The Laughter Clinic

Belonging, Identity, Resilience: The hidden Mental Health Benefits of Sport.

• Mark McConville • Season 1 • Episode 9

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Sport is often sold as fitness and fun, but the deeper, quieter gift of sport is its power to bring people back into community. 

In this episode Mark dives into the hidden mental health superpowers of sport, from the jersey effect that sparks instant connection to the weekly rhythm of seasons that gives us structure, hope, and a reason to reach out. 

Mark also explores the deeper psychology of fandom and belonging, identity, and how rivalry paradoxically binds communities with respectful disagreement. You’ll hear why a season’s ups and downs can train resilience and optimism. From grandstands to golf greens, the lessons are the same: you can do everything right and still lose; and that's ok, because it's just a game. 

This ep also offers practical tools: choose a sporting code that fits your interest, pick a team, wear one visible item that shows support for your team, and then say hello to one person in your colours. For adults who feel isolated, a low-barrier entry can be as simple as buying a cap and watching at the local pub. Colours open conversations: “How do you reckon we’ll go this weekend?” becomes an invitation to swap stories, vent nerves, and share hope. 

For parents, the benefits to your child are numerous, the learning of sportsmanship, reward for effort, resilience, communication skills, relationship building. All of which are valuable life skills. Community sport at the grassroots level is the invisible web that holds suburbs together. Small clubs need sponsors, volunteers, and vocal supporters; in return, they offer kids and adults a place to show up and connect. Business owners who back local teams gain more than signage: they join the area’s social heartbeat.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe, share it with a mate who could use a friendly nudge toward community, and leave a quick review so others can find the show. Thanks for listening. 

Website: www.thelaughterclinic.com.au

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelaughterclinicAus

"If you or someone you know needs support, please contact one of these Australian mental health services. In an emergency, always call 000."

Lifeline Australia
Phone: 13 11 14 (24/7)
Web: lifeline.org.au

Suicide Call Back Service
Phone: 1300 659 467 (24/7)
Web: suicidecallbackservice.org.au

Beyond Blue
Phone: 1300 22 4636 (24/7)
Web: beyondblue.org.au

Kids Helpline (for people aged 5-25)
Phone: 1800 55 1800 (24/7)
Web: kidshelpline.com.au

MensLine Australia
Phone: 1300 78 99 78 (24/7)
Web: mensline.org.au

SANE Australia (complex mental health issues)
Phone: 1800 18 7263
Web: sane.org

QLife (LGBTIQ+ support)
Phone: 1800 184 527
Web: qlife.org.au

Open Arms (Veterans & Families Counselling)
Phone: 1800 011 046 (24/7)
Web: openarms.gov.au

1800RESPECT (sexual assault, domestic violence)
Phone: 1800 737 732 (24/7)
Web: 1800respect.org.au

Headspace (youth mental health, ages 12-25)
Phone: 1800 650 890
Web: headspace.org.au

13YARN (Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander crisis support)
Phone: 13 92 76 (13YARN) (24/7)
Web: 13yarn.org.au

Music by Hayden Smith
https://www.haydensmith.com


SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Lapticlinic Podcast. Comedians and simple McCommel. Bringing you practical evidence basically strategies. The latest research in mental health. Along with complications that inspire. Educate and entertain. This is Laughter Clinic Podcast with your host, Mark McConville.

SPEAKER_01:

