This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, which this year focuses on the theme of anxiety.
The week aims to increase people’s awareness and understanding of anxiety by providing information on the things that can help prevent it from becoming a problem.
Being a professional squash player is a high-stress career that adds substantial pressure for all athletes. It can also be a very lonely sport as the players often have to travel around the world on their own. New players on the PSA Tour can also face financial challenges and emotional stress while competing on their own.
Anxiety is a normal emotion for all of us, but sometimes it can get out of control and become a mental health problem.
Through the PSA Foundation, the players have created a Health and Wellness ambassador group that spearhead a Tour wide effort to share struggles, advice, and experiences and support each other as they face the challenges of life on tour.
At the PSA Foundation, we believe that there are no better people to help inform on the challenges of competing on Tour than the players themselves and the health and wellness programme is a testament to that.
The programme is formed of 13 players who openly advocate for well-being by sharing their own stories and offer support to others while helping remove the stigma around mental health.
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As an additional support for players facing difficulties, the PSA Foundation also offers fully funded counselling services through it’s partner, Sporting Chance.
One-to-one counselling is a form of talking therapy designed to move individuals forward to a place of balanced emotional well-being.
Organisations around the world that are using squash as a vehicle for social change through academic tutoring, nutrition support and much more to help underserved populations around the world.
Sport has been linked to reducing stress levels, and many of these organisations provide key mental health support in their communities, utilising squash as a catalyst to make a positive difference.
As the charitable arm of the PSA Tour, we partner with these non-profit programs and provide resources and support they otherwise might not have.
