NASCAR Cup Series race winner Alex Bowman is all too aware of the importance of keeping your mind in order.<\/p>\n
Having just completed his eighth full-time season with Hendrick Motorsports<\/a>, the 32-year-old faces pressures many can only imagine, driving inches away from concrete barriers at high speeds with millions watching all for one of the biggest teams in the sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n But thankfully for Bowman, not only is racing still exciting for him at this stage in his career, despite the high stakes, but it also helps relieve his anxiety, something he recently admitted to having \u201cbattled with,\u201d as per Forbes<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI think mental health awareness is super important for anyone across the board. Doesn\u2019t matter if you are a competitive athlete or a regular person,\u201d he said, having joined the Ad Council\u2019s \u201cLove, Your Mind\u201d Playbook campaign, which also counts other high-profile athletes such as Bijan Robinson, Liv Morgan, Cam Heyward, Francisco Lindor, Diego Luna, and a certain Chase Elliott, among its ranks.<\/p>\n Bowman described the decision to join the campaign as an \u201ceasy\u201d one, explaining that \u201cawareness is something that matters to me a lot.\u201d As he eloquently went on to put it, \u201cMental health is something that\u2019s different for everybody. We all struggle with something, but who you surround yourself with plus how you take care of yourself means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n For Bowman, taking care of himself can mean spending time at home, where he said he enjoys \u201cworking in my shop on my cars,\u201d adding, \u201cAnd I have three dogs. All that keeps me at peace.\u201d<\/p>\n That being said, given his chosen profession, there is bound to be tension and frustration attributed to each event in its own unique way, noting how \u201cracing as a sport can ebb and flow.\u201d<\/p>\n The Arizona native went on to say, \u201cFrom my vantage point, as a driver, how I take care of myself can really determine longevity in the sport. You have to take care of your mind through a lot of that \u2014 or it gets bad pretty quick.\u201d<\/p>\n And when it gets bad in NASCAR, it can get really bad, whether that’s in the form of a bump on the track or an altercation on pit road. Bowman admitted that on-track incidents can be gotten past quickly, whether it be something that just passes with time or requires a talk later on.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThen, sometimes you have an issue with the same person, and it can kind of linger and end badly, depending on who it is,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery situation is different. But sometimes drivers can hold grudges, and you can have (an incident) come up again haunt somebody, say, 15 weeks later, lingering with someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n Much like the mild-mannered Bowman, somebody others appear to have a hard time being frustrated by is Elliott, the eight-time Most Popular Driver Award winner.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I’ve always tried to keep my eyes on things that are really important in my life, close friends, family, really keeping my circle small, just eliminating those outside distractions and opinions that don’t matter, and really putting emphasis on the opinions and folks that you have a lot of respect for. I find a lot of value in that,\u201d the 29-year-old told the Ad Council<\/a> in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI’ve been fortunate throughout my life to have a lot of really solid individuals to lean on. I encourage anybody that if you have someone that you look up to or enjoy being around to listen to what they have to say and let those people lead by example because you can learn a lot by just listening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR Cup Series race winner Alex Bowman is all too aware of the importance of keeping your mind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[136758,3931,49,48,393,20414,2332,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-304942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ad-council-campaign","9":"tag-alex-bowman","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mental-health-awareness","14":"tag-motorsport-section","15":"tag-nascar","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}