Athletes and Mental Health with Sports Psychologist Riley Nickols

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Welcome to episode 101 of The Eat for Endurance Podcast, featuring sports psychologist and certified eating disorder specialist Riley Nickols, PhD, CEDS-C. 

Riley is the founder of Mind Body Endurance, and works with athletes on a wide range of mental health and sport performance issues. He also is an endurance athlete himself, as well as a running and USA Triathlon coach.

Riley and I explore the intersection between common mental health challenges, nutrition, and performance among athletes, often drawing from our own experiences as providers in private practice. This episode is a bit of a grab-bag in terms of topics that we cover, including: 

• The impact of fear and anxiety on nutrition and performance, and examples of how to address these feelings
• How life stress can contribute to underfueling, overtraining, and REDs
• How to navigate poor body image moments and body weight fixation
• How to cultivate mental resiliency in everyday and athletic situations 
• Other mental / behavioral barriers to self-care
• Prevalent myths about eating disorders
• And more!

Riley and I provide practical steps that you can take to better support your mental health as a person first, and athlete second. I hope you find this episode helpful, and as always, I welcome any feedback, questions or comments. 

Links & Announcements:

• Mind Body Endurance’s website and Instagram
• Watch this episode on my YouTube page 
• Check out my free nutrition downloads
• Sign up for my email list to download my FREE fueling before exercise guide
• Fill out a new client inquiry form if you’re interested in 1:1 nutrition coaching
• Join my Patreon community to support the pod while getting awesome merch, special discounts on my digital products, and other perks
• Get in touch at claire@eatforendurance.com.
• Music Credit: Joseph McDade

Disclaimer – all information provided is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is in no way meant to replace individual medical and nutrition recommendations

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