Hi my friends, Mark McConville here. Thank you very much for joining me on this episode of the Laughter Clinic Podcast. And today we're going to have a chat about the hidden mental health superpowers of sport. Now we all know that sport is good for you. Participating in sport, keeping fit, exercising, which releases endorphins that are good for your mental health, you're staying active, all of that sort of stuff is great and it's a given. But today I want to have a chat about the hidden psychological treasures that sport offers. Now, this is whether you're a player, you're a passionate fan, you're a supporter, or maybe you're someone that couldn't care less about sport. This episode is going to highlight for you why sport might very well be one of the most underrated mental health tools to help combat loneliness. And so I've got some strategies at the end of the podcast, at the end of the episode for you to help you use sport as a way of feeling a bit less lonely. And how do I know these things, these benefits are real? Because I live by them. I live these. So why is this front and center at the moment? Well, here in Australia on the weekend, we had the AFL grand final. This is Aussie Rules, and this was a game between the Geelong Cats and the Brisbane Lions, which is my team. Now, this was played at the MCG, the Melbourne Cricket Ground. There was over 100,000 people at the ground to watch this game of football. Hundred thousand people. And more broadly, it's estimated that over six million Australians tuned in to watch this game, to watch one game of football. And I can guarantee you, you know, like you would have had, yes, people would have been watching it at home by themselves, but there would have been pubs and clubs heaving with people around the country coming together with a common goal of watching this one sporting event. And uh, you know, families getting together, friends getting together to watch one event. Now, I'm incredibly happy, obviously, that the Brisbane Lions won. So I'm, you know, I'm stoked about all of that. But we're really going to have a deep dive into why this is such an incredibly powerful tool for our mental health. So, and look, whether it is grassroots sporting clubs at your local community level or these massive modern day sporting coliseums, sport is an absolute gold mine for social connectedness. It really is. So I want to start by talking about the power of a simple sporting jersey or your sporting team's colours. You know, picture this you're walking down the street and you've got on your team's colours or your team's shirt or hat or whatever, and you see someone walking towards you, a total stranger, but they are wearing the same gear as what you're wearing. And so instantly, that's like a secret handshake that you have this connection with this person. You know something about them and they know something about you. A total stranger that you instantly share something meaningful with. And I've got to tell you, when you when you go to these games, these big sporting events, simply walking to the stadium is absolutely incredible. You know, you're walking to the stadium, you're walking down the street, you've got all your gear on, and you're surrounded by thousands of other people, total strangers, right? But you are connected because you see them wearing your team's colours, right? You have a common goal. You are all there together to support your team. And even you've got there's this beautiful paradox of rivalry as well. Even if you see someone walking along that's got your opposition team's colours on, right? You still feel this subliminal, you still feel this connection to them because of the fact that, you know, they support your rival, you support their rival, but you both support the game. And so it is not a thing that is done in isolation. You are instantly both part of a shared community. And this is a fantastic way of combating loneliness through this shared passion for sport, a code, or a team. Because we all know that you know this loneliness is becoming a real problem in society at the moment. So any way that we can bring people out and find themselves connected to a community is got to be beneficial for the humankind as a as a whole, you know, because we're really struggling when it comes to levels of loneliness around the planet at the moment. So, and it's a fantastic conversation starter. When you're there with total strangers, you know that they support your team. You know, how do you reckon we're gonna go this season? Yeah, good. Did you see the game the other night? Fantastic. What's it what do you reckon's gonna happen on the weekend? How do you reckon this player went? You know, it it just breaks the ice so quickly. And you know that this other person that you're standing there chatting with has had the shared same emotional experiences as you. They've, you know, experienced your team's loss when they were in a grand final or something like this. Like, you know, I'm yes, I'm so happy about the the Brisbane Lions winning the AFL grand final on the weekend, and we won it last year, so we're two back to back. But the year before that, in 2023, we got all the way to the grand final and we lost it in the final moments of the game. And, you know, there's thousands, tens of thousands of supporters around the country, all sharing in that pain of losing a grand final. And the reverse is you're all sharing in the elation of winning. And the other cool thing about sport is most sporting codes run for a season, right? It might be through the summer season or winter season, whatever it is. But having this multiple games, you know, when you've got 20 plus weeks or 25 weeks of sporting, every week your team is playing against a different rival, right? That encourages you to reach out to other people that you know support your team. And uh so you've got these regular touch points over a long period of time throughout the year. And it is inclusive. Sport is such an inclusive thing because you think about this. You're at the you're at the ground and you're supporting your team. There could be an 80-year-old grandma standing next to a 20-year-old uni student. They're total strangers, but they've both got their gear on and they're both singing the theme song. It is just fantastic. And I've been there, I have been in these stadiums with 95,000 people at the MCG, I've been at the Brisbane Lions, at the GABA game with 36,000 people singing the theme song, and it is goosebump stuff. It is powerful, it really is. And then something random might happen. You know, something random might happen in relation to, like, I'll give you an example of this. I was driving down the street the other day, a few days before the game, and then out of the blue, I noticed that there's a house about half a dozen houses down that's got Brisbane Lions gear on the letterbox and on the fence and all that sort of stuff, and it's like, Hell cool is that? I don't know these people, but I know that they livered by street