Meet the Newcastle teenager using Muay Thai to improve mental health

Local TV Sport

Newcastle teenager Kai Leighton tells his story of mental health issues that led him to setting up The Mental Shift - an organisation that uses Muay Thai to improve the mental health of young men. Daniel Wales reports.

Transcript

00:00 At this gym in the West End of Newcastle, 19-year-old Kyle Layton is using Muay Thai

00:06 to help improve the lives of young men in the city. He first spoke about his own experiences.

00:11 Yeah, essentially I struggled with my mental health quite badly in secondary school. I

00:16 put on a lot of weight. But at the time as well I also had my own initiative called Be

00:21 Heard Young Voice, very similar to the mental shakers, wanting to provide support to young

00:26 people and give them a voice. So I went to Craig, who owns this gym, and I was like,

00:31 I want to do something that incorporates physical activity with mental health. How do we do

00:36 it? And thankfully, his idea was he would train me for free, leading up to my first

00:44 fight, which was a year at the time. And we would document the progress and show people

00:50 the benefits of physical activity on mental health. For me, it was being able to look

00:54 back and go, I've done this, I've been through all of that, but yeah, I've made it out the

00:59 other side. Kyle then spoke of how his organisation, The Mental Shift, operates and how proud he

01:05 is of his achievements. So The Mental Shift at the moment, our main aim is to provide

01:10 support and education to young men around mental health and social behaviour. We're

01:14 also starting to do work for the parents of neurodiverse young people. We use Muay Thai

01:20 as the main method of delivery. And it went from two years ago, just me winging it, figuring

01:31 out how to do it. And then now we've got a board of four people, three young people who

01:37 have lived experience. Seven months ago, I actually sat down and I looked back and I

01:41 was like, I've done this. From a little 17 year old kid to all this time later, being

01:49 able to help other people in that situation. Yeah, it makes me massively proud. Kyle's

01:55 friend Michael, who is also part of the team, talked honestly about beginning his own journey

01:59 with Muay Thai and advocated for others to take part in physical activity. I got involved

02:05 with The Mental Shift around a year and a half ago. I was in my own fight promotion

02:08 business called Evolve Productions. And Kyle came to one of my events and we met there

02:15 and since then we've ended up having a chat, having conversations. The first time I walked

02:22 into a gym, I was nervous. My dad dropped me off and I walked in, oh, she pushed me

02:26 on my own. I'd never really done any martial arts or any fighting before. I wasn't big

02:30 on watching the UFC. I just walked in and the hardest thing about training is in the

02:36 gym. Once you get out, you meet friends. You meet friends for life. There's people I met

02:41 five years ago who I talk to every day and they became part of my family. So I would

02:45 just say take the plunge. It doesn't have to be martial arts. I recommend Muay Thai

02:50 because I think it's amazing. But any sort of physical activity, football, basketball,

02:55 ballet, just do something for yourself. It works for one of us.

02:59 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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