Ben-CC

Ben Lancaster, a professional rugby player, is a guest on the Conscious Chinamag podcast. He talks about his journey from playing school rugby to playing at a high standard in the academy. He also discusses the lack of support for mental health in the rugby environment and how important it is to have a strong support system outside of the sport. Ben shares his own experiences with mental health and how he copes by appreciating his family, friends, and hobbies like golf. He mentions that mental health can have an impact on physical health and that support from teammates and loved ones is crucial during tough times. Ben also mentions that coaches may not always provide the support needed due to the volatile nature of rugby contracts. Hello and welcome to the first episode of Conscious Chinamag with your hosts Hamish and Lucy. Thank you for tuning in. Today we have a very special guest. We've started strong with our guest, so hopefully we can keep this standard high all the way through. This is a boy I've known since the age of three. We have been on skiing holidays together, summer holidays together, used to play rugby together, and still to this day spend a good bit of time together. Welcome to the podcast, Ben Lancaster. Hello Ham, how are you? I'm very well. Pleasure to be on this podcast. Yeah, looking forward to it. Do you want to give us a wee background on why you are on the podcast? What do you bring to Conscious Chinamag? What do you do with your spare time? Okay, so I'm a professional rugby player. I've played for about four seasons now. I went straight from school. I went to rugby school for my last four years and then came up here on a contract and yeah, I've been loving it pretty much since then. Obviously I had highs and lows, but yeah, no, it's awesome. It's amazing and you're saying you're injured at the moment and you're excited to get back to it as well. Yes, very much so. I'd say the light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, being injured is tough at times, especially with people who are quite prone to injuries. So I guess it's just about, I don't know, not getting absorbed in it at all and appreciating the life outside of the sport. Obviously, as I said, we've played rugby since we were five together, going through the minis and then you went to play at school and then, as you said, you moved down to rugby school and you played with Leicester Academy. How was that process in going from playing school rugby to then playing pretty high standard academy rugby and at what point did you really see the big switch between, okay, I've got to take this quite seriously? So I still always enjoyed it. I think that was my kind of main priority, but yeah, it was very much out of my comfort zone going from Loretto, which is in Musselburgh, about a couple of miles away from here, to rugby. I had a couple of friends and did sport at the pre-, I was, I actually just did, I was at the school and then I would do the Leicester Tigers Academy kind of outside it on the Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. So I was still kind of at school, it wasn't like anything else. But yeah, no, it was once again, I was quite uncomfortable at the start, but I guess one of the things that really helped was doing the pre-season at school with all my school pals and when I actually, when school started and stuff, I had those friends, which I guess helps with uni and that especially. Sport is such a good way of just making good friends and what not and feeling, feeling belonged and whatever. Yeah, feeling necessary and having those connections. Yes, absolutely. And having that support. This is kind of like a very podcast-style question and we're going to go to the beginning. Who do you think 15-year-old Ben was and how was he, how was he feeling and what was his life like and how did he feel about himself? I would say I was a very arrogant, over-confident. Yeah, that was probably one of my main things. You sound quite negative. No, I don't know how you're supposed to say that. I wasn't really afraid of that many things. I was quite intimidated by older boys, which, yeah. Yeah, I was just kind of obsessed with sport. Yeah, I wouldn't say much else, to be honest. And in that sort of realm of the boys and close friends and rugby and stuff, the conversation about mental health, how is that talked about in a rugby setting or with the boys? Is it spoken about much and do you have people you feel like you go to if you are struggling? So that's a good question. I would say, in terms of rugby environment, I would say there's pretty much, there's very little support. Quite a lot of people, it's quite obvious, will get absorbed and obsessed with, if they're in their lowest of lows, if they're not playing well or if they're injured and what not. I really don't think there's that much support. For me personally, I think I'm really lucky and fortunate because I feel like I've got a really good set of friends and family that I'm more than happy to talk to them about if I have any issues and what not. Yeah, fortunately I'm very lucky, but I can 100% tell and there's evidence and what not that, especially in rugby, let alone, regardless of just men, it's not a great environment and it still needs to be worked on with just talking. Yeah, there's a kind of a deep-rooted stigma that it is a man's game and it's all about being the biggest and the best and you're too big to cry, men don't cry and all that kind of bullshit that comes with it that still exists. I think it's a very hard thing to get past because you will play with boys that are 10 years older than