I know many fighters who have issues with their mental health: I am one of them. I started taking a low dose of antidepressants in August, and while they have had an absolutely fantastic effect in allowing me to feel calmer, mentally stronger, generally more positive, able to set boundaries, and slow down to analyse how my mind works, they have also meant that I need far more sleep and rest, and consequently have not been training at my usual intensity since then. I have, however, been training, and I have been thinking about how hard it can be to get yourself out to your pell, to practice, to the gym, or out to run, when your own mind and the associated processes can weigh heavier on you than any iron. So today I want to talk a little bit about how to keep up training in such circumstances.
First and foremost: I'm not a professional. Please, talk to your doctor and try to formulate a plan. If you are prescribed medicine, please keep taking them. If you think you would find therapy useful, please seek out a therapist and work with them. Reach out to your friends and family: hopefully you have a supportive partner who is prepared to walk this journey with you. If you are friends and family, don't wait to be reached out to: ask how your fighter is doing, take time with them, don't shy away if they open up - and keep their confidence.
That out of the way, you, as a fighter, be confident that this experience will, in fact, enable you to emerge as a better fighter. On the one hand, yes, you are bearing an injury, which will slow you down, as any physical issue would. But at the same time, like a physical issue, your mental health issue will force you to step back, slow down, analyse yourself and how you do things, including how you can best adjust to working with your issue and improve from it. You will need to figure out what works for you, and what doesn't, rather than just barging onwards through sheer stubborness, and exhausting yourself along the way. Sound familiar?
1. Prioritise sleep and recovery. Things are tiring. Work is tiring. Social life is tiring. Training is tired. Struggling with your own mind is tiring. Allow yourself to be tired. Sleep will help you in all number of ways, so make sure you get as much sleep as you can. Downtime will also help. I have had to learn to take naps, but they are now an essential part of my self care.
2. A few minutes is better than none at all. If you're not able to do a full set or a full run, how much can you do? Often it's easy to fall into the false thinking that there is only two modes of doing things: (1) exactly "right"; and (2) not at all. But there are stages in between, and often our thinking can be overfocused on our perception of what right is. Every step you take, and every raise of a weight you do, is more than nothing at all. Everything counts.
3. Actions influence emotions. Just as you don't do a thing because you feel crap, doing things can also influence how you feel. Sometimes you are too drained to do anything at all, but if you have a bit more energy and can nudge yourself, you are likely to find that even a short period of activity will rejig things in your head and make you feel better.
4. Set small, manageable targets. Get a notebook, or an app, or a whiteboard on the wall. Write targets for yourself where you can easily see them, but keep them deliberately small and easily doable. When you're carrying a mental injury, you are not able to push yourself to the max. Do what works for you: a daily target, or a weekly one. Shorter target periods give you experiences of success more often than longer ones, which will contribute to your mental health. Try 10 minutes on the pell. If that's too much, do 5. Maybe 50 shots is the maximum you can manage? Set a target of 20. Run for 2 km. Run for 15 minutes.
5. Track your targets. When you're done with your targets, tick them off, again where you can see them, or give yourself a sticker, and this way you have a constant reminder that you're still getting things done. And, crucially, if you don't achieve the target, don't blame yourself. Think about it like each fight in an important tourney. When you face a new opponent, it doesn't matter if you won or lost against the previous one. Each fight is its own thing. Each training target is its own thing.
6. Why do you really want to train? Actually sit down with yourself, and analyse why you're training. Because I want to win Crown/Coronet/become a Knight. Okay, why do I want to do that? Because I like winning. Why do I like winning? Because I enjoy being good at something. Why is that? Because it makes me feel powerful. Why? Because my body feels strong and agile. Why? Because my body is doing things smoothly and the movements feel good. Ok, so I'm training in order to feel good about my body. Boring down to your actual motivations can help you get up and keep training even when you feel that your goals remain forever out of reach - or when you have already reached your goals and you may feel there's no longer anything to gain.
7. Try out new things. Try out new combos or techniques on the pell. Try out a new weapon form at practice. Choose a new running route, or try out a whole different form of cardio or a different sport.
8. Go back to basics. Maybe trying out a new thing feels completely beyond your reach. Work on the very basics that will always prove useful. Throw basic shots on the pell. Do footwork up and down the house or the garden. Practice shifting your weight.
9. Moderate your resources. You only have a certain amount of resources available during a day. It is likely that this amount has decreased since your mental injury kicked in. Accept and allow this. You will need to do a certain degree of prioritising. If you want to go for a run, you may not have the energy to work on that A&S project. Explain to your family that training will help you with your mental health and ask for support in enabling this. This may mean someone else cooking dinner, someone else dealing with school runs, or walking the dog, or many other similar chores.
10. Be flexible. Consider a pool of different training activities that you can vary based on your energy levels. If you're not able to go for a run in the rain, can you practice footwork at home? If you're too tired to go to the gym, can you do yoga, pilates, or generic core exercises at home?
Bonus
11. Talk. As worn as this advice is, it does work for a reason. Talk to your Knight, your squires, your consort, your friends and family, anyone you know well and whom you trust. You may feel that you're a burden and that nobody wants to listen, but this is your depression lying to you. If people don't want to listen, or are not in a position to do so, they will make their excuses and remove themselves. If people stay, or check in with you, don't be afraid to talk about what you're going through.
If you feel like you have nobody else around who understands what you're going through, you can always reach out to me, and I will try to listen the best I can, or arrange a time to do so.
What you are going through is normal and common, and your awareness of it makes you better and stronger.
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