Transcript for:
Mental Health Insights for Athletes

Yeah. It'll be fun. I promise. Oh my gosh. Yeah, right there. Nice. We're going to do some quickfire answers. Are you a dog or cat person? I love all animals. This is a bit longer answer. I want every kind of animal on the planet. Not snakes and spiders. -Not that, but all the others. -All the others. What things give you energy? Being around inspirational people and just-- Yeah, friends, family, just people that I love and that love me. This is what keeps me going. What three things are always on your to-do list? Make your bed in the morning, drink coffee of course, and climbing. -That's basically it. -Well, that's a simple life. -It's a simple life. -It sounds really nice. All other things are side things. Interested in your choice to not have a sports psychologist in relation to your own mind and knowing your own mind. Yeah, so, at the beginning of my path, or my career, I was kind of really not open to it. I just didn't want to have a psychologist because it was still ten years ago or more, it was still a taboo kind of. So, nobody really talked about it or I always felt like if someone had a psychologist, this meant that they have problems. Of course, when I started competing, I soon also had some routines in place already the way that I was thinking. So, I was afraid that having a psychologist would change that. So, the psychologist would change my way of thinking or they would want to change my way of doing things. Yeah, so basically my whole life or the climbing that I know about. So, that's why I didn't want to have a psychologist at all. Also right now, now I'm more open to it. Now I would of course try, but I have Roman around me who is also not just a coach but a psychologist in some ways. So, I have a feeling I don't need to have another person in my life to help me with that. But I'm still open to it. If I ever get a feeling that I would need a psychologist or that I would need another person to talk about certain problems or doubts that I have, then I would. And I would try, but right now I like it how it is. Mental health was not a thing ten years ago or more. It was more whenever-- Because athletes, we're perceived as not even a human being. Basically, athletes, we're perceived as robots. So, athletes should be tough, athletes shouldn't have any mental problems, athletes shouldn't be insecure, they shouldn't have any weaknesses. So, that's how athletes were perceived ten or more years ago. And then when top athletes started to speak out about mental health, then these things started to change. Then more people were talking about their own struggles and everybody was more comfortable in sharing their life stories. People talk about struggles all the time, they share their life stories and people are supportive And I like that it's changing because, first of all, athletes are not robots. Athletes are, first, humans and we want to show that side of us. Because of course when you compete, you're a bit stubborn, you're tough, you don't want to show too much emotions. But we are humans. We have our own insecurities, our own problems, and I like that mental health became such a big thing. Do you notice that your mental state in terms of being vulnerable or not vulnerable changes in the month? Or are there some days that you just wake up and you feel more successful and confident for your own mental state? I wish periods would come in a month and say, "Hi, you are not pregnant. Okay, bye. Let's talk next month." Yeah, it's hormones. It's hormone fluctuations. I mean, men have it too, but in a very different way. The thing about women is that we basically shed our uterus out every single month, and of course with that also hormones change throughout the month. And honestly I was having a hard time dealing with that which is a funny thing because I basically won 70% of the comps that I won while I was menstruating. And at the same time, I had performance anxiety because I was always, I felt, uncomfortable when I had my period. And I needed quite some time to learn about my body, how my body works, what do I need in different stages of the month, and I was learning for quite some years how to deal with that. I was always thinking, "When will I get my next period? Will there be a comp? Won't there be a comp?" Because I felt so uncomfortable because I feel like my hormonal changes I feel like kind of off balance. Especially on the wall, you feel maybe off balance. You feel tired. I feel like my mind doesn't work like it should. Or especially I feel bloated. Not just like stomach part, I feel boated. Like, my whole body is-- You can see it on my arms. I feel like a balloon. So, I hated this feeling, and I still get it. Not just in the past, but still now. And I feel like I will just fly. I feel like I'm just going up because I feel so bloated. But everybody just needs to find their own way how to deal with it. Again, so did Roman. He usually knows every single time in a month when I have period. But I think it's important for a coach also to know that because maybe he adjusts, adapts trainings to the time of the month I'm in. We are just talking a lot about it because I was always so mad and pissed about having to have this period. But it's not like you can say, "I'm not training," or I won't compete. It's not like you can say that. You have to do it. And I wouldn't say it's a taboo thing like in the competition world. But not a lot of people think about it. Athletes are on their period, and they have to compete. They're in pain, they feel uncomfortable, and they still have to do it. And let's not talk about the hormonal changes. Sometimes you feel like out of place. You feel like that your mind is clouded. But, yeah, kind of like, of course, in a month I feel more tired. But then comes a time where I feel so much energized and I have so much energy for training and I feel so happy. But then comes the time when energy goes a bit down. But now I learn how to deal with all those stuff and what helps me the most was actually do not think about it. Because before I was like, "Oh my God, I'm getting it in five days. What do I do?" I was already preparing myself for the pain