Athletes should plan how to spend their breaks to avoid any destructive distraction
THE BEIJING Olympic Games are now in full swing and when it comes to the health, well-being and comfort of Irish athletes, the organising committee has left no stone unturned.
The Olympic village is located on a 165-acre site in the Olympic Green and is comparable to the size of a small Irish town. In total, the village accommodates some 10,500 athletes and 5,500 support staff from 204 countries.
More than 300 gold medals will be awarded to athletes living in the village. In terms of accommodation and the living environment, no village compares to it. There are 42 buildings comprising of luxury apartments, and 9,000 rooms.
When it comes to the dining hall, imagine Croke Park with a huge marquee around it - the inside filled with rows upon rows of tables and chairs, the space divided into three areas with identical self-service food stalls in each.
The hall can feed up to 5,000 athletes in one sitting.
Foods served include Asian and international cuisine, salads, breads, dairy, and desserts - even McDonald's. There are signs beside each dish showing the protein, fat and carbohydrate content of the food, and huge banks of drinks machines, supplying litres and litres of soft drinks and water. No money changes hands - all food and drink is supplied free of charge.
Countries tend to sit together to eat, so looking around you will see a sea of colour, as each table proudly wears their country's colours.
The medical care of athletes is provided by the Olympic Polyclinic and is comparable to any top-level hospital, with 626 doctors and 3,200 medical staff. The polyclinic has state-of-the-art technology, including MRI, X-ray and DEXA facilities - even its own dentist and opticians.
The focus of the polyclinic is providing a high standard of emergency medicine and healthcare, and it is capable of meeting 90 per cent of all medical needs with the remaining 10 per cent covered by specialist hospitals located close by.
Living in the Olympic Village is, by its very nature, a strange experience.
It involves taking a diverse group of people out of their usual environment and throwing them together to coexist in what is essentially an artificial living space - it is almost like Big Brother in that respect.
Athletes often find themselves sharing an apartment or a bedroom with people they have never met before.
In some cases, the athletes will be from totally different sports and may therefore have completely different routines in terms of what time they get up, when they have meals, when they train, when they need to rest, what time they go to bed, and so on.
Add to this the fact that each person will have their own likes and dislikes, it can be quite a challenge to get through three or four weeks sharing a small space and staying sane at the same time.
For example, how do they handle it when one person wants to go to sleep and the other wants to leave the light on to read?
Or when one person snores and keeps the other awake?
Or when one athlete has finished competing and so wants to enjoy the Olympic experience and have their friends round to hang out while the other is still focused on preparing for competition?
The mental health and well-being of an athlete can be adversely affected by issues like these and so it is vital that any concerns are dealt with quickly and effectively.
For many athletes the issue of how to use their time is one of the most important factors to consider, in that it has the capacity to have a huge impact either positively or negatively on their psychological wellbeing.
Athletes often speak of boredom and this is because when they are at home, they often wrestle with schedules from home life or study/work along with their training schedule.
However, in the Olympic Village they have only training to occupy them and so there can be a lot of empty space to fill each day.
It is not like they can pop over to visit family or friends for a few hours, or head into town to see a film. Athletes will vary in how they handle down time, but they might have a sleep, check their e-mails, meet other athletes for coffee, listen to their iPod, read, or watch DVDs.
The important thing is that whatever they do, they use their energy wisely.
The danger of having too much time on their hands is that they begin to think too much - they start to look around and see what other athletes are doing, they compare themselves with others, they think about all the things that could go wrong for them in competition, they get over-awed by being at the Olympic Games.
Like a child in a sweet shop, there are many things that can tempt the mind away from what really matters, so it is important that athletes have planned how to use their free time so that it is used in a constructive rather than in a destructive way.
When they are away from home, it is important for athletes to find the balance between being distracted by loved ones and being upset because they miss them.
Often families will arrive at the Olympic city and they will want the athlete to go see the sights with them.
Given that wandering around the Great Wall for hours in the searing heat is not exactly conducive to peak performance, sampling the delights of the host country with family is clearly not a good idea before competition, yet being cooped up in the village feeling lonely is not good either.
There is a middle ground here and athletes need to find it and get the balance right.
Some contact with people from home will be beneficial, but at the same time, athletes are there to perform, not to deplete their energy by acting as tourists.
The key is to focus on performance and control the controllables.
Giles Warrington is a sport and exercise physiologist and lecturer in the School of Health and Human Performance at DCU