📽️ What happens when a global event becomes a moment for mental health? 🏃♀️ In Berlin, we found out. With our partners at lululemon, and hosted by Midnight Runners, ambassadors, influencers and athletes ran the Berlin Marathon for UnitedGMH. Their message: movement matters for mental health. But one marathon isn't the goal. A movement is. Because physical movement, in all its shapes and sizes, is key to better mental health. The evidence is clear, but access, policy and funding haven't caught up. UnitedGMH is leading the global push to change that, working with athletes, donors, UN agencies, implementers and the sporting goods industry. Watch the marathon film, then read more about the movement for mental health👇 ➡️ https://lnkd.in/e8efbNn3 #WMHD #MentalHealth #Sport

Mental health matters in youth sports! Sport is about more than performance, medals, and winning. It is also an opportunity for young athletes to build confidence, resilience, emotional well-being, and meaningful connections. Yet, the pressure to succeed, fear of failure, and high expectations can affect their mental health. Coaches and parents play a vital role. Through encouragement, open communication, and realistic expectations, they can help create a safe and supportive environment where young athletes feel valued, learn from mistakes, and enjoy the game without fear of judgment. Through MINDFIT EU project, the Neo-Move group at CYENS Centre of Excellence and its partners are working to strengthen mental fitness and promote mental well-being in youth sports, empowering children, coaches, and parents with the knowledge and tools to make a difference. Because every young athlete deserves to feel supported both on and off the field! 🔗 Learn more: https://mind-fit.co INQUIRY FUSE, GDA Sports LTD, Symplexis, CESIE ETS, University of Thessaly #MINDFIT #MentalHealthMatters #MentalFitness #YoungAthletes #Wellbeing

Some of the most valuable help on Halo Handicap has come from people who owed me nothing and gave generously anyway. Dr Paula Quatromoni is one of them. She's a tenured Associate Professor at Boston University and one of the leading US academic voices on eating disorders in athletes — creator of the Walden Behavioral Care GOALS Program, a registered dietitian, and an active researcher in the field. A warm introduction from Rachael Steil (Running in Silence) led to a conversation that shaped several chapters: Paula reviewed the manuscript, walked me through her research, and opened doors I couldn't have opened myself — including David Proctor, a distance runner from my own hometown of Rochdale, whose eating disorder began with a single coach's comment on his weight. None of that was owed to me. That kind of expert, unhurried generosity is rare, and the book is better for it. Halo Handicap is out now: https://lnkd.in/dP-i9qeZ For coaches, athletes, parents and anyone working in sport who wants to understand how appearance bias, kit, and institutional culture shape who gets seen — and who pays the price when they don't fit the mould. #HaloHandicap #EatingDisorders #SportsNutrition #WomenInSport

We’re born to move. But modern life means we’re moving less and less. Ahead of World Mental Health Day, new global research by ASICS reveals that people report spending 86% of their waking day not moving. Across 31 countries, more than half (53%) of adults surveyed fail to meet recommended physical activity guidelines, a figure projected to rise to 56% by 2035, as our modern-day habitats quietly design movement out of our lives. To bring the issue to life, we’ve released Human Nature, a new nature documentary narrated by the award-winning Sigourney Weaver, taking a playful look at how the environments we live in are changing the way we move. The good news? Even small amounts of movement can positively impact how we feel. Our research shows that just 15 minutes of movement can help uplift our mental state. Because when you move your body, you move your mind. Watch the full film here: youtu.be/tTuMUWlVFZI Read the Movement Conservation Report here: https://lnkd.in/enXqJaJu #15minutesToThrive #MoveYourBodyMoveYourMind #SoundMindSoundBody

👟 It’s not just because ASICS is our client: we truly believe they are an example of impact, leading by example in creating an organizational culture where health always come first. This year, ASICS’ World Mental Health Day campaign centers on their powerful motto: 'Human Nature'. In a time when it’s easy to slip into inactivity, ASICS reminds us that taking just 15 minutes to move can make all the difference. At Castilho - International Legal Corporation, we are proud to stand alongside partners who drive meaningful change both inside and outside the workplace. In our own office, we actively foster this mindset by hosting guided sessions focused on physical relaxation and mental clarity, ensuring our team feels supported both in mind and body.   #CastilhoInternationalLegalCorporation #20yearsoflegalimpact #WorldMentalHealthDay #ASICS #Wellbeing #Balance #MoveForMind #15minutesToThrive

💃 Can dance support the mental wellbeing of teenage girls? At Örebro University, research has helped turn this question into a practical method that is now used well beyond the university. Anna Duberg, researcher at Örebro University, is the creator of Dance for Health – a research-based method developed to promote mental wellbeing among teenage girls through dance and movement. Unlike traditional dance training, the programme focuses on movement, joy and social connection rather than performance. Developed through research at Örebro University and Region Örebro County, the method is now used across Sweden and in other Nordic countries. Research from the original study found that regular dance was associated with improved self-rated health and reduced physical and emotional symptoms among teenage girls experiencing mental health challenges. The intervention was also found to be cost-effective. 🎥 In a new interview by Leandro Antar, Anna talks about the research behind Dance for Health, what she has learned through her work and why movement and social connection can play an important role in supporting young people’s wellbeing. Another example of how research developed within the NEOLAiA | European University Alliance community can move beyond the university and contribute to society. ▶️ Watch the interview and discover the story behind Dance for Health. #NEOLAiA #ÖrebroUniversity #Research #DanceForHealth #MentalWellbeing #YouthWellbeing #ResearchImpact #EuropeanUniversities