that I will have, and I kind of convinced myself that I will have pain. But then every single month, I tried to do a different thing. Then one month I said, "Okay. This time I won't feel any pain." And then I didn't feel any pain. I was like, "Oh, that's great!" So, just changing the perspective about having a period was the key thing. And also, if I just talk about the climbing world, there's so much under-fueling going on, and they're over-training So, women lose their periods, and I am glad and so happy that I can say that I had it all my career. So, there was not a time in my life that I would lose my period which I'm so proud of. And I'm happy that I have it, honestly. Maybe I'm pissed or maybe frustrated every single month that it comes around. But then I'm like, "I'm a woman. This is a natural cycle going on and I'm happy to have it. I train like I normally do. I don't really adapt my trainings to my cycles because, first of all, let's say you could adapt training to your cycle. But the comps will be whenever they will be. So, you can easily have period on the comp, and on a comp, you cannot say, "I won't compete," or "I will adapt something." Because in a comp, it's a comp. So, I had to get used to it, to training normally while I'm cycling and compete normally while I have my period. So, but it took a lot of time. Especially mentally, I think it's all about perceiving periods not as something bad or something painful or something that will be detrimental to your performance. And then my life-changing moment was when someone told me that while women are on their period, they are physically the strongest. So, then this changed a lot. Then I was like, "Okay. Let's go." Say you're at World Cup, and you're on your period. Do you change how you dress? Not really. I usually wear the same stuff all the time. But it's like maybe in a competition, you know, you anyway have to be focused on climbing and what you do. But while you're on period, you have to think, "Oh, am I leaking through? Am I-- Did I change tampons, or pads, or whatever, at the right time? Am I-- Do I spot on the pants? Will belayer see if I have something on my pants or not?" So, it's like you have to think about one more thing while you are on your period. I feel more tired, but I warm up slowly and maybe get slower into warm-up and into things. Or maybe I feel off balance or maybe I will do some more balance exercises or theraband exercise or whatever I feel like. Usually, it's all about intuition and how you feel on a certain day. And with periods, this doesn't change. I just do what I feel about doing. How does that kind of societal expectation of us needing to look pretty or beautiful impact you and have you ever experienced kind of comments about that on social media specifically or in person especially being under the spotlight? Yeah, honestly there are beauty standards. We cannot say there isn't. There absolutely is. I had a moment, this type of situation. When I was a kid and I was already climbing, I already got some muscles and rough hands. As climbers, you don't have soft hands like normal people. Like non-climbers do. I felt kind of insecure. Or for some time. Or they said, "Oh, you have a lot of muscles." Kind of in a way, "You shouldn't look like that." But I, very quickly after that, I was like, "Well, this body helps me to climb. Can you do what I do? You can't, but these muscles can do that and you can't. So, I was like, "This is who I am, and this is what I get from climbing, and that's it. I have rough hands, I have muscles. I'm sorry, I feel comfortable in my own skin, and that's who I am." So, I never really bothered with that. But I've been in a situation where I felt for a split-second kind of insecure about myself. Like, maybe not looking feminine enough. I said to myself, and I keep saying that this body helps me climb. Obviously, the sport is power to weight, but what's prompted you to speak so openly about that topic? Yeah, of course climbing is a sport where you have to fight with gravity. And of course, the lighter you are, the better you will be, the easier you will fight gravity. And this maybe worked 20 years ago when there was a different style of routes, or maybe for rock climbing, but nowadays this doesn't work. If you don't have something on you, you cannot climb. And you can just break. When I heard eight or nine-year-old girls talking that if they lost some weight. Eight or nine years old. Like, if they lost some weight or if they would be as skinny as the other girl is that they would be better. And this breaks my heart. This is eight-year-old girls talking about this. They are not even developed yet. They didn't even go through puberty. And yet they are still talking about losing weight. They are ruining their health, their bodies, for small part of their life called career. You can have problems after that. Health problems, you cannot get pregnant, you have kidney problems, liver problems, all the kinds of health problems just because of that. And I think I will always believe that you can do every professional sport a healthy way. And that's why I spoke out about it. Also, this was a taboo topic in climbing. Everybody was talking about it behind someone's back But nobody said it out loud. Everybody was saying, "She's skinny. This and that." But no one said it out loud. So, I feel like I was in a position to finally say it. We have to define what being fit means because being light does not equal being strong. It just means that you're light. So, yeah, we need to start talking more and defining what means being fit, what means being healthy. We have to start talking differently about food. We have to start talking about food as a fuel, not your enemy. Maybe nothing will change in this generation because of course, if someone is in this eating disorder, then it's really hard to change. Bear in mind that you need to put a lot of effort, years of effort, in it to change your way of thinking. But I feel in the generations to come, this will change. So, can you share with us a little bit about what your eating habits are? So, I'm on a seafood diet. I see food and I eat it. That's a terrible joke. Can we cut that? Okay.