Nobody asked the padel players if they were happy
A review published this week gathered up everything science knows about two nearly identical racket sports. It came back with two completely different bodies of research. The gap says less about the sports than about who was watching — and what they thought was worth asking.
Here is a small thing that turns out not to be small.
Padel and pickleball are, from a distance, close cousins. Both are racket sports. Both are played on a court smaller than a tennis court, usually in pairs, usually with people you know. Both have grown fast enough in the last few years to be described as phenomena. If you wanted to design two activities that ought to produce similar research, you would struggle to do better.
They have not produced similar research. And the reason why is worth sitting with.
What they did
Lena Lauxtermann, working at the University of Vienna, and Brendon Stubbs set out to answer what sounds like a straightforward question: what does the evidence say about padel, pickleball and mental wellbeing? Most of the existing work on these sports had gone to fitness, injuries and performance. Far less had gone to how people actually felt.
Their systematic review is published in Frontiers in Psychology. They searched the literature up to 8 October 2024, screened 71 records, and ended up with 14 studies covering 1,403 people in total. Eight of those studies were about padel, with 538 participants between them. Six were about pickleball, with 865. Women made up around 42% of the overall sample — roughly 589 people.
Then they read what those 14 studies had asked.
What they found
The two literatures barely overlap.
The pickleball research was mostly about wellbeing, and mostly about recreational players, often older adults. Participation was associated with greater happiness, higher life satisfaction and stronger social connection. One study found happiness positively related to taking part. Another linked more serious involvement with lower depression. Social integration looked particularly important for the women in these samples. And during the pandemic, when opportunities to play were reduced, that reduction was associated with increased loneliness and poorer mental health — which hints that the company may be doing some of the work, not only the exercise.
The padel research was mostly about performance, and mostly about competitive and elite athletes. Higher-ranked players tended to report greater self-confidence and fewer physical symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety shifted with ranking, with gender, with the stage of the match, and with whether a player was winning or losing. Mental fatigue built up across consecutive matches and went along with slower reactions and poorer accuracy. Curiously, motivation sometimes rose during the most mentally demanding matches, which may be part of why players keep going when they are already tired.
As the authors put it: “Padel studies primarily target performance aspects like self-confidence, anxiety, and mental fatigue, while pickleball research highlights wellbeing gains in life satisfaction, happiness, and social integration.”
The limitations here are real and the review is upfront about them. Every included study was observational — none were randomised controlled trials — so none of this shows that either sport causes anything. Much of it relies on people reporting on themselves. The padel work over-represents elite and competitive players; the pickleball work skews towards older adults. All 14 studies came from just three countries: the United States, Spain and Finland. And the review states plainly that the results should not be read as proof that either sport prevents depression or anxiety.
So this is not a finding about which sport is better for you. It is closer to a finding about the questions.
What we keep thinking about
Two very similar afternoons. Two entirely different sets of instruments pointed at them.
Point a performance lens at a Tuesday evening on a court and you will get a performance answer: confidence, ranking, reaction time, how the fatigue accumulated by the third match. Point a wellbeing lens at more or less the same evening and you will get a different answer: who was there, whether it was good to be among them, how the week felt afterwards.
Neither lens is wrong. But neither one sees what the other sees, and whichever one you pick up is the one that decides what you find. That is true of a research field. It is also, more quietly, true of a Tuesday.
Because most of us are running one of these lenses on ourselves without ever having chosen it. The end-of-day question a lot of people ask by default is a performance question — was that good enough, did I do enough, how did I compare. It is a completely reasonable question. It is just not the only one available, and it is not the one that would have picked up any of what the pickleball studies picked up.
This is part of why Nagi’s check-in is four taps and not a test. Mood, sleep, energy — noted as the days go by, not scored, not ranked, no streak to protect, nothing to be good at. The S8 wellbeing measure it uses is currently in a formal validation study, because we would rather find out than assert. And all of it is designed to stay with you: no name, no email, an anonymous ID rather than a name. A calm space that is just yours.
None of which is a claim that noticing fixes anything. It doesn’t, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. It’s a smaller point: what you write down shapes what you can later see, and most of us have never consciously decided what we’re writing down.
The bit we’d underline
The most repeated signal across the pickleball studies wasn’t really about the paddle. It was about the other people — and it showed up most clearly in what happened when the playing stopped.
That is worth holding loosely, given the caveats. But it does suggest a question you could try instead of the usual one, at the end of something you did this week.
Not was I any good at that.
Who else was there — and was I glad to be?
If the honest answer is nobody, and you’d rather it wasn’t, that’s not a failing. It’s just information, which is the only thing any of this was ever going to give you.
If you want a private place to start noticing your own patterns, Nagi is on Google Play and the App Store — or in your browser at app.nagiandme.app. The first 15 messages are free. No name, no email. Just you, checking in.
— The Nagi team
Source: The psychological effects of padel and pickleball, according to science, PsyPost, 6 September 2026, by Bianca Setionago. Underlying study: Lauxtermann, L., & Stubbs, B., “Padel, pickleball and wellbeing: a systematic review”, Frontiers in Psychology. Design: systematic review, led at the University of Vienna; literature searched through 8 October 2024; 71 records screened, 14 studies included, 1,403 participants total (8 padel studies, 538 participants; 6 pickleball studies, 865 participants; women approximately 42% of the sample, around 589 people). Findings: pickleball participation associated with greater happiness, life satisfaction and social integration, with one study linking more serious involvement to lower depression and social integration appearing particularly important for female players; reduced opportunity to play during the COVID-19 pandemic associated with increased loneliness and poorer mental health. Padel research focused on performance-related emotions — higher-level players reported greater self-confidence and fewer physical anxiety symptoms; anxiety varied by ranking, gender, match stage and match outcome; mental fatigue increased across consecutive matches and was linked to slower reactions and poorer accuracy, while motivation sometimes rose during mentally demanding matches. Stated limitations: all included studies were observational rather than randomised controlled trials, so no causal conclusions can be drawn; many relied on self-report; padel research over-represented elite and competitive players while pickleball research focused mainly on older adults; all studies originated from only three countries (United States, Spain, Finland). The review states explicitly that the results should not be interpreted as proof that either sport prevents depression or anxiety.
Nagi is a mental health companion, not a medical device, and nothing here is medical advice. If you’re struggling, please reach out to a professional or someone you trust.