and they support my footy tea, but I gotta tell you, that's pretty cool. It really is pretty cool. But there is a there is a deeper psychology at play here when it comes to supporting your team and and being part of a sporting code, and it is, and that is it gives you a sense of belonging, and that is something that a lot of people are really reaching out for at the moment is a sense of belonging, knowing that you are part of something bigger than yourself. You know, I'm a financial member of the Brisbane Lions Footy Club, and I'm one of probably 70,000 members of the footy club. I'm part of something that is bigger than myself. And not only that, I'm a part of the AFL, the Aussie Rules community. So even the other football clubs and their members and all that sort of stuff, you're part of the broader community. It is gives you a real sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself, which is so important in today's society. And it gives you a sense of identity, you know. We talk about identity being really important. I am a Brisbane Lions supporter. I am a supporter of the AFL, I am a golfer, I'm supportive of that community, you know. So it's uh it this sense of identity cannot be under under uh estimated, how important this is. And usually when you get people following sport, you know, you get these rituals happening where like your team's playing on the weekends, so you might get a group of guys together, a group of girls together, you go to the pub or whatever, and that's where you're gonna watch the game, you're gonna watch the game together. So, or you know, for a long time there in the 90s, I had a group of mates of mine that every grand final we all got together and we had a specific thing that we did for grand final day. And brilliant, brilliant for bringing people together. And another thing that it uh encourages to do is it encourages us to exercise the emotion of hope. It really does, because the simple thing about sport is you don't always win. You know, it can be heartbreaking, it can really, you know, when we lost that grand final in 2023, it was heartbreaking. But you hope that things are going to get better. There's always next year, there's always next week, and you share this optimism with the other people that are there supporting your team with you. You know, sport fandom is it's a community membership, you know, which is so incredibly powerful. And it's it creates social infrastructure, you know, these invisible networks that hold communities together, it really is. And so when I go into schools and I've got a life skills masterclass that I talk about for 15 to 17 year olds talking about certain life skills, and one of the things I talk about is sport, and I say it's okay to suck at sport, right? Because not everybody's into it. But there's some hidden mental health things at play here. So, firstly, the the three that I really talk about that I'm kind of gonna go with is firstly, no matter what type of sport you play, whether it's an individual sport or whether you're a part of a team, you are out in the world, you are out in the community, you are doing things right. Even if you're going to the pool and swimming laps or you're running or jogging or doing whatever it is, right? You you are out of the house and you are con you are being part of the world around you, which is incredibly important. And then the second one is that it teaches us reward for effort. You know, we train, we practice, we get better, we win. You know, reward for effort, goal setting, very important. But the last one is it teaches us that we can do all, we can do everything right, right? We can train, we can practice, we can do everything right and still lose. Right? Because it just hasn't been our day. And what a brilliant way to build resilience it really is, which is a great life skill to have. And, you know, talking about resilience, like I'd tell you, like, I play golf now, right? So, and for if there's any golfers out there, it's a pretty bloody hard game, right? And the other day, I had probably the worst game of golf in my entire life. Like, I mean, it was so bad. I was I was playing like a man that had never played the game before in my life. And like halfway through, I actually wanted to pull the pin. I thought, you know, fuck this. I'm I'm it, you know, but I didn't, I stuck with it. I I thought I need to practice what I preach, and I just stuck it out. And as bad as what that was, that was that day for me, I knew that I was gonna be coming back. You know, I knew that I would have another crack at it. I knew that I would get back out there and have another game because that's just what you do with sport. And, you know, God, it's such a weird game golf, you know, like there's a tiny little white ball and it's just sitting on the ground, it's not moving, there's no one, you know, running at me or trying to attack me while I'm hitting the ball. There's there's no one screaming at me. There's like an actual fact golfers are pretty respectful of each other. When you go and hit your ball, everyone, you know, make sure it's you've got quiet. And you just stand over it. And talk about mindfulness, you know, like you can't be thinking about the shot that you hit two or three minutes ago that was really bad or as a shocker or something like that. You can't, you've got to let that go. And you've just got to stand above it and just forget about all of that stuff. And and it's a challenge. It really is a challenge, you know. You stand above that ball and you think this is the one, you know, um that's where I'm gonna hit it. And you just try and clear your mind and then bang, and you uh you smash it straight into the trees, into the water, wherever, into the bug, you duff it along the crowd. Or golf. I don't like playing with dummy spitters in golf, you know, like people that absolutely go off their hand, or when they hit a bad shot, you just gotta remember that you're out there to have a good time and and you've got to relax a little bit. So building resilience is a massive thing about sport. You know, you invest emotionally into this experience of wanting to do your best to win. And sometimes you experience a loss, and you experience a loss personally or as a team, and you just know that you're gonna come back next week, or you're you're a supporter and your team was lost, and you go, Well, that's the way it goes, I'm gonna come back next week. And it puts everything in perspective, it really does, because like I said, at the end of the day, it's just a game, right? It is just a game. If you're a parent and you're thinking about maybe getting your kids involved in sport of some way, whatever it is, let them have a crack at it. You know, let's see see have us see what something that they might relate to, something that they really enjoy, because it builds their self-awareness, it builds their uh decision-making ability, their problem solving, it it enhances their communication skills because they're out there in the