By Poppy Jamie — 2021
Happiness is such a confusing thing—the more we try to find it, the more complicated it can become. I used to think that happiness would be waiting for me as soon as I achieved “perfect,” and, unsurprisingly, I didn’t reach either.
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In the past few weeks, my journey took an unexpected path but one that has taught me so much and helped me grow. I learned a couple of key lessons.
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Through the size of her platform, however, and her decision to choose well-being over pursuit of a Grand Slam title, Osaka offers the promise of bringing mental health awareness—both inside and outside of sports—to an entirely new level.
Michael Phelps, the most decorated athlete in Olympic history with 28 medals, has acknowledged that after the 2012 games, his longtime depression was so overwhelming he thought about killing himself.
Experts I spoke with for this story pointed to a couple of reasons professional athletes are particularly susceptible to mental health issues.
Research shows exercise can ease things like panic attacks or mood and sleep disorders, and a recent study in the journal Lancet Psychiatry found that popular team sports may have a slight edge over the other forms of physical activity.
By withdrawing from competition citing concerns over her mental health, Biles showed that resisting expectations can be more powerful than persisting through them.
More athletes are reporting mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, psychiatric conditions and eating disorders.
When it comes to supporting employees to thrive despite the emotional fallout of the pandemic, leaders (and mindfulness) have a critical role to play.
Demand from patients seeking help for their mental illnesses has led to underground use in a way that parallels black markets in the AIDS pandemic. This underground use has been most perilous for people of color, who face greater stigma and legal risks due to the War on Drugs.
Most genetic studies completely ignore the science of epigenetics, which is how the environment actually turns certain genes on or off.
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