The Eat for Endurance Podcast

Athletes and Mental Health with Sports Psychologist Riley Nickols

Claire Shorenstein, MS RD CSSD with Riley Nichols, PhD CEDS-C Season 6 Episode 101

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. 

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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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