England Para Lions player Aaron Lucas interviewed as part of Mental Health Awareness Week

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As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, we sat down with a number of our Para Lions to discuss how they manage their feelings of anxiety.

Each year, Mental Health Awareness Week has a focus area and this year it is anxiety.

Feelings of anxiety can appear at any time and whilst it is a normal emotion, sometimes it can get out of control and become a mental health problem.

The organisers of Mental Health Awareness Week hope people will have a greater awareness and understanding of anxiety moving forward and have called on individuals and organisations to help provide and share information on the things that can help prevent it from becoming a problem. 

England women's deaf international footballer Lucindha Lawson training at St. George's Park

England Football and the FA sat down with a number of players to discuss how they manage their anxiety, including several of our Para Lions.

England Partially Sighted player Adam Lione said: "Quite commonly I get butterflies before playing a game or I’ve overthought mistakes that I've made in a game but the only way I've really got over it is by admitting to myself those mistakes I've made or being aware of the butterflies in my stomach before a match.

"And really just trying to embrace it and say: ‘The only reason I'm getting that anxiety is because I care and I want to do well and I want to perform well’.'"

England Deaf player Lucindha Lawson added: "How I deal with performance anxiety, I try to find things to distract myself, get involved in team bonding and speak to teammates."

Aaron Lucas has spoken about the importance of speaking to team-mates

There are a lot of different ways you can manage anxiety. The Mental Health Foundation’s recommendations include:

• - Focusing on your breathing
• - Exercise
• - Keeping a diary
• - Challenging your thoughts when ruminating 
• - Getting support for money worries
• - Spending time in nature
• - Connecting and talking to people about how you feel
• - Getting quality sleep or rest
• - Eating a healthy diet
  

And England Cerebral Palsy international Aaron Lucas said: "My anxiety does spike if I have a bad game of football. If I had a bad game or something like that, I would talk to my teammates, talk to my manager and see what they've got to say because it could just be me overthinking about something that maybe isn't that bad."