you who have obviously grown up and experienced a very different kind of rugby pathway to you, for example. Do you find that in the team, that it's quite generational or not? What, we're talking about mental health? Yeah, and how people approach it from a 22-year-old you are now and maybe a 30-year-old that's got eight more years in the game. I would 100% agree with that, to be honest. Coaches and what not, I think are massive with that type of stuff as well. And yeah, I would 100% agree with it being a generational thing. Them even more so, they'll have grown up just to get on with it. That's so true and I think that our generation will be a bit more progressive and I guess it's just going to take time but yeah, I would 100% agree with that, that it is generational. Going maybe back a wee bit but what does mental health mean to you? What was your understanding of mental health? How do you view your own mental health in terms of keeping it healthy? In terms of keeping it healthy, I would say something that's really helped, especially the last year and a half, I haven't really, I've played bad, been injured, haven't been picked. To many people, that can really trigger quite a lot of negative thoughts and negative times, to be honest. For me, I've just kind of learnt to fully appreciate outside rugby and it's not who you are, it's more of what you just do. So outside, I guess I just appreciate my family and friends. Another thing is golf, it's one of my go-tos to just getting away from things. Obviously, me and you have played recently and I absolutely love it. It's a mental release of just getting away from everything and I guess that is the same thing with friends and family, just fully appreciating your time with them. I think also if you're not necessarily as conscious of your mental health day to day, just having your environment and others in your life, say a sport outside of rugby that's golf that's a release, or family and friends that you can talk to, just having that environment does foster good mental health because you have the right things in place. I think when people might not have that, that's when problems can arise. I was wondering if, in other team mates, do you ever see if mental health is something that's ever extended to physical health? So if someone's not feeling as motivated or doesn't have the confidence at that point, does it manifest physically as well? Yes, 100 billion percent. I've noticed it in myself as well. At the start maybe, when I had a bit of a breakthrough season in my second season, yes my second season, with the sport you get the highest of highs and then you also get the lowest of lows and at that time I was just loving life. On the pitch was awesome, was fortunate enough to get the Young Player of the Year for the club. Then the next season came around so I was also picked for the Scotland Summer Tour to Chile and Argentina and got a cap against Chile. Not really, no. I take that back. Not a cap. I loved it and I was like, God, I can't wait for the next season. Continued where I'd left off and ended up having a shock of a season. I could start, my confidence kind of started to dip, started to not play and I felt like I almost snowballed into just me not playing, got injured, wasn't in a great mental space and I guess that made me learn. Once again, like I said before, just fully appreciating outside your playing time, your friends and your family and what you really enjoy doing. In terms of my friends, lots of my friends have gone through a crazy amount of adversities and hardships and yeah, 100% what you call it, correlates with a bad mentality into physical. Kind of touching on going through bad forms and bad spells, how do people around you help you or manage that? From your team mates to your coaches to your dad for example, do they approach you quite differently? Is your dad supportive and being like, it's fine, you'll get back on it? Are team mates less supportive? Maybe coaches are more harsh and being like, giving you kind of more, maybe more real coaches will be. How does that differ? I would say coaches don't help you that much because they've obviously got, with rugby it's such a volatile sport in terms of your contract. So one year you could be playing well, next year could come around, another winger starts playing well or another player in your position starts playing well and you could be without a contract and that. Quite a lot of people, rugby is all that they've got, so they don't really have a backup and that will be so, so, there will be so much pressure on you or on that person to be playing well and performing day on day. So back to your question, I've had a bit of a mind blank. What was the question? I would say, they're just there for you. You would never really, I think they'd never really put it on you or ask you questions about why you're doing bad or whatever like that. I think they're just always being there on like maybe just coming round for dinner or something, something as little as that and just being there to potentially meet, to allow me to kind of unload, I don't know, my stresses and stuff like that and I guess that's why I've been so grateful having such a good set of mates and stuff because we're all like that and we're all willing to do that and just be there for them and listen to them. I think the main thing is just listening and that's what some of my friends have done when I've gone through some adversities and vice versa. Yeah, I think that's sometimes the hardest thing is just to listen. I think people always feel they have to give an answer and give you the magic potion. You don't. I mean, I think we've touched, I can't say that in the future. I guess it's like being a soundboard for your friends to, I don't know, give up. I would say, yeah, you'll have to give them that potion. That was good. No, yeah, exactly. I think it was perfect. Okay, you've kind of led us in perfectly to our next question. Touching on, obviously rugby is a special sport. It's one of the fewer sports in the UK where there is money to be made long term and can make a credit of it, but for many, as you say, cannot. Many of them will have to find other work once they're no longer professional. 