kolkata south african paddy upton is known more as a mental conditioning coach than a cricketing one he was a key member of the support staff when team india won the world cup in 2011on sunday he spoke to toi about the mental issues that sportspersons are likely to face in the current scenario and offered some remediesexcerptsis this period a welcome break for sportspersons or a stage where insecurity sets ina significant change in the status quo is stressful for most people for athletes there would be a range of experiences from welcome relief for the established to anxiety and insecurity both professionally and financially for possibly a greater numberplayers are used to being active how do you think they are coping with thisthe athletes who had interests outside of cricket and which they can still pursue will be coping better than those who have made sport the sole focus and purpose of their lives for this latter group they will really need to find new interestswhat about the fringe playersfringe players and those at the early stages of their career especially those who have very recently broken through to the next level would naturally be feeling this break very disruptivefor most indian domestic players ipl is a huge source of income do you see anxiety or depression setting innaturally ipl is a huge highlight on the calendar for many cricketers and a cash cow anxiety and depression arise within healthy and normal people when they spend too much time focussing firstly on themselves and secondly on the problems that they are having i would really caution not only athletes but everyone to use their awareness to guard against this very normal threat the way to overcome it is to focus on other people caring for them and at the same time to look for opportunities that are available due to this additional timedo you see the ipl happening this yearits really unknown whether ipl will happen as much of the future remains rather uncertain some are prophesying months of lockdown and slow down and others suggest that this is not too far off the regular annual influenza time and research will tell when sporting action will resumewhat is more important in this phase physical fitness or mental strengthwhats important is to ensure we maintain a bigger perspective of our lives specifically taking care of all the facets that make up who we are as humans which include looking after the physical mental emotional and spiritual aspect of our liveswhat would be your remedy to keep depression awaybeing proactive in each of the areas i mentioned ensuring that we are productively building each facet of our life moving towards solutions rather than sitting and doing nothing and overworrying about current or future problemsin your interaction with players did you ever ask them to be prepared to handle a situation like thisi didnt specifically prepare a player for things like this but certainly have had a number of conversations about