The NRL has launched its 7 Day Wellbeing Challenge to keep the whole rugby league community connected, upbeat and mindful during these testing times.
A collaboration between NRL State of Mind, NRL Wellbeing and Education and the Wellbeing Science Institute, the challenge is a taster for a 28 Day Wellbeing Playbook.
The unreleased playbook has been designed in four blocks - Know Yourself, Take Care of Yourself, Be Yourself and Share Yourself - which are also the pillars of the 7 Day Challenge.
Fans are encouraged to practise one step per day for a week.
The program has several NRL and NRLW stars on board, including Joel Thompson, Chad Townsend, Corban McGregor and Blake Green.
NRL community manager Neesha Eckersley said the challenge came to fruition in light of the catastrophic events of recent months.
"It's off the back of at the beginning of the year we had the bushfires and the floods and we reached out to our communities to support those communities," Eckersley said.
"That's then led into COVID-19 and the impacts across all our communities there.
"We recognise emotionally, mentally, the impact that has on our rugby league community and we wanted to share a few strategies to support them to navigate through this."
The 7 Day Challenge builds on the extensive mental health work done by NRL State of Mind and NRL Wellbeing and Education from the grassroots to the professional ranks.
Eckersley said the challenge is centred on "holistic wellbeing".
"A lot of our current players and our retired players adopt a lot of these strategies as part of maintaining their wellbeing and mental health as well," Eckersley said.
The first two days of the challenge centre on knowing yourself - with participants asked to make a photo collage of who and what is important to them and write down why.
Day three is about gratitude, with the action being to name the most enjoyable part of the day and the most exciting bit of tomorrow.
Sleep is day four's focus - write down three things to do to ensure a better night's rest - while day five is all being yourself by creating a go-to playlist of uplifting songs.
To finish, it's suggested participants make a list of their trusted circle and write why they're important on day six before thinking of ways to be kind in the final step.
