Hayden Ancheta: Varsity-level Wrestler
-Junior at Monta Vista High School
-Varsity Wrester for Monta Vista High School and wrestles on Sunnyvale Wrestling Club
How do you manage wrestling, school, friends, family, etc.?
“To be honest, when it comes to the way I train for my sport, I’m not able to really have a social life like most people. Obviously, you always have to make time for family but for the most part, unless they’re wrestling friends, I typically do not really go to parties or hang out with my friends as much as I used to maybe about like 3 years ago.”
How do you deal with burnout?
“Burnout is a real thing and anyone that tells you differently is lying. Personally, I have not experienced it yet. I’ve only been wrestling for 4 years and that might be the reason why but I know a handful of people that have burned out of the sport and they end up either quitting or having to take a break or not show up to practice or a week of practice. Personally, I haven’t been burned out - I haven’t skipped and haven’t quit - yet but burnout is a real thing so when it comes, it comes but for me, it hasn’t yet.”
How do you deal with stress during and before wrestling competitions?
“I wouldn’t see it as stress or pressure. It’s more like nerves before competitions and this is something everyone has. That’s just a fact. Everyone gets nervous. Even the greatest of greats get nervous but there’s a difference between nerves and pressure. Pressure is something that one puts on themselves - just like stress. Someone puts that on themselves. I believe if you go into a competition with nerves, healthy nerves, everything will be fine. There’s butterflies but everyone gets butterflies but as long as you go out there knowing what you need to do and putting your performance and mindset above winning, everything will be fine. At the end of the day, everything will be fine. Personally, I don’t look at who I’m about to wrestle - I don’t look into them too much nor do I look at brackets. I don’t look at anything that will typically make a person nervous - I don’t look at any of that before a match. I know people that do and they end up getting nervous and it does screw with them a bit mentally. Another thing is not trying to take your mind off of it but definitely, before competitions, listening to some relaxing music or talking to some friends at the tournament and that type of stuff because it really helps you. Not being in the moment as much helps because you want to go into that competition, or go into whatever you are about to go into, with a blank mind - not a mind that’s already been wrestling mentally for about a few hours before the competition because that’s mentally draining. So you want to really go into that match fully prepared and fully mentally prepared as well.”
Is there a lot of internal pressure that you put on yourself? How do you deal with mental health during losses (you don’t achieve a goal you set for yourself, you lost at a competition, you got injured)?
“Pressure isn’t something I like to put on myself because that does affect your performance. Do I hold myself to a degree that I believe not a lot of people hold themselves to? Yes, because I expect a lot out of myself. I expect more than any of my peers just because of how hard I work and how much time I put into my sport. I expect a lot out of it. I guess, in a way, you could say I expect a lot out of what I do because of the amount of time and effort I’ve put into it but I wouldn’t say I put pressure on myself. I can’t speak on big injuries because I haven’t had any huge injuries - career injuries - throughout competitions. Have I had minor injuries where I sprain my rotator cuff or sprain my ankle or stuff like that? Yeah, but in that sense, you just have to wrestle through it. Wrestling is such a demanding sport and you have to be mentally strong in certain moments because, in a match, they won’t care if you have a hurt eye or a hurt neck. They’ll bash it and hurt it so you can’t show them anything on the mat. So, when it comes to that, you just got to be mentally strong. As far as mental health goes with losses, for the most part up until recently, I took losses really badly because I am a really competitive person. As I said, I expect a lot out of myself and so losing has just always been really hard for me. But recently, my coaches have talked to me, ‘Hayden, you can’t take these losses so hard. You’ve got to take them and wear them on your chest and wear them like badges of honors that you went out and lost but you’ll come back. You can’t let that defeat you.”
Wrestling drains you both physically and mentally and so how does that affect your mental health when you have to do this day in and day out? (consistently work out)
“You got to dedicate time to what you find is important. Currently on my list are family, academics, and wrestling. I don’t really have a social life. Do I think that’s bad for my mental health? I’m making sacrifices for what I believe, later down the line, is going to do me good so no because I’m putting my priorities ahead of me. In the end, I think I’m pretty stable mentally. Does it suck not having a great social life? Sure, it would be cool to go to parties and stuff but I’m doing this for a reason. I’m sacrificing a lot for a reason so that I can do stuff in college and get recruited there. I’m personally not affected by it.”
