Mental Health in Sport - An evening with Marcus Trescothick

The 18th February saw a couple of events take place in Chelsea, West London. Luckily, I wasn’t at Stamford Bridge but instead, we attended The Bluebird on the illustrious Kings Road, where we attended the first ‘Between the Ears’ event ran by Cowcorner Events. It was a brilliant evening and a huge hats off to Fabian Cowdrey and all involved at Cowcorner Events for putting on such a well organised and important evening.

The ‘Between the ears’ series is all about opening up the conversation surrounding Mental Health in Sport. The first event evening starred Marcus Trescothick, one of the greatest batsmen to play for England and he spoke honestly and eloquently about his struggles with Anxiety and Depression.

It was refreshing to hear not just frank details of what took place throughout his career, but also how he coped during dark times. Marcus shared some advice on how he deals with his issues which were not only useful but easily understandable for any individual who may be struggling in any way. Even if it is just a case of keeping busy and getting out of the house, finding ways to spot when you might be feeling ill at any point, or just speaking about it to your colleagues.

There was also a fascinating cameo from ex-cricketer Graeme ‘Foxy’ Fowler where he also spoke about problems post Cricketing career. In retirement, Graham fell into depression and spoke candidly about how he dealt with his young family and life at the time using a simple scale - 0-20. He has never been a 0 but also never a 20, somewhere around the middle. Below 10 was not feeling too well and above 10 was a good day. I found this unbelievably useful as he described how he would use this to signify to people how he was feeling on any one day. A great, simple solution of being open with how you may be feeling internally.

At iHASCO, we are looking at assisting any company of any size to recognise how important Mental Health is in the ‘Health & Safety’ of all employees. After all, they do both have Health in the title! Our range of Mental Health & Wellbeing courses help raise awareness companywide to the struggles you may feel at work and give useful tips to help monitor and work with Mental Health issues such as anxiety and depression.

We look forward to attending and supporting more of the Cowcorner Events ‘Between the Ears’ series and look to continue to offer more and more support to the sporting world in the effort to raise awareness of all things mental health.