All guides
Explore all Athlete Recovery guides
Search by topic, compare the main sections and find guidance for athletes, families and referring professionals.
Browse the available guides below.
Mental health
Mental health in athletes
Make room for the person behind the results. Explore concerns, understand the different kinds of support, and prepare for a conversation with a qualified clinician.
Depression in athletes
You can ask for help without waiting for your career to stop. This guide helps you prepare for an assessment and think about support inside and outside sport.
Performance anxiety or an anxiety disorder?
The important question is not whether you feel nervous. It is what the experience is doing to your life, and what kind of help would fit.
Trauma, abuse and psychological safety in sport
Support should begin with safety, choice and a clear explanation of what happens next. You should not have to tell your full story to start asking for help.
Eating disorders and REDs in athletes
Food, training and body concerns deserve a health-led assessment. This guide is not a weight-management plan or a tool for deciding whether someone is medically stable.
ADHD support for athletes
Separate an established diagnosis, new concentration difficulties and the practical demands of sport. Each deserves an appropriate assessment rather than assumptions.
Addiction
Addiction recovery for athletes
Understand treatment options for alcohol, drugs, prescription medication and gambling, without treating athletic discipline as a substitute for care.
Alcohol treatment for athletes
A useful first step is a medical conversation about your drinking, withdrawal risk and what support would make change safer.
Prescription medication concerns after injury
Pain treatment, sleep medication, physical dependence and addiction are not interchangeable. Bring the complete picture to a qualified prescriber.
Cocaine and stimulant-use treatment
Get a clinical assessment that considers what is being used, current safety and the wider pattern, without confusing prescribed ADHD treatment with misuse.
Gambling problems in athletes
Address gambling as a health and support question, while obtaining separate advice about any sporting, employment or financial responsibilities.
Injury recovery
Recovery after injury
There is more to recovery than a rehabilitation timetable. Explore emotional support, pain-related concerns and the conversations that help different professionals work together.
The emotional side of injury recovery
Use this guide to describe what has changed, identify useful support and make psychological care part of the conversation without reducing your injury to a mindset problem.
Pain, mental health and coordinated care
A useful care plan takes pain seriously and makes responsibility for medication, rehabilitation and psychological support explicit.
Concussion: medical care comes first
Mental-health support can be part of a wider recovery plan, but it is not a substitute for concussion assessment, neurological care or formal return-to-sport decisions.
Psychological readiness and return to sport
Build a shared plan for returning to activity without confusing confidence, medical clearance and competitive expectations.
Performance & wellbeing
Wellbeing and sustainable performance
Explore sleep, exhaustion, recovery routines and your relationship with training. Health is the starting point, not a promise of better results.
Burnout, fatigue and overtraining
Do not assume that every period of exhaustion has the same cause. Start with an assessment and a careful account of training, health and daily life.
Sleep support for athletes
Make sleep a clinical conversation when persistent difficulties affect daily life. Use recovery routines as support, not as a way to overlook symptoms.
When exercise and body concerns become difficult
This is a place to ask questions about distress, flexibility and health, not to compare bodies or prescribe more training.
Life after sport
Life after sport
Your next chapter does not have to be a smaller version of your sporting career. Explore support for retirement, injury-ended careers and a changing sense of identity.
Relationships, grief and changing roles
Create space for conversations that are not about results: loss, closeness, routines, responsibilities and what each person needs now.
Finding care
Find the right kind of care
Start with the level of support you need. Then compare clinical scope, privacy arrangements, practical fit and continuing care.
Private rehab for professional athletes
Privacy matters. So do the clinical setting, the people responsible for your care and what happens when you go home.
Residential treatment or outpatient care?
Compare settings by assessed need and practical feasibility, not by assuming that more time away always means better treatment.
How to choose a treatment program for an athlete
A practical comparison framework for athletes, families and referring professionals. Use it to request evidence, clarify fit and compare written proposals.
What does private athlete treatment cost?
Compare the full proposed plan, not a headline weekly price. This draft does not publish unverified fees or assume that insurance will pay.
Privacy questions for athletes seeking care
Ask specific questions about records, communication and third-party involvement. This is a preparation guide, not legal advice or a promise of absolute secrecy.
Medication and anti-doping: questions to ask
Keep medically necessary treatment and sporting requirements in the same conversation. Rules must be checked for the individual situation, not assumed from a general guide.
Continuing care after treatment
Turn the discharge plan into named responsibilities, appointments and practical arrangements that can work around the athlete in real life.
Treatment and wellbeing programs
Explore the published models of care, understand their differences and prepare questions about individual suitability.
Provider profile
THE BALANCE
A private residential treatment option to discuss when an assessment indicates that this setting can meet the athlete's clinical needs.
COGNIFUL
A residential clinical model combining individual treatment with carefully structured shared experience. Suitability for an athlete needs to be assessed, not presumed.
SENSES
A private healthspan and wellbeing program to consider separately from residential mental-health or addiction treatment.
Sport-specific guides
Support in the context of your sport
Use the demands of your sporting environment to prepare better questions, not to assume that every athlete in a sport has the same difficulties.
Football and team-sport support
A question-led guide for footballers and other team-sport athletes arranging care alongside a club, team or player-support structure.
Tennis, golf and individual-sport support
Prepare a care plan that accounts for your individual schedule, trusted team and the practical realities of receiving help across locations.
Endurance and weight-sensitive sport
A health-led guide to asking about training demands, nutrition, fatigue and psychological support, without promoting restrictive eating or unsafe weight change.
Combat and contact-sport support
Keep mental-health support, medical evaluation and return-to-contact responsibilities distinct and coordinated.
Families & professionals
For partners, families and people close to an athlete
Start a supportive conversation, understand your role and prepare questions without taking over the person's decisions.
For agents, clinicians and player-support teams
A practical referral framework that keeps the athlete's clinical needs, consent and existing care at the centre of the process.
Location guides
Care at home or abroad
Use geography to organize practical questions. A location guide is not a claim that Athlete Recovery or every profiled program has a clinic there.
Treatment options for athletes in the United States
Begin with suitable US care and consider international options separately when an assessment supports that choice.
Treatment support for athletes in the United Kingdom
Compare local assessment and treatment with overseas residential care using accurate service-location information.
Considering treatment in Europe
Use the proposed treatment pathway, not the destination alone, to decide what to investigate. Confirm the specific country, provider and service before making travel plans.
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Mental health, addiction and recovery guidance for athletes, former competitors and the people supporting them.
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