Sport has long taught athletes to be a rock. But that version of mental toughness can make struggling feel like failing, and keep athletes silent. Here's why flexibility is the better goal.

Athletes experience mental health difficulties as often as anyone else, but only around one in five who are struggling seek help. Here's what the research actually shows, and what closes the gap.

We've written before on the Surge blog about graduating from a level or a programme, the closure, the reconnecting with values, the rebuilding of purpose. This blog sits alongside that one but looks specifically at the harder end of the spectrum: full retirement from competitive sport, what the evidence says it actually does to mental health, and a newer framework researchers are proposing for how sport should prepare athletes for it. The Numbers Are Bigger Than Most People A

Recovery from athlete burnout is rarely as simple as taking a break and coming back. Athletes, coaches, and families often expect that a few weeks off will restore motivation and performance, and when it does not, they assume something more is wrong, or they push the athlete back too soon and lose them entirely. The research on burnout recovery is clearer than most people realise, and it points to a process that is structured, gradual, and as much about meaning and identity a

Burnout has become one of the most widely used and least precisely understood terms in sport. Athletes describe themselves as burned out when they are tired, when they are fed up, when they have lost form, when they want a break, or when they are genuinely struggling with a clinical syndrome that requires real intervention. The word covers all of these, and that is part of the problem. If we are going to talk seriously about athlete burnout, we need a clearer understanding of

Earlier this month I had the privilege of attending the Women in Sport Congress — two days of presentations, panels, and conversations about the state of women in sport in Australia and beyond. It was great to connect with so many likeminded health professionals and people working in sporting spaces. I feel as if I was inducted into the world of rugby league, connecting with many of the allied health professionals working in that space! I left feeling inspired, challenged, an

This question comes up alot in our practice, we also get what does a sport psychologist even do? How can sport psychology help me? So...