England Athletics Mental Health Champion

What are Mental Health Champions?

We are excited to let you know about and England Athletics scheme, backed by Mind, called Mental Health Champions.  It is designed to support people starting or returning to running and improve the mental wellbeing of existing club members. Running For It have enthusiastically signed up and our Champion is Patrick Tyers. Hello!

Running and Mental Health

Anyone can experience a mental health problem and while physical activity has proven to be effective, in both treatment and prevention, only 16% of people with a mental health problem are active once a week.  Benefits of running for mental health include:

• Reduced anxiety and happier moods. Heard of endorphins – ‘feel good’ hormones? Released by exercise they can calm anxiety and lift your mood
• Reduced stress
• Time out to exercise can give you space to think things over and help your mind feel calmer
• Increased self-esteem
• Reduced risk of depression

What will we do?

Patrick is positive about the role of Mental Health Champion and will:

• Support and encourage people with mental health problems to start, continue or return to running
• Link to local mental health groups
• Hold events
• Link with local Champions in other clubs
• Support the conversation on social media it’s good to #runandtalk

If you’d like to know more or be involved get in touch, say hi at a club run or email us on: info@runningforit.co.uk