Big Stars & Mental Health

Mental health is a big issues in today's world. Its not something that gets talked about as much as it should and its a sad trend. Well, there are some athletes in both the Olympics and in the Pro Sports game that are stepping up and stepping forward, bringing mental health to a brand new light. Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and Robin Lehner are all taking a stand for mental health in recent days and its resonating in a big way with the fans and general public alike.

Lets start with the Olympic athletes first. Simone Biles, who is by far and away the best Gymnast on the planet, pulled out of the rest of the Olympic events due to mental health. This is a bit of a surprise to some but not to others when you really think about it. Simone has even said in press conferences that there's a lot of pressure on her to perform, because coming into the games she was labeled as the best at this sport. The pressure for her to live up to the hype, as they say, was a lot on her mentally. Physically, she said she has felt fine, but it was starting to take a bit of a mental toll on her.

Same argument can be made with Naomi Osaka. There was a lot of pressure on her as well. She lost her third round match at these Olympic games, in less than an hour on match time. This coming after withdrawing from Grand Slam events earlier this year to focus on Mental Health. She was, and is, considered the best in the game today and has been for a while now. Taking these kinds of steps is huge for all athletes, both amatur and professional.

Then there's Robin Lenher, the starting goalie of the Vegas Golden Knights. Earlier in the week, Vegas had traded Marc-Andre Fleury to Chicago. This was a presumption by some fans that Lenher was going to be the number one goalie in Vegas. With that some people took shots at Lenher because of the move. Fans were attacking him and his mental health online after the Fleury trade.

Well hats off to Lehner for how he handled the whole things. This was his response on Twitter following the events: Hi. My name is Robin Lehner and I’m bipolar 1 and have ptsd. I take medicine and I have a psychiatrist that I talk to once a week. I’m in the NHL program and on top of that I’ve fought trough hell to be here. And I’m pretty good at stopping pucks. Not perfect. Bless you all (the exact tweet can be found here).

There is nothing more important than been in a good place mentally. It will lead to better things. Mentally and physically. If your not in a good place mentally, it does help to talk about it. Holding onto things like this is not healthy for anybody and could lead to bigger problems. The fact that these very high profile athletes are making a big statement on a big issue speaks volumes. It lets people know that even the big names out there, athlete or celebrity, are human just like everybody else and have problems just like everyone else. And they can take time away to deal with them just like everybody else.

Here's hoping this can lead to greater things in the area of mental health discussion.