100 per cent. You were a student at Heriot-Watt in your first two seasons and then you took a year off and you're just re-enrolled this year, is that right? Yeah. How did you find the first two years? Why did you stop? Why are you re-enrolling? Got ahead of myself. I thought that I was going to be, or do very well, since I had a bit of a break for a year. Ended up doing terribly and realised that this profession only lasts 10 years at best, so you've got another, your career is another, what, 40 years, so you need something else. I also enjoy, I'm quite interested in economics, so doing that, going into my second semester of my second year doing part-time. Again, once again, it's more of a release as well of just getting away from rugby. I guess we've kind of touched on it quite a lot, having things outside of rugby, even though you're at such a professional level and it does feel like maybe from when you were 15 or younger you've been striving to be at that position for a long time, but actually what is best for mental health and then also can affect physical health is having those other sort of pillars in your life, friends, also doing something outside of sport like education and knowing that there's something else apart from it. I was wondering if there's having those things, having good friends, having good family and something else that you could do after rugby, is there less sort of anxiety around holding the spot that you have or is there still quite a lot of pressure for the next few years that you feel? That's a good question, once again. I would say 100%. I still feel like the pressure is very much self-made in quite a lot of the time, because if you want to do well, quite a lot of people, I spoke to actually some of the older guys, Stuart McAnally and whatnot and I was listening to him and he was saying that there's loads of, when he was younger he was just wanting his goals and he felt like once he had achieved those goals he would then be happy and then everything would be swimming, but actually more just enjoying the process and just appreciating where you are, what you're doing, what you have all the time and I think that that's really good for your mental health. I feel like if you just get, be fully focused on right now I want to be playing for Scotland and all you want to be thinking about is that and everything, all your problems on and off the pitch will just go away when you start playing for them, which is just so not true and I think it very much is transferable with everyone else in terms of maybe a degree or getting a job or doing well in that, it's, you've got to just, you've got to just be fully in the moment and yeah, appreciate it and be grateful for what you've got going for you. Yeah I feel like you can't view happiness as a goal, you've just got to be kind of happy with where you are every day and like you say with a degree as well, people working towards their dissertation and I think like in fourth year everyone's feeling like the pressure to balance social life and work and having your head down the whole time and then maybe aiming for like a really high grade and then not achieving it would be really devastating but also getting to the end and being like, did I just really put so much pressure on myself and I was unhappy for the whole year where I could have been enjoying it and having that balance as well, I think it's definitely applicable to most people in life. Yeah I think that was almost so close to the finish line, Lucy and I both in fourth year we can almost, you know, taste the ending, the freedom to university but as Lucy said we've got to appreciate our time here and how we can just call up a friend and go for a coffee and get a drink when you're living with your best mates and you are completely free of a lot of responsibilities and after uni that will change massively, a lot of people go into some pretty hard corporate jobs from working long hours every day, selling your soul to the corporate world for a lot of money and I think it's that point when you realise that fuck, I probably should have gone for more, gone for that drink with my mate in uni, or maybe I should have played a bit more sport, done a few more things. I'm sure you sound like you're quite good, your housemates are good at appreciating what you've got, appreciating the journey because the journey is the fun part, I mean it's great to have goals but you can't get there without the hurdles and the peaks and the troughs. 