Gymnast Sunisa (Suni) Lee is no stranger to staying well-rounded. She earned her first Olympic gold medal in the 2020 Tokyo Games in the women’s all-around—wowing judges with her balance beam and floor routine. And for this year’s Olympic games, Lee plans to be at the top of her game yet again as she goes for gold in Paris.
Aside from new tricks and perfected techniques, she’s got something new in her arsenal: a self-care routine that trains her mind just as much as she trains her body. The world champion is familiar with struggle just as much as she is with success—she’s battled health challenges like eczema flares and a kidney condition that caused her to press pause on gymnastics in 2023. Lee has been outspoken about her health journey and is partnering with Eli Lilly and Company— the health equity sponsor of Team USA.
Now she’s back in the game, channeling her stress and setbacks into energy that keeps her ready to compete. Here’s how.
Making mental health a priority
In 2021, Lee’s teammate and fellow competitor Simone Biles made the brave decision to bow out of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to prioritize her mental health. It’s a move that inspired Lee to be more mindful of her own.
“[Biles] one of my biggest inspirations. She has been a really big reason why I feel more comfortable with talking about things because she’s gone through the worst,” Lee says.
Lee says she had habit of holding things in and letting negative thoughts get the best of her, but now she turns to journaling to calm her nerves.
“I love journaling things down and writing how I feel because I’m a very shy person, so I’ll never say things out loud,” Lee says. “Even therapy was hard for me at first because I always felt so shy about how I felt. Journaling and therapy has definitely been something that’s changed the game for me because now I’m able to write down how I feel or tell someone how I feel and know where it stemmed from, rather than just going out there and kind of hoping I do well.”
“It’s kind of like my mind battles itself. I have one side of my head telling myself I’m so amazing, and the other side is saying ‘What if you’re not good enough?’” —Suni Lee, Olympic gymnast
It’s no surprise being an all-around champion on a global stage comes with some stressors. Even the most elite-level athletes, like Lee, experience doubt and mental blocks that attempt to shake their confidence.
“It’s kind of like my mind battles itself. I have one side of my head telling myself I’m so amazing, and the other side is saying ‘What if you’re not good enough?’ It’s things like that that I’ve had to battle with, and that’s why journaling has helped so much because I’m only telling myself good things.”
The ultimate self-care strategy
Just like when she’s competing, there’s a strategy for Lee to have a quality journaling sesh. She’ll start by writing down exactly how she’s feeling, be it anxious, sad, or nervous. Then she’ll recite positive affirmations to remind herself what she’s capable of.
“It will always end in a ‘You got this,’ ‘You’re amazing,’ or ‘You’ve overcome so much,’ and that this isn’t the end of the world,” she says. “I just focus on keywords and telling myself those words of affirmation or remembering my ‘why.’ I tell myself all the positive things because I am my biggest critic at the end of the day. “
The gold medalist takes care of herself other ways, too: by napping, eating one of her favorite meals, and spending time with her friends and family—a rare occasion these days as she prepares for her Olympic return.
“I don’t get to do that a lot. I’m always practicing, so it’s nice when I can have a day away,” she says.
But Lee says she’s in a positive, happy mindset as she prepares to be a reigning Olympic champion.
“I’m feeling really excited. I’ve been having to keep my composure lately because I feel like I could just scream right now because I’m so happy,” she says. “I’ve had to deal with so much in the past two years and overcome so many things, so to even be here is an accomplishment in itself. We’ve just been focusing on taking it one day at a time. And that’s what I’m going to keep focusing on because that’s how I’ve gotten here. One thing at a time. One day at a time.”
You can catch Suni Lee competing in Women’s Gymnastics starting July 28. NBCUniversal is the official U.S. broadcaster for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, but you you can also watch on Peacock, NBCOlympics.com, NBC.com, USA Network, CNBC, and E!
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