Interestingly, gloves make boxing far more dangerous, as without gloves boxers focus more on hitting the body not the head, as hitting the head without gloves can break your hand.
I would avoid any sport which involves blows to the head. Maybe you could try some form of grappling martial art?

Fractal

Hi dudes,
Boxing training and exercises are superb for fitness as long as you make sure you have adequate wrist support and that your diet shifts to suit more physical workouts. It's obviously great practice for self defense too. But:
Any blow to the head or sudden change in velocity, accidental or on purpose, including falling down, has the potential to cause permanent brain damage. Blows to the jaw or the back of the head increase the risk.
I haven't answered whether boxing can be harmful to the mind, because you didn't ask  :  )
Best,
AR

Hi there,
A lot of self esteem depends on our feeling well and fit and fully aware of what's going on around us. For some, physical exercise is a real endorphin-booster, helping good relaxation afterwards and increasing serotonin. Reducing anxiety is the overall result and that's obviously going to help you engage those frontal lobes, perceive things more clearly and feel more comfortable about your place in things (and quite rightly more confident).

The mind stuff:
This isn't my opinion, BTW. It's info based on the latest discoveries I'm aware of. Opinions are not very useful, in my experience, but information usually is.

To avoid incongruity, anything alive that you are hitting should be either your intended dinner or something that is trying to attack you. The unconscious can make sense of sparring practice only as play (because nothing in its right mind in real life would come back and keep attacking you after you already kicked its ass once). So long as you treat it as play, and remember that you are learning defense not aggression, there is no confusion. Avoid anxious 'macho' partners who experience sentiments like anger or jealousy or insecurity when sparring, otherwise the input signals will hit a 'checksum error' and the critical 'play space' for learning will be busted.

And obviously, try not to get hit in the head or fall on it  :  )
Best,
AR