Sporting Minds UK rebrands to Sporting Wellness!

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?

• Mental wellness is a positive, proactive choice for mental, emotional and psychological well-being.

Are you providing any new services?

• Sporting Wellness’ services remain identical to when we were named Sporting Minds UK. However, we became aware that some athletes believed their problems to not be serious enough for our support. We want everyone to know that any athlete can benefit from this charity whether they’re living with a diagnosed, clinical mental health disorder and need medical treatment or are just going through a tough few weeks and need some emotional support. 

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:

• 24/7 helpline.
• Face-to-face counselling.
• Online Video counselling.
• Online Cognitive behavioural therapy.
• Free access to Health Assured’s health and wellbeing portal. 
• Critical incident support. 
• Free access to Health Assured’s ‘My Healthy Advantage App’. 

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:

• Articles and resources
• Health trackers
• Mini health checks
• 4-week plans 
• Wellbeing videos
• Live chat
• Interactive leaderboards

Why did you choose the word wellness?

• ‘Wellness’ is an increasingly relevant term in the wider mental health industry in 2022. It represents a proactive choice for a healthier life. This is the ethos that Sporting Wellness stands by, that athletes should make the conscious decision of positive mental health rather than merely reacting when they experience mental difficulties or illness. Although we will always provide support to struggling and unwell athletes, we will use our new name to raise awareness of the emotional support available to them through this charity.  

What does the future hold for Sporting Wellness?

• Our number one priority is and always will be to ensure that every representative athlete, aged 16 or over, can have access to free, private and professional mental healthcare. But we also recognise that there are still a huge amount of athletes who haven’t heard of us yet. Therefore, ensuring we can continue to provide mental health and emotional wellbeing support to all representative athletes in the UK, aged over 16, and increasing the public awareness of our services are our two key objectives for the foreseeable future.