100%. I also would say that, I don't know if I'm contradicting myself, I feel like if you want to do really good it's got to be a life start at the same time but you've got to do your best to not get absorbed with it but yeah, that's what my current headspace is right now. Is that contradicting yourself? No, I think that makes sense. You've got to definitely have some drive and if you want to be in that best position you do have to put a lot of effort in and you do have to work hard but it's just known that there is that balance and there is a bit more to life for sure. Yeah, yeah. So I guess just emphasising, appreciating when you're with your friends and family, you know, enjoying that. I'm easy, I'm open here. Do you have any pressure on like body image and like density? Oh, I would say, yeah there is, there fully is. You have to because yeah, you get given weights, you're supposed to be a certain weight and what not and especially with the boys it's like, you know, it's quite... Oh, right, okay. I wanted to ask as well, within mental health I think, physical health obviously comes into it as well, but thinking about body image within a male culture and within a rugby culture, is there pressure to bulk and be a certain weight and how do you think that can affect some people? Is it motivational or is it sometimes a bit negative as well? Well, it's part of your job to be honest so there is a lot of pressure with that. There's so much pressure because it feels like you have to get to a certain weight if you're trying to put on weight. Like if you don't, there's going to be someone that probably could and then vice versa with losing weight. I'm one of the people who has to lose weight to be fair. But yeah, I would say there is a lot of pressure and obviously with the boys it's like, it's quite a vulgar chat and like, I don't know, boys crack, it's just like come on people, you know, you could elect someone or whatever. Yeah, that probably does have like a lasting effect on some people and I've heard stories of a couple of teammates I've had to like, a couple of years ago there was quite an old-fashioned coach. I would say he was in his 40s and it was quite, yeah. I like the guy as a coach but at times you could see some boys were just getting, in terms of their mental health, they 100% were struggling quite a bit and some people have actually gone out to the media and whatnot saying that they were struggling. And yeah, there were stories about people, especially the props who are having to lose weight, going in the morning, they would not eat anything. They were pretty much fast so they would go to the salon in the morning, not drink anything, then go to get weighed and then after. So get weighed in front of the S&C guys and then eat and stuff because there was just that much pressure to lose weight and stuff. But yeah, I would say there is actually a fair bit of body dysmorphia and whatnot but it's part of your job, it's just you got to get on with it. I guess it's not a very good thing to say but. Yeah, I guess like if it's dealt with in a good way because you're in a contract and you're doing it, especially like it is part of the job. Maybe how that culture around it is taking out people when they might be down about it and things like that. If you have that support system there, again, you can deal with it. Yeah, and once again, we don't have a psychologist. I think that's just such an important thing. That's such an important thing with sport and I'm a massive advocate of it. We had it for a little bit where there was an SRU guy who came in a couple of times and whatnot but now we don't have anyone to go to. We did have, there was a coach last year who was really good. He was kind of a skills coach and an attack coach but if you had any problems on or even off the pitch, you'd be able to go to him but right now, I'd say not as much. Yeah, you do need that, especially with people who potentially won't have a, once again, I'm going back to my friends and family. I'm so fortunate to have such a good set of friends and such a good family just to be able to speak to them about whatever. But 100%, there'll be people who won't have that and yeah, we need to have someone who is very approachable and very open to just listen. Cool. That's pretty much the answer to what I was going to ask so that's perfect. Oh, nice. Yeah. I've got a question. Do I get to ask a question to you? Let me think. Okay. For the last segment of the podcast, do you have any questions for us? Yeah, I was just wondering if you had any, was there any reason as to why you wanted to start this? Have you had any personal experiences with anyone going through or yourself? I know it's a very vulnerable question but yeah, you don't have to answer that. No, we're vulnerable on this podcast, that's what it's about, sure. For me, I think from early teenage years academically, I felt quite a lot of pressure on me to achieve and get to a good university and that also led to feelings of trying to strive for perfection and I think that also led to body image issues and I went to therapy when I was sort of 15, 16 and the change in just my outlook on life was like 180. I went through a bit of CBT therapy where you sort of challenge your thoughts and how you feel about them and I also in the last year became a mindfulness teacher and I think the two are very linked of being present with your own thoughts and being very aware of your mental health and kind of being able to challenge any negative thoughts has just meant my outlook on life is so much more positive and I'm a lot more present every day and I do think that change from when I was younger to now is why I'm so interested and conscious in talking about mental health because I do think everyone has the right to feel that and go through that as well if they are struggling or have ever not been taught about mental health or I think everyone has the right to be supported and ask questions and be able to speak openly about it because I think mental health is the sort of thing that we have with us for the rest of our lives and it's our perception on life and I think it's one of the most important