Transforming your Mental Health with Louise Johnstone

Transforming your Mental Health with Louise Johnstone “ I feel more like a child now, than I ever did as a child “ Louise is a Dundee based person trainer and endurance athlete. She has spent her career focusing on improving the mental and physical health of women, utilising her expansive knowledge to adapt recommendations to allow each individual to strive for an improvement in their health. Louise has struggled with depression throughout her life. At the age of 15 years old she was diagnosed with depression and at this point had learnt to keep everything inside and hide things. As a teenager you just want to fit in and Louise wanted to be a sheep. She was also very conflicted about whether she was gay or not and when Louise told her feelings of being gay to people she trusted, she got the reaction of ”don’t be silly.” Louise began to self harm, as she did not have an outlet for her frustrations and thanks to some special people at University she began to realise that there were people who cared about her. This in turn has been the driving motivation for the fundraising Louise has undertaken over several years. To give an example of the extent of her running ability, one of the races she ran in 2016 was the Marathon des Sables, raising over £5,000 for Dundee Association for Mental Health, covering 154 miles over 6 days in gruelling conditions. Louise describes herself as a ‘middle to back of the pack’ runner, loving to chat with fellow runners along the way, to hear their stories and what has brought them to take on their current challenge. Louise is currently preparing to run 3,455.5 miles in 100 days with the challenge that she has created. She is raising awareness about Mental health and the actions we can take and fundraising for the “ I take much more risks now, than I ever did as a kid and that comes from a lot of reflecting and a lot of years trying to improve and reflect.” Resources: