Aos 17, o treinador de remo anunciou que um dia de descanso era inútil

W hen I was 17, my rowing 🍌 coach announced that taking a day off was unnecessary. That one time of the week that I left school at 🍌 4pm and watched Neighbours was now gone. I think that's probably why, when I gave up rowing, I stopped doing any exercise 🍌 at all. I'd had enough. Exercise for me equated to diehard commitment and someone shouting at me all the time. 🍌 So I did nothing. Which in retrospect was a bad idea, because there were times in my life – getting 🍌 RSI when I tried to write a book while holding down a full-time job or having a baby and getting 🍌 swamped by anxiety – when exercise would have helped enormously.

De volta à equipe

It was when I had come out of 🍌 the baby years, moved to a new area, but worked from home, that I felt the pull to be part 🍌 of a team again. But I didn't know how or in what sport – there was no way I was 🍌 going back to rowing.

There are plenty of "back to..." sessions for various sports – hockey, football, lacrosse – but having 🍌 never played any of these, I was daunted. Then one day a neighbour knocked looking for a sub for her 🍌 netball league team. I'd been OK at netball at school, so I said I'd do it. It was during that 🍌 game I realised all the latent competitiveness that had pushed me at school to become a junior world rowing champion, 🍌 was still very much there. And when I got rid of it, through sport, it took the pressure off other 🍌 areas of my life.

Amizades na equipe

Friendships on the team differ, we don't know each other's backstories

O valor da competição

This is 🍌 not the cliché of school sporting types – these adult teams are made up of strong, determined women of varying 🍌 ages, shapes, sizes and fitness who are there simply to compete in a game they love with people they respect. 🍌 It's something I thought I would never do again and in the grand scheme of things it's a very small 🍌 change – less than an hour a week – but it has categorically improved my life, perhaps even built up 🍌 my inner strength.

O jogo como fuga do stress

On top of that, there was the actual physical release of the exercise, 🍌 burning through the adrenaline of the shock and dispelling the cortisol from the stress. By the end of the game, 🍌 I was still gutted, but I had some perspective. I can't say whether I was more resilient than if I 🍌 hadn't taken up netball. But what I can say is that the game itself, and the act of playing in 🍌 that team, allowed me to escape the realities of life for enough time that I could calm down and rationalise, 🍌 so what felt devastating before was less so after. Which I suppose is exactly what emotional resilience means.