TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ star quarterback Tom Brady recently opened up about using physical and mental therapy over the years.
On his “Let’s Go!” podcast on Monday, Brady and his co-host Jim Gray discussed the stress he’s endured over his NFL career.
“Everyone has different situations in their life, you know, children. You worry about their mental health, worry about your parents, obviously yourself,” said Brady. “I think I’ve had to learn a lot of things over a long period of time in sports. I think there’s an intense amount of stress we all deal with, and how do you relieve stress so that you’re not inflicting so much damage on yourself through kind of stress response?,” he added.
The 45-year-old, who has been in the news recently after him and his wife Gisele Bündchen reportedly hired divorce attorneys, says he’s gone through a lot of things over the years and he’s still trying to do the best he can.
“You wake up every day trying to do the best you can do, understanding that life has its stresses and to deal with them with a great support system and understanding and having some introspectiveness in your life where you can look at yourself and say, where do I need to commit my time and energy to?” said Brady.
“How can I lessen some of the stress and lessen the burden on me so that I can be good for people around me,” he added.
The 3-2 Bucs are coming off their first home game win of the season as they head to Pittsburgh to face off against the Steelers on Sunday.
After starting off the season a little less steady than anticipated, Brady mentioned that everyone is human, no matter how high the standards are set.
“I think there’s a part of us that are held to a certain standard that we’re almost inhuman. You hear this a lot from people that say: ‘I’m only human.’ We are only human. We’re not inhuman. We’re not immune to a lot of the things that life brings us,” said Brady.
The seasoned quarterback, who retired in February and then later un-retired, endured issues on and off the field. During the preseason, he took an 11-day leave of absence to deal with “personal things,” according to Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles.
The 22-year veteran reflected back on his early football years and said that even in his 20s he was still going through a lot of things.
“There was a lot of things I was going through when I was 20. There was a lot of things I was going through in my 30s. There’s things I’m going through in my 40s,” said Brady. “And it’s life. And you learn to grow up and you learn to deal with life. And that’s what we’re all trying to do. We’re trying to do it the best way we can.”
“We encourage everybody to take care of themselves,” Gray added to end Monday’s podcast.