 Being an athlete is not a guarantee of good mental health. A photo of Mental Wealth TV presented by WMHI, the Workplace Mental Health Institute. I'm Emmy, the Director of Psychology for the WMHI. I'm Peter Diaz, I'm the CEO for WMHI. And today we're talking about mental health and sports, athletes. So here we are in our gym, seemed appropriate. But this isn't relevant just for athletes. This is relevant for everyone. We're going to talk about some of the recent news items that have come up, which have really highlighted mental health amongst professional athletes. But even if you're not a big sporty person yourself, there's still some great lessons to learn as an individual and for workplaces as well, of course. We all know how important exercise is for your mental health and well-being. It takes a mental resilience, a mental stamina. I mean, every time you go to a workout, you want to push yourself a little bit. So I can only imagine for professional athletes how mentally strong they must be to get to that level of performance where they're top of the world. It's surprising then when we see items like the recent one, the probably the most well-known one is Naomi Osaka, who decided not to participate in media interviews and then ultimately to withdraw from the French Open because of mental health. We wonder, how can this happen? So if exercise is good for your mental health, how come she's depressed? How come she's finding it hard to function? We do know from the research that over 30% of athletes are having mental health problems and there's a high rate of suicide. They should feel good because they're athletes. They move. The exercise is good for you. So why are they not feeling good? One is they're pushing their body to the limit and beyond. I mean, athletes like athletes. The body, the reaction, the way of thinking, it's completely... What happens if you train your body too hard and you burn your body? Because you can burn out physically and psychologically. And it's also they have a winning mindset. Yeah, which is a good thing. If you're in any workplace, you want to have a team of high performers who are willing to work hard to do a great job. The more people with a winning mindset, you think, better, the better. Everybody remembers number one, but nobody remembers number two. So number one is what they go for. But how many number ones can you have? That's the problem. You have so many athletes trying to be number one, but only very few will become number one. And what happens if you do become number one? And the limelight is taken away, like in Naomi's case, the limelight was taken a little bit away a lot from the occasion because of what happened. Yeah, we all love appreciation and we all love recognition. And, you know, most people like others to acknowledge that some people don't want to be in the limelight. And that's fine too. But the problem then is what happens when feedback is not great. It's very public, isn't it? And this is the thing with doing the media interviews, but also social media as well. Imagine if you do your gym sessions with a camera following you around and picking up everything that you do wrong and you do right. How important is it a person's opinion on social media whom I don't know that could possibly be the village idiot somewhere? Not a lot, isn't it? No, this is the thing. The more public you are, the more fans, but also the more interviews, the more criticism. You get both. Are they getting enough status? But what happens if they don't? When you lose the game or... Or you come in second and nobody remembers your name. I mean, we've got to, as individuals, be able to handle that when it's not a great result, accept it when it is a great result and that's good feedback, but handle it when it's not. People do what can athletes do and what can people do to support athletes and ex-athletes. For example, with the media interviews, how crucial are they? Again, to take it to a workplace setting, to the core requirements of the job. These are the core requirements of the job. And so, that's one of the things that in workplaces we need to work out with people and say, I struggle with this part or that part, or can we amend this? Can we do flexible arrangements here or there? Is this a core requirement of the job? Should you just drop the job because you're feeling stressed out? No. Because it could be a really good opportunity to learn some really good things about yourself, how you handle pressure, how you handle stress, and how to become more resilient. You're not a saint, you're not a magical being. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to change jobs. But make sure that you get a mentor, a counselor, or somebody that you can talk to to make sure that you've learned as much as you come from that situation about yourself and how you handle yourself. Some changes can be done at the workplace level, but some changes are individual. We're all at different places in our maturing, in our growth, both psychologically and physically. And it's good that we look to ourselves and say, what do I need to take responsibility with? And also not expect that the workplace will do everything to keep us. Overall, I'm not saying people shouldn't aim for high performance. I think one of the beautiful things about being a human being is their capacity to shine at the right moment and in the right circumstances. But you need to understand that we're biological beings and psychological beings. We can't be high performance 24 hours a day. At some point, we need a rest. At some point, we need a timeout and we need to get our breath. You want to challenge yourself but you also need to do the self-care support. There's that balance of push and grit and stamina and hard work and perseverance alongside self-care and nurturing and being kind to yourself and you've got to get that balance right. It's good to be part of a society. It's good to be part of a community, of a tribe and be productive. And it's not about making money. It's about we feel good when we give to others and allow ourselves to grow. So let's remember that. Let's keep it in that. But look, I would be very interested in knowing if people have questions that can just send us questions in the comments. What is your experiences around this? Have you been high performers and you burnt out? Or are you high performers and you're still high performers and non-high performance people? I know you, frustrate you. But thanks very much for watching. Yes, thank you. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. Hi, I'm Emmie Golding, Director of Psychology for the Workplace Mental Health Institute. We hope you liked the video. If you did, make sure to give it a thumbs up. We have more and more videos being released each week. So when you subscribe, you'll get a notification letting you know when a new one's just been published. So make sure to hit that subscribe button and don't miss out on this vital information for yourself, your colleagues and your loved ones.