I’m incredibly grateful to have been included in this group and in these conversations. Over three days at Olympic House in Lausanne, athletes, researchers, practitioners, International Federations, National Olympic Committees, and the IOC came together to wrestle with an important question: What does it actually mean for a sport organization to take responsibility for mental health? There was a lot of discussion, debate, voting, revising - and then more discussion. But that process was what made the experience so meaningful. We weren’t simply talking about supporting athletes when they are struggling. We were thinking much more broadly about the responsibility sport organizations have to promote and protect mental health through the environments, relationships, structures, and everyday practices we create. I was especially grateful for the intentional inclusion of athlete voice throughout the process. If we are going to build systems that truly support athletes, their experiences and perspectives have to be foundational to the work- not something we add after the fact! I left Lausanne both energized and humbled by the opportunity to learn alongside such an incredible group of people from around the world. It was also meaningful to bring some of what we have learned through our work with Team USA into an international conversation - and to bring home new perspectives that will make our own work better. A huge thank you to Scott Sloan, Kristoffer Henriksen, Camille Cheng, Dr. Jane Thornton MD PhD OLY, Rosie Purcell, the International Olympic Committee – IOC, and everyone who contributed so thoughtfully over these three days. Six foundational principles. A set of actionable strategies. And now, as Scott said, the small matter of writing the paper. 😊 I’m very grateful to be part of it - and excited about what this work can mean for the future of mental health in elite sport!

Athletes, International Federations, National Olympic Committees and world-leading mental health researchers and practitioners spent three days at Olympic House this week voting, debating, and agreeing a shared set of principles for how sport organisations can demonstrate responsibility for mental health in elite sport - following our call published in BJSM earlier this year (https://lnkd.in/e3TF8Xns) The result: six foundational principles and a set of actionable strategies that will shape the first international consensus guidelines in this space. Thank you to our co-chairs Rosemary Purcell, Kristoffer Henriksen and Camille Cheng and to Dr. Jane Thornton MD PhD OLY for leading from the International Olympic Committee – IOC , and to every participant who gave their time and voice. The small matter of writing the paper starts now and can’t wait to share more when it’s out!

As an Athletic Therapist, concussion management is something that comes up often when working with athletes. One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that sometimes it’s simply about noticing that an athlete just isn’t themselves. It’s not always obvious, and athletes don’t always speak up. Creating an environment where they feel comfortable saying “I don’t feel right” is so important. Coaches, parents, teammates, Athletic Therapists and athletes all have a role to play in recognizing the signs and making sure athletes feel supported in taking the time they need to return safely.

🇬🇧📚 Pacing and effort distribution in HYROX® PRO: which components discriminate performance level? At AExPH (Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio, UAX), we have just published this study in BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation. 🔬 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📖 “Pacing and effort distribution in Hyrox® PRO athletes: differences by sex and performance level” 👨🔬 Olivares-Llorente R, Martín-Castellanos A, Agudo-Ortega A, Martín-Castellanos C, Barba-Ruiz M, Hermosilla-Perona F. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🧪 Methods We conducted a retrospective observational study using official results from 8,422 HYROX® PRO athletes (6,081 men and 2,341 women) across 149 events held between 2018 and 2025. Effort distribution was expressed as the proportion of time spent on each of the 16 segments: eight runs and eight stations (SkiErg, Sled Push, Sled Pull, Burpee Broad Jump, RowErg, Farmers Carry, Sandbag Lunges and Wall Balls). We then compared these proportions across performance levels and between sexes. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📊 Main results 🔹 Running: the pacing profile was relatively homogeneous across performance levels. Differences were limited to specific segments, with small effect sizes. 🔹 Stations: SkiErg and RowErg showed the largest effects of performance level on the proportion of station time. 🔹 Sex: in women, SkiErg, Burpee Broad Jump, RowErg and Farmers Carry accounted for a greater proportion of station time. In men, Sandbag Lunges and Wall Balls accounted for the greatest proportion. These differences should be interpreted in light of the category-specific loads. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 Conclusion In HYROX® PRO, performance level is more closely associated with time distribution across the functional stations, particularly the ergometers, than with running pacing patterns. Segment analysis provides information that finish time alone does not capture. It also makes it possible to characterise distinct performance profiles by sex and level. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🧠 Practical implications ✅ Prioritise maintaining pace on the SkiErg and RowErg, the stations that best discriminate between performance levels. ✅ Include concurrent training that replicates the run–station alternation to preserve running speed under accumulated fatigue. ✅ Use split analysis as a diagnostic tool to identify specific weaknesses and guide periodisation. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eJbjqgG4 Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio, Escuela Universitaria UAX Rafa Nadal, Fundación UAX, Rafael Olivares Llorente, Adrián Martín Castellanos, Manuel Barba Ruiz, Aarón Agudo