More Than Just a Game: Sisterhood, Serotonin, and Soccer

For me, it’s hard to separate the experience of playing football from thinking about its impact on mental health. It’s fairly common knowledge these days that exercise is good for mental health, but from my perspective, with football, it goes even deeper than this.

Yes, on a physiological level, exercise is amazing for releasing endorphins, increasing our heart rate, and flooding us with serotonin. And that buzz when a goal is scored, or someone shows off some beautiful skill, is legitimately mood-boosting! However,

I think the deeper gift of football lies in the relational impact on our mental health.

In both my personal life and in my work, I see the ways that we are so often hurt by people. Often, the things we carry that feel heavy for our mental health are things that have happened with people – a relationship breakup, familial trauma, social anxiety, or a fear that we don’t belong. I think team sports can be such an amazing space to find companionship and to rebuild relational safety. That is an incredible gift to our mental health.

As humans, when our mental health is low, we often retreat into self-isolation and self-sufficiency. It can be hard to connect with people, and especially hard to trust people. In football, there is a beautiful opportunity to reconnect with others – and to remind ourselves that we can lean on other people, that we can rely on our team. Every pass to another player is a low-risk, micro-act of trust – a gesture that says: “I know you’ll be there.” For those of us who have been hurt or let down by people, these tiny moments of trust can feel revolutionary and start to build a greater sense of belonging within a community.

Win or lose, there is also so much playfulness and laughter in football: in the near misses, the silly sounds people make as they kick (or miss!) the ball, the "concentration faces," the sideline dances, the cheers, and celebration. Laughter is a natural mood-booster, and it is also a catalyst for companionship. In laughter, we find togetherness and a sense of belonging; this is incredible for mental health.

Football helps us get out of our heads. For a moment, the overthinking, the rumination, the anxiety – it all quietens. The movement, the immediacy, and the focus on the ball bring us into the present moment. This is great for managing challenging mental health, as it reminds us that we are safe in the "now." The regularity of training can also be a grounding anchor in all of life’s chaos and unpredictability.

I think the other amazing thing about football for our mental health is that there is permission to ‘feel out loud’ in the sporting arena. This isn’t often the case in life in general, where we are typically required to be polite and contained emotionally (especially in Western culture). In team sport, there is permission to express feeling: we can shout and yell, groan and moan, cheer and celebrate, cry, laugh – the whole gamut! It’s a rare social space where it’s permissible to express things freely without shame, and to be witnessed without judgement. It is always so much better for our mental health to express our emotions rather than carry the weight of them alone.

Phoenix describes itself as a diverse sisterhood – run by women, for women. There is something uniquely powerful about spaces created by women. In a patriarchal society where so many women have learned to "shrink to fit," and where women’s mental health has often been pathologised, it’s liberating to take up space unapologetically. The flexibility of Phoenix football acknowledges the demands so often placed on women who are raising children, working, and running households. This approach to football is powerful for mental health. The juggling is met with empathy. Turning up – even if exhausted and late – is celebrated.

Being accepted in this way is deeply healing for our mental health, and an important reminder that our mental wellbeing is often in flux. We can arrive stressed and anxious, and leave feeling boosted and light. Here, football is not just about competition and gameplay, but also about belonging, play, and connection.

In my work, I witness healing and the building of mental health resilience in the privacy of deep conversations. In football, I see the same healing played out on the astroturf – in the shared laughter, the celebrations, and in the trust between teammates.