Olivia Bramley & Dr Laura Healy discuss mental health in sub-elite women's sports, tackling stigma, competition pressures, and the need for supportive environments. They delve into balancing multiple careers in women's football, emphasizing the importance of nurturing well-being in sports and creating psychologically informed environments for personal growth.
Read more
AI Summary
AI Chapters
Episode notes
auto_awesome
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
Balancing high-performance expectations with personal responsibilities is a challenge for semi-elite women's soccer players.
Coaches play a vital role in supporting players through emotional difficulties and creating a supportive environment in football settings.
Deep dives
Navigating the Challenges of Balancing Multiple Identities and Careers in Semi-Elite Women's Soccer
Players in semi-elite women's soccer face the challenge of balancing high-performance expectations while juggling multiple identities and careers. The professionalism and pressures in the sport create unique stressors that impact mental health, requiring individuals to manage high levels of competition alongside personal and professional responsibilities.
Mixed Experiences: Positive and Negative Impacts of Football on Mental Health
Playing football brings positive aspects such as joy, camaraderie, goal achievement, and a sense of belonging to a team. However, challenges like injuries, de-selections, and the pressure to perform can also contribute to mental health struggles. Coaches play a crucial role in supporting players through emotional difficulties and fostering a supportive environment.
Barriers to Openly Discussing Mental Health in Football and Struggles with Stigma
While there is increasing awareness and openness about mental health in football, players still face barriers in discussing their mental health struggles. Gender norms and stereotypes around emotional expression can conflict with the pressure to appear tough, leading to confusion and stigma. The lack of consistent support systems and limited understanding of mental health resources contribute to the challenges of addressing mental health openly in the football environment.
I speak with Olivia Bramley and Dr Laura Healy in this episode.
Olivia is a PhD student at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) with an interest in positive sporting environments and experiences. Olivia completed her BSc in Sports and Exercise Science at Nottingham Trent University where she was also Women's Football Club President, Women's Football Media and Communications Officer and Women's Football First team player. Olivia has just returned to the UK to play for the Women’s Championship Team, Durham.
Laura is a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Nottingham Trent University. Her research explores how to optimise goal pursuit in sport and physical activity for individuals and teams. This has included examining how the motivation underpinning goal striving can impact upon the self-regulation of goals and well-being.
Recently, Laura has researched in areas associated with elite performance environments, including the role of personality in elite coach-athlete relationships, resilience, psychological safety and fear of failure in a national sport governing body, and the experience of release from professional football academies.
We discuss a paper led by Olivia and co-authored by Laura and Dr Mustafa Sarkar which examines the mental health within sub-elite women’s sport.