Is there any parental pressure? How do you deal with it?
“Personally, I do not have parental pressure as wrestling has always been a me type of thing. My parents never really wanted me to wrestle. So, I’ve been pretty self-motivated throughout my wrestling career. But I know a lot of friends that have had to deal with parental pressure and it’s not easy. It definitely isn’t. That type of pressure is very different, in that, it does really affect you and your performance.”
What kind of environment does your wrestling team have(intense and competitive VS supportive and positive)?
“My club team and school team are two different teams entirely. Monta Vista’s team is very close and close bonded - like a little family of sorts. But, truthfully, my real intense training where I truly make leaps and bounds is at my club team, who I see as just as equal a family. Just as close. Training at my club team is definitely a lot more intense but nothing to take away from Monta Vista’s team. I still see them as a family and we’re very close.”
You made CCS through Wrestling and won 5th which is something that has not been achieved since 2016. How was your mental health impacted when you were playing at a high level (pressure to win, better wrestlers)? Do you face any additional pressure since CCS?
“To be honest, CCS was a pretty bad tournament for me. I was very disappointed in how I did. I guess you could say that CCS was a tournament where pressure did affect me. It did really take a toll on my game. I placed fifth in a tournament where I definitely feel like I should have qualified for states. It really did suck but I recently went to the California Freestyle State Fargo Qualifier Tournament last weekend and was able to get myself a chance to go to nationals. So, that’s pretty cool. I placed third and that was definitely a tournament where I feel like I was, mentally, fully there, and was fully ready.”
Is mental health talked about on your team? Would you like to see it talked about?
“I would say that wrestling installs mental toughness into each and every wrestler. We have wrestlers that came on to the team that truthfully weren’t that mentally stable or strong but we were able to get them into a point in the season where ‘they were here to begin with but look at where they are now’. I believe that wrestling installs mental toughness into everyone. It’s really good in that sense. I believe it’s the only sport that can do something like that.”
What other external pressures affect wrestling? ((1) peer pressure about college, school, and wrestling in college(2) social media - athletes feel a little bit of pressure when others post about what they are doing, posting just the good days and wins)
“Yeah, with grades, I always have to try and keep my grades up, especially at a school like Monta Vista. I would say that grades can always be pressuring. As I am trying to wrestle in college and talking to coaches, your performance does affect that and so that is a sort of pressure but I don’t like to think of it in that way because that just, again, affects your performance on the mat and so I don’t really like to think of it that way but yes, you could say it’s a sort of pressure that I have - especially since I’m trying to go D1 and going D1 isn’t exactly the easiest thing. I mean everyone has their good days and bad days. Social media is just something to show off, to be honest. Honestly, I’m pretty active on social media - I like to post highlights and a lot of that stuff. But, in the end, social media and other platforms online are just white noise. All that stuff doesn’t really matter at all. It’s like brackets and rankings. Rankings don’t matter at all. They’re numbers on a screen that don’t really have any meaning. It doesn’t matter.”
Are you comfortable talking to teammates about mental health and pressure? What types of teammates help with your mental health/wellness: examples include “keep going”?
“Yeah, but I don’t typically do. I feel like that’s a big thing on our team - we’re always very supportive of each other mentally. We say ‘good job’ but we don’t like to, at least at my club team, soften up our losses. We tell each other how it is - ‘you should have done this and you should have done that’ or ‘you can improve here and you can improve there’. So, we tell each other how it is but yeah, I would definitely say that we’re all very supportive of each other.”
Does your coach emphasize mental health and provide support for your mental health? Would you like to see changes?
“Yeah, they always talk about the mental side of the sport and staying mentally ready and all that type of stuff because, as any sport goes, 85% of it is mental and 15% of it is physical or the wrestling aspect. You always have to stay mentally healthy, mentally ready, and mentally tough. In wrestling, I think it’s good the way it is. We like to keep it straightforward and on a basis where we’re not lying to each other but we also keep it to the point where we’re supportive.”