Introducing Sporting Wellness: the new name of Sporting Minds UK and a charity for every representative athlete in Britain, under one new brand!
Sporting Wellness’s focus will remain on ensuring every representative athlete aged over 16 in the UK has free access to our private and professional mental health support system. However, we feel it’s the right time to make a huge push for parity between physical & mental health and encourage all athletes to make a deliberate effort towards mental wellness.
Part of our effort to create this parity will revolve around raising greater awareness that our services are appropriate for any athlete’s mental state, not just for those experiencing a medically diagnosable mental health condition.
Often athletes can be struggling with their emotions because of everyday problems and don’t necessarily need clinical treatment or suffer from a mental illness. However, they could still benefit from emotional support. After all, how can a representative athlete be expected to perform at their best if their mood state is being affected?
The support system that Sporting Wellness provides athletes access to covers the whole continuum of the mental health state and we never want an athlete to feel the difficulties they are going through are not serious enough to ask for help.
That’s why a shift away from purely talking about mental health in terms of mental illness is vital, particularly in sport where there unfortunately remains a strong stigma toward athletes reaching out for support when experiencing varying levels of difficulties. When an athlete picks up a slight strain in their hamstring, they have no hesitancy to speak to a coach or physio. This is the action needed for every athlete’s mental well-being.
Our mission as a charity is to create parity in sport between physical & mental health and our name change will be the first step in a massive push for raising greater awareness that every athlete should look after their mental health just as they do their physical health.
What is mental wellness?
Are you providing any new services?
What are your existing services?
The support that we provide covers the whole continuum of an individual’s mental health state (excelling, balanced, unsettled, struggling, in crisis) and includes:
Health Assured’s ‘My Healthy Advantage App’ is a really popular feature of our support system and is perfect for any athlete who isn’t necessarily struggling or in crisis but wishes to boost their overall well-being with some emotional support.
Features of the app include:
Why did you choose the word wellness?
What does the future hold for Sporting Wellness?