Research has proven exercise helps manage anxiety, depression and fatigue levels, but research has also proven that nearly a quarter of Division I athletes report symptoms of depression, reports Psychology Today.

While participating in sports is linked to improve self-esteem, social skills and mood, a team of researchers at Kean University’s Andrew Wolanin and Drexel University’s Eugene Hong wanted to see how the pressures of a college sport affected the athletes’ psychological well-being.

The researchers monitored mood levels of 465 collegiate athletes over three years and found 6.3 percent of the athletes met the criteria for clinically significant depression and 24 percent were considered “clinically relevant.”

The results showed “women athletes were almost twice as likely as male athletes to show clinical symptoms of depression—especially if their sport of choice was track field,” reports Psychology Today.

The reasons why athletes exhibited depressive symptoms isn’t entirely clear, but “it could be a result of higher pressures put on them by coaches, their own underlying body image and self-esteem issues, or the differences in social support factors between various types of sports.”

Psychology Todays says, “many college athletes may be struggling beneath a veneer of social approval, achievement and physical prowess. So it's crucial to pay attention to the signs and symptoms of depression, no matter how athletic (or not) someone is.”