world, they're communicating with other players and teammates and and opposition and coaches and all of that sort of stuff. Fantastic for communication and building relationships, you know, they're building relationships with all these people as they go along. And it also teaches them about managing their emotions and stress and knowing how they how they cope under pressure and the importance of goal setting, delayed gratification, training now for rewards later. And it also builds emotional intelligence. I firmly believe this when it comes to sport because it teaches you that be humble in victory and graceful in defeat. You know, that's sportsmanship is a fantastic life lesson. It really is. You know, a lot of codes do this really well. I know in the in the AFL and the rugby league or anything like that, or the cricket, you know, if someone has a uh milestone game, it's their hundredth game or a hundred and fifty game, two hundred game, whatever, someone scores a century or whatever, the other players on the opposing team will acknowledge that, give them a guard of honor as they come off the field or something like that. What a fantastic example for professional sports people to show our youth. So it's yeah, it's all good stuff. So some tools, right? So I promised you some tools at the start. So here's the thing is if you already support a sport, you are doing this now. You play sport, you're out there enjoying it, you're a supporter of a team, you know the benefits of this, you know what it's like to feel that electricity when you're in a stadium with 50, 60,000, 100,000 people all you know chanting the song and and the final siren goes off, and everyone erupts, like, or you've shared that experience of walking to the game with thousands of total strangers who support your team with you, and you're all excited about going and and what's going to happen today in this game. So you already know that. But if this is something that hasn't been on your radar, or you feel as though you know someone who, you know, this might be a way of engaging them in the community and getting them uh to feel a little bit less lonely, the first thing is to choose a sport, you know, have a look around and see all the different types of sports because there might be someone that you relate to, whether it be a f you know, football, cricket, baseball, hockey, whatever it is. That's where you start is finding out which sport that you actually relate to. And then choose a team. Choose a team in that sport that you're going to get behind. And it might be a pretty simple decision that, you know, I know in Queensland here where I live in Australia, you live in North Queensland, you're going to support the North Queensland Cowboys. That might be your thing. Or if you're in New Zealand, you know, a lot of the Kiwis get behind the all blacks, that's that's one of their things, right? So find a sport to start with and then choose a team, and then embrace being part of being embrace being part of the tribe. And not only to the tribe of your team and your team supporters, but the the broader picture, the feeling of belonging to something bigger, the the the rivalry amongst your opposition supporters and all of that sort of stuff. And so all you might have to do is buy a hat, buy a scarf, buy a jersey that shows that you support your team. If you want to become a financial member of a club, whatever, you know, but having that outward display that shows the world that you support this team as you walk through the world, as you walk through the shops, total strangers will acknowledge the fact that you know, oh, you support the same team I do, or you support my opposition, or something like that. But yeah, very, very powerful. The power of a jersey getting back to that. And another thing is if you are a business owner, right? If you're a business owner and you're thinking to yourself, how can I get engaged in my community a bit more? Sponsor a sporting team, sponsor your local sporting team, community sports at grassroots. This is the fabric of social connectedness at a grassroots level is community sport, and they always need supporters and and money to help them. Jerseys, maintaining grounds, all of this sort of stuff, equipment. So if you're a business owner, you know, and you're thinking about how you can get involved with your community, maybe think about possibly supporting your local sporting club. And following a sport or a sporting team is a fantastic conversation starter when you s when you come across someone who you see shares your passion for that team or that sport, you know, maybe a work colleague that you didn't know supported your team or supports your rivals, you know, all of a sudden you have a connection that is a little bit beyond the superficial because you're both supporting of something that uh is as a shared commonality that you have. It's it's very powerful stuff. And the other thing about sport is like I said, you know, our ability to get back up again. We we train, we compete, we have a crack, sometimes we win and do great, sometimes we lose and it doesn't work for us. And and it it's a game. At the end of the day, it is just a game. But that ability to be able to dust yourself off, get back up and have another crack is so powerful. And this is this is why sport isn't there's so much more to it, but it is not just physical exercise and you know activity, it is a form of entertainment that brings people together, it is social connection at its purest because you've got this combined belonging to something bigger than yourself and it is an emotional education on how to enjoy the highs and ride out the lows and bring yourself back up again. It really is. So uh yeah, it's all good stuff. Anyway, my friends, as always, I am very grateful for your time. I am always grateful for the time that you spend listening. I hope that you've got something out of this and in relation to it's reaffirmed your love of sport and your sporting team and and inspired you to maybe get a little bit more involved as a supporter or a or a participant. Or uh or maybe it's inspired you to help someone that you know that might be feeling a little bit lonely to uh to as a way of helping them getting out and engaging with the world and and feeling a little bit connected to other people and and giving them a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves, which is very powerful. So, as always, my friends, please be kind to yourself, be kind to those around you, and I'll chat to you next time. My name's Mar McComble. Go the Lions. Just still so happy.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for listening. The information contained in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended, nor should it ever replace advice received from a physician or mental health professional. Want more info? Visit electorclinic.com.au. If you enjoyed the episode, please share and subscribe. Thanks again for listening to Electric Clinic Podcast with your host, McConaughey.