When brain development views risk with reason was in the news in 2021 – thanks to Simone Biles. Her withdrawal from the women’s Olympic gymnastics team final to take care of her mental health was met with huge support by some and huge condemnation by others.

I find the condemnation reactions absurd. I mean seriously, if Simone had pushed herself to compete and then experienced “the twisties” mid-routine, crashed to the floor, breaking her tibia and shattering several bones in her wrist, would those same people expect her to get up and compete tomorrow? I have to believe they would not.

“The twisties are a mysterious phenomenon,” CNN’s Elle Reeve explains in her July 29 article, “Simone Biles and ‘the twisties’: How fear affects the mental health and physical safety of gymnasts,” “– suddenly a gymnast is no longer able to do a twisting skill she’s done thousands of times before. Your body just won’t cooperate, your brain loses track of where you are in the air. You find out where the ground is when you slam into it.”

Elle Reeve went on to say in that same article,

“For every perfect, floaty flip performed in competition, there are thousands done in practice, many of them ending with scrapes, crashes, and haunting near-misses.

“When Simone Biles scratched most of the Olympic team final, she said it was not because of a physical injury, but her mental health. This doesn’t mean she felt sad, or didn’t have her heart in it to compete. It means that her psychological state put her at significant physical risk. If her brain wouldn’t play along with what her body knows how to do, she could be seriously injured.”

But…

What Does Brain Development Have to Do With the Twisties?

…you might ask.

I have to admit, there was a time that I would not have put mental health on par with physical health. I, too, would have thought Simone had trained for this and should be able to control her mind to block her fear of the twisties.

That was a time when I did not understand the complexity of the human brain. That was a time when I did not realize that:

• the brain controls EVERYTHING a person thinks, feels, says and does. If the brain doesn’t work, the lungs don’t breathe, the limbs don’t move, one can’t feel love or pain or drive a car. And a gymnast can’t necessarily control their fear of the twisties without effective mental health help.
• the brain wires, maps and develops from birth through mid-20s. This is basically the process by which the brain “connects” its roughly 100 billion brain cells (neurons) to one another—called neural networks or neural circuitry—and then to and from others throughout the body via the nervous system.
• the brain is organized into three general structure groups of neural network activity as shown in the illustration to the right. Each general structure group “controls” neural network activity as noted in this illustration.
• the Cerebral Cortex is the brakes on risk-taking, life-threatening behaviors developed and mapped in the Limbic System – the reactionary part of the brain – the part that is present at birth and goes through key developmental changes with the onset of puberty continuing throughout adolescence
• the all-important pre-frontal cortex portion of the Cerebral Cortex can take until one’s mid-twenties to fully develop. It’s the part of the brain needed for higher level thinking, like judgement, cause-and-effect, perception, decision-making kinds of thinking. Like making a decision like Simone did.
• and that things like twisties can result in mental health consequences for an Olympic athlete, like Simone, because of what’s happening with their brain’s pre-frontal cortex development. Not only that, the right kind of mental health help can help that gymnast to make the right decision for that gymnast on what they need / want to do going forward.

So…

What Happens When Brain Development Views Risk with Reason

The brain takes risks from developmental processes occurring in the Limbic System with the onset of puberty through one’s adolescence and early twenties. It’s not until developmental processes occurring in the Cerebral Cortex get underway that the brain is able to make “reasoned” decisions—especially those occurring in the prefrontal cortex. This would include a decision like the one Simone made, namely to withdraw from competition to take care of her mental health after experiencing the twisties.

Dr. Mark Aoyagi, Co-director of Sport and Performance Psychology and Professor in the Graduate School pf Psychology at the University of Denver, commented on this idea in his interview with NPR’s Ailsa Chang, titled “What a Sports Psychologist Has to Say About the Olympics.”  Quoting Dr. Mark Aoyagi from that article below:

“[T]he prefrontal cortex, which is just kind of the higher-order thinking part of our brain, does not fully develop until age 27. And so many of these athletes have – developmentally, they don’t have a fully formed prefrontal cortex. And what’s important about that is one of the major roles of the prefrontal cortex is to model the future and understand what consequences our actions now will have in the future. And so, you know, we’ve heard about Simone Biles, for example, talk about how the skills that she performs are scarier now than they used to be. And part of that is now at age 24, she has a better understanding. Due to this development of her prefrontal cortex, she has a better understanding of what the consequences are of, you know, for example, crashing on a skill.”

Bottom Line

Mental health is as important as physical health, whether you’re an Olympic athlete or a toddler growing up in an unsafe home, or a child who’s being bullied at school. Similarly, whether you’re a teen who’s struggling with your parent’s behavioral changes when they drink, or a young adult who’s just lost their job, or 70-year old who’s experiencing depression after retiring from a career they loved.

To learn more about brain wiring, mapping and development, consider reading this chapter excerpt, “Brain Facts,” from my latest book.

And to learn more about mental health, visit the CDC’s website, Mental Health.

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Lisa Frederiksen

Author | Speaker | Consultant | Founder at BreakingTheCycles.com

Lisa Frederiksen is the author of hundreds of articles and 12 books, including her latest, "10th Anniversary Edition If You Loved Me, You'd Stop! What you really need to know when your loved one drinks too much,” and "Loved One In Treatment? Now What!” She is a national keynote speaker with over 30 years speaking experience, consultant and founder of BreakingTheCycles.com. Lisa has spent the last 19+ years studying and simplifying breakthrough research on the brain, substance use and other mental health disorders, secondhand drinking, toxic stress, trauma/ACEs and related topics.

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