Athletes and Mental Health with Sports Psychologist Riley Nickols

Want to get in touch? Send Claire a message!

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 [e-mail].
• 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

Support the show

Thanks for listening! Follow me on Instagram and Facebook (@eatforendurance).