"How great is our life? To play the best sport in the world, to play at the highest level, and it's your job. How great is that?

"So when you go back to football the energy will go through the roof and enjoy every moment of playing, because you can't play forever."

Arnold also made efforts to reassure his Olyroos squad after the Olympics were postponed until 2021, telling the players their opportunity to represent Australia at a Games wasn't gone - just delayed for 12 months.

"Even their parents maybe don't understand what an elite sportsman is going through in this time with no training and no adrenaline and no games," he said.

"The AIS made that message very clear to us that that's what it was mainly all about."

The FFA's proactive approach to the potential issue drew praise from AIS mental health manager Matt Butterworth, who said symptoms of depression and anxiety were likely to be experienced by almost all aspects of the population during such an uncertain time.

Butterworth said it made sense to have coaches and support staff trained and aware of how to handle potential mental health situations.

"The key thing that we did say to them was, look, you will know your athletes and your colleagues better than my team will or anything like that," Butterworth told AAP.

"Most people will get a sense of if someone's doing okay like they normally are or if they're starting to struggle. If you've got a relationship with people we tend to know at an intuitive level, 'hey, there's something not quite right here and I don't think they're doing too well'.

"With that in mind the key things that we put in front of them was, if that's in your mind it's absolutely fine to ask that person how are you going? With that in mind too, you can look within your sport if you've got key people you can go to."

Butterworth said it had made sense to extend the network to family and friends of athletes as well, who will also be facing challenges during the pandemic.

"They're a natural support network for someone," Butterworth told AAP.

"They're going to be supporting people anyway so if you can give them skills, that's half the job done from a mental wellbeing point of view.

"That would reduce the need for people to access a clinical service too if their natural support network knows how to support them as well."