things to talk about with people so that would be my reasoning. I think a big motivation for me to do this is to do with men's mental health obviously speaking to you about it in a professional setting but in a more kind of casual university setting I think I'm lucky enough to have probably mates that I would open up with and I know that in a group chat I'm in we're quite good, I'm quite good at just putting a message in every few weeks and just asking how people are, you know it's a pretty simple question it doesn't normally get either any special responses but it's just kind of letting people know you're there and you're thinking about them and quite a few times you know not too often but a few times here and there it has sparked bigger conversations in our group chat which obviously someone needed to say and it just took a simple question of how are you doing you know what are you up to for them to open up so I think my big motivation is just encourage boys to speak and get rid of this you know horrible dated stigma around men's men don't struggle mental health men don't cry and men do cry men struggle just as much as women and I think in many facets of life more I think the support is not where it should be and I think in team sports it's very difficult to open up with your teammates because you're so focused on playing the sport and being the best you can and you don't want to act weak because some people view having mental health as being weak so in a sports setting you don't really want that so I think that's the main reason I want to try and really push more boys and men to be more open which is why we'd love having you on the podcast because you see it from a professional setting but it completely mirrors an amateur setting I couldn't agree more and yeah I fully agree with what you guys are doing it's absolutely awesome and just normalising it a bit more the last few years I've done November you'll be doing it next month? I will be yeah having to get rid of the fissure here yeah it'll take a while yeah there's been a few friends yeah we'll be speaking to the November guys in a few weeks so we can look forward to that and getting a bit more of an insight on their view of mental health and probably a bit more background information on how it does take its toll it's great that people like you can support it with a bigger platform it's a great way to raise awareness and it's only one month a year but hopefully it sparks more people to continue that conversation past November I would say yeah to be fair I was thinking about talking about it but yeah I'll talk I'll talk about it give me one sec it's fine don't worry yeah we can all do it we can stop for a bit I'm just yeah I'll be fine it's alright it's all good so a few months ago a friend passed away which was pretty tough I hadn't spoken to him in a while and yeah he passed in about July-August and I guess he just didn't have anyone to speak to and yeah I just definitely think that just stop being such a taboo subject just being able to talk by myself because it is with men it's at the end of the day anywhere just just men and people like I mean just women are just so much better at talking about it and yeah might need to get much better at doing it yeah I don't know where that came from but yeah that's all good how are you feeling at the moment about it? I would say I was just feeling just so sorry for their family and what not like seeing them at the remembrance and what not it was yeah it was really hard I was more being I was more there for my friends though like I hadn't seen them in a while I was closer to them when I was at Loretta so I went to school there from about 10 to 14 and was good pals with them just of course he's Seth and just after when I went down to rugby and kind of came up here I kind of started to drift just a little bit I'm still kind of close with his good pals but yeah when I went to the remembrance it was more just seeing my friends seeing if they're okay just being right there for them yeah once again it's just it doesn't really put into words how horrible it is and it's happened to a few other friendship groups within the team just a friend passing it's just it's just horrible yeah to conclude it's just yeah we need to just keep being able to talk and being there and always being open to just listen because at the end of the day we're all human we're all the same and I think it's a human connection is what makes the world go round and keeps people in a good space and yeah I think hearing stories like that and you being connected to them as well I think really does pinpoint the reason why like staying there for each other and just being supportive of having a space to talk about that is so important and yeah thanks for sharing that as well and like I think that's one of the reasons why we want to do something like this as well yeah as we said this is the reason we're doing this is so that people do have conversations that might be hard hitting but need to happen and we hope that these conversations can happen anywhere whether that be on a walk with your mate on the pitch over a coffee over a beer you know this it's just really doesn't take much but we we know how hard it is to really start that so we really appreciate you giving your time to us and being so open and we hope that our listeners will will take something from this and be open with their mates and hopefully we can kind of spark a bit of a spark a bit of a spark a bit of a domino effect in conversations being started thank you Ben thank you very much for having me thanks very much Ben really nice to meet you as well