't want to ever experience any risks or I don't want to ever experience any emotions or challenges [00:37:12] that are uncomfortable for me.

It's about chasing the things that matter to you. Waking up every day with a drive and excitement for what you're doing. And that's the way I like to live my life and no shame to people that don't write. Some people have different levels of risk aversion. I'm biased. I play football. So obviously my risk aversion is not so high.

And I know that was because sports got me to college and then they didn't have that same opportunity. So, sports is something that, that I'm, I still love. I'm still passionate about even now as a older retired guy, I still spend a lot of time watching various sports.

John Salak: sO, and again you're a different level because you're an elite athlete, played in the NFL, Division 1 athlete.

Julius Thomas: I think that there's first a touch on Obama's comment. I understand it. I tell people all the time, football is not for everybody, right? There's a certain mentality you have to have. There's a certain joy you have to have for colliding into people.

Not enough young people right now are getting the recommended amount of physical activity a week, and that is going to end up creating tremendous health problems later in life. We talked a lot about concussion and the risks associated with that, but the risks associated with sedentary lifestyles. And for me, that's as big of a concern as concussion.

where'd you rather have a kid spending time sitting in front of a TV, getting more screen time that we know leads to mental health challenges and the other chronic and diseases later in life are outside playing, making friends. Supporting their mental health. Like that's what I really want to see.

And that's why I spend a lot of time really being an advocate for youth sports and encouraging parents to get involved with them as well.

program student athletes isolation, increased sedentary behavior, created a hole. So it's a normal hurdle. And then it's been this COVID impact dropped on top of it. Julius, how do people get in touch with you, get your newsletter learn about a parent's playbook.

I have a Facebook Julius Thomas. I also have a Tick Tock Julius dot D dot Thomas. Or talk a lot about mental performance and mental health and things that people can do to support that. I've also got a website, parents playbook. com. On that website you can read my blog, you can also sign up for the newsletter, which I really encourage.

Because every Friday, I call it Feel Good Friday . I'm going to send that newsletter right to your inbox, and then you're going to be able to have a three to five minute read is something that you can work on or have conversations with your youth athlete.

I feel the emotions during the games. I know what it's like, and I started to think, how many parents haven't had the opportunity to get a master's in clinical psych and be working on a doctorate. How did they handle the emotions within themselves, within their youth athletes so that they can support them in their journey, whether it's recreational or competitive.

John Salak: That's great. And lead happier, healthier lives and enjoy sports for all the benefits it can give you.

Julius Thomas: Every family can go play with their kids, right?

That's also going to help our mental and physical health at the same time.

John Salak: iT sounds like a winning formula. Julius, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Giving us a unique perspective and also clarifying maybe some of the preconceived notions that people have that may not be exactly right.

Julius Thomas: I love that you guys reached out and really took this opportunity to educate your audience by having me come on and talk about mental health and brain health. So I think that's a fantastic job that you guys are doing. Really excited about your work.

John Salak: We will do that.

Thanks Julius.

Conclusion: The Importance of Awareness and Education

Just visit us at WellWellUSA. com, go to Midlands Discounts in the top menu bar, and the sign up form will appear. Signing up will take seconds, but the benefits can last for years. Okay, so whether you support contact sports in school or not, chances are they aren't going anywhere anytime soon. And that's probably a good thing, because they do a lot of good for student athletes.

The first part to dealing with a problem is identifying a problem. Coaches and administrators may care, but they may not be equipped to recognize a problem, so parents, and if possible, athletes, need to take charge. Signs of mental strain can be tricky, but they certainly include mood swings, changes in diet and [00:45:00] behavior.

Ender reluctance to engage. Signs of concussions are easier to spot. They include blurred or double vision, eye strain, light sensitivity, unusually sized pupils, eye movement, trouble focusing, confusion, loss of consciousness, extended headaches, extreme sleeplessness, or trouble waking up, vomiting, and weakness, numbness, or trouble walking or talking.

Understand what the symptoms are with these challenges, and what your next steps should be. That's it for this episode of What the Health. I'd like to thank Julius Thomas for his time, information, and insights. If you'd like to learn more about his work, please visit Parents [00:46:12] playbook.com. That's parents playbook.com for now.

Thanks again for listening and we hope you'll connect again soon for one of our upcoming episodes Of What? The Health.