How Olympic gold medalist and NBA champ Kevin Love deals with depression

Five-time NBA All-Star and Olympic gold medalist Kevin Love (2019 photo by Erik Drost via Wikimedia Commons 2.0)

Kevin Love and his team – Cleveland Cavaliers - were down 3-1 in the 2015-16 NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors. They won the next three games to clinch the best-of-seven contest 4-3 and become NBA Champions. It was the first time in history that a side had made such a comeback. Love also recovered from a concussion suffered in Game 2 to contribute significantly in some of the remaining games.

With the win, one part of Love’s journey was complete. Whatever he did for the rest of his life, he’d always be an NBA Champion. He had also won an Olympic gold in 2012.

But Love was also fighting another battle, one more constant than a basketball game. He had depression since his teens.

In 2018, Love wrote about his condition in The Players Tribune. Since then, the 33-year-old has become a mental health friend, philosopher, guide. He runs the Kevin Love Foundation, which provides mental health-focused education, research and grants.

Recently, Love spoke to CNBC Make It about the tools he uses to optimise his mental health.

“[Therapy] is the best gift that you can give yourself. It’s a safe place, and you get to know yourself a little bit more every session,” he said.

Gratitude was another. “Being grateful reinforces perspective,” Love said. “It’s helped me understand what’s really important. Often, these things don’t cost anything.”

Love gave the example of his grandmother, a simple woman who had the ability to be grateful for whatever she had.

“I channel my grandma,” he said. “She was a simple woman, and I mean that in the best way—she was just so grateful for everything that came her way, no matter how small.”

Writing a journal is another habit that helps Love. “I mix gratitude with journaling,” he told CNBC Make It. “I think journaling fosters awareness. We get to write down our stories, no matter what they are. It’s almost childlike in that way. As adults, I feel like we’ve become very good liars. Your inner child will, more often than not, tell the truth and just be unapologetically honest.”

Instant gratification is something to be treated with suspicion, Love says. Meditation and deep breathing before bed, on the other hand, are your real friends.

Asked about what he would advice his younger self on mental health, Love said, “Be wary of instant gratification — I’ve always thought of discipline as deciding between what you want now (instant gratification) and what you want most. Part of protecting your energy is just deciding, ‘OK, what do I want the most?’ Should I eat this when I know it’ll be bad for me? Should I have that late coffee and stay out those extra couple of hours?”

Love, who tested positive for Covid and was forced to take a break from the sport, used meditation and breathing routines to pick himself up.

“I couldn’t really work out, and was basically laying out on the couch [in quarantine]. My appetite was suppressed. My energy wasn’t there. So before bed, I would get into a routine, including breath work and meditation on Headspace,” Love said. “Burnout is an accumulation. You need to factor strategic rest and recovery into your routine.”