After the 2012 Olympics, Michael Phelps reached a point where he “didn’t want to be alive anymore.”
For three days, he locked himself in his room. He didn’t talk to anyone or eat anything. He laid in the fetal position as his mind raced, not knowing what to do next.
He realized he needed help, but didn’t know how to ask. He checked himself into a treatment center and spent the next 45 days learning how to cope with his depression and understand why his brain worked the way it did.
“For a long time, I looked at myself in the mirror and I saw a person with a pair of goggles and a swim cap on, not somebody with feelings and emotions,” he shares over a video chat, nearly 14 years later.
“When I was carrying the flag in the opening ceremonies in 2016,
I could see it written across people's foreheads that they were struggling,” he says. “We were losing brothers and sisters. I'm like, ‘What can we do?’ Like, has it been in my head? Yes, it has. I thought about taking my own life, 1,000%. But I've also tried to find other ways. For me, it's not being afraid to ask for help.”
Over the past decade, the Olympic gold medalist has become a champion for mental health, partnering up with the online therapy platform Talkspace in 2018. He’s no longer ashamed to speak out, and he wants to encourage anyone struggling to reach for help. As a father of four boys (Boomer, 10; Beckett, 8; Maverick, 7; and Nico, 2), he’s had to learn not only to navigate his own mental health, but how to teach healthy behaviors to his children.
“There are a lot of big emotions with those four boys,” Phelps says. “It is crazy. The noise, whether it’s punching, hitting, kicking. They’re all over the place.”
Phelps and his wife, Nicole Johnson Phelps, implemented a trick called the “lion breath.” When big emotions stir up, their children “get to roar and scream like a lion.”
“Then they’re able to drop their shoulders a little bit more and have a conversation about why they’re feeling what they’re feeling or doing what they’re doing, (such as) acting out or being aggressive towards their brothers,” Phelps explains. “That’s been something that has allowed them a safe space to open up and talk.”
‘You have to create a generational shift’
Boys and men are lonelier than ever, but conversations about men’s mental health have moved to the forefront as experts sound the alarms on the “manosphere” and “male loneliness epidemic.”
A 2025 Gallup survey found recently that 1 in 4 men aged 15-34 report feeling lonely, compared to 18% of women. Some young men are finding themselves sucked into the “manosphere,” a digital collection of websites, videos and social media that promote male supremacy and advocate for traditional gender roles.
“As a male athlete for so many years, you’re supposed to be this big macho, strong, tough dude that doesn’t show vulnerability,” Phelps says. “In reality, that’s not a human.”
Phelps has tried to teach his children about healthy communication and emotional regulation “from the very beginning.”
“For us, it’s about trying to give them tools,” he shares, referencing the “lion breath.” “But they do see me going through my struggles, they see my wife going through her struggles, and we don’t run and hide. We’re very open about it.”
Phelps says in his parents’ generation, mental health was more taboo – people were expected to struggle in silence. Now, he wants to create a “generational shift.”
“You do have to start with kids, but it starts with us, too,” he says. He wants to lead by example: “That’s why we do what we do in this house, because it’s not perfect every day.”
What’s on Michael Phelps' mental health checklist
When Michael Phelps is having a bad day, his wife tells him to get in the swimming pool.
“She knows it’s the one place that I can turn my brain off and not think. I don’t have to think when to breathe. I’ve done it for 25 years, right? Second nature,” he says.
To get out of a funk, he turns to his mental health checklist: Playing golf, cold plunges, hanging out with friends, going to the gym to lift weights or do cardio. From hotel rooms, he uses Talkspace for virtual therapy sessions. He also turns to his a group chat with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jay Glazer, Andrew Whitworth, Sean McVay, Dan Quinn and Mark Kerr – successful men from "all walks of life" who have "struggled in very similar ways,” he says.
“It’s just that brotherhood that we’ve leaned into, that vulnerability that we’ve all shown and the comfortability we have with each other just to open up and talk,” he says. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on the phone to every single one of them, on FaceTime just bawling my eyes out.”
Talking through these dark moments helps him realize he’s not alone. With young people increasingly turning to AI chatbots in place of mental health support, Phelps wants to emphasize the importance of human connection.
"Going to an actual therapist is more beneficial than just typing stuff into a computer," he says. "I don't like being challenged and I get challenged in so many different ways in a therapy appointment. But it's helpful. It's becoming vulnerable."
Being a parent, he has a new crowd to reach, too. Every Friday, Phelps starts his day with a morning meeting at his kids’ school. Just a few hours before our call, a dad walked up to him at the meeting. He’d seen Phelps’ documentary “The Weight of Gold,” which explored the mental health struggles and depression faced by Olympic athletes, and said it was “raw and real.”
“I was like, ‘That’s what it’s meant to do,'" Phelps says. “These are real and raw emotions and people deal with them.”
“I challenge all the men out there to be vulnerable,” he continued. “It’s the only way you’re going to find out who you really are and be able to find the best version of you.”
If you or someone you know needs mental health resources and support, please call, text or chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or visit988lifeline.org for 24/7 access to free and confidential services.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michael Phelps is raising 4 boys. Here's how he helps them navigate 'big emotions'
