How to Address Anxiety and Depression in Athletes with Dr Jordan Anderson

Eat This for Performance

SSM Episode #30

Dr. Jordan Anderson's article about mental health of athletes on cross-ice hockey website caught our eye and we instantly invited him to our podcast. For anyone in sports we believe that mental health is the most important conversation we should be having.

Dr Anderson is a family medicine resident at Queen’s University and aspiring sports medicine physician. He grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan, and completed medical school at the University of Saskatchewan. He works mainly with junior hockey and football athletes. He also had the honour of working with the Canadian Medical Team at the University Games in Taipei, Taiwan in 2017. Anderson played every sport growing up and has more recently fallen in love with CrossFit, and in 2019 finished as the 30th ranked MD in the Worldwide Open (1st in Canada!).

During the interview we delve into his climb to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. He talks about how visualization and meditation helped him get there!

Dr Anderson formed a passion for mental health in medical school where he advocated for student health on a provincial and national level. He received one of the 2018 CFPC Medical Student Leadership Awards for these efforts. Anxiety and depression can ruin careers and lives. We here at Eat This for Performance support the efforts of parents, athletes, and coaches to get talking about mental health. More discussions = more solutions! In fact we are rolling out some discussions and providing some solutions in more depth in our 5 day challenge to Map Your Performance Body. As we see it, great mental health is needed for a top performance. Go to et4p.com/challenge to learn more.