Athletes & High Performers
Care Built Around What You're Carrying
For the women whose bodies and minds are both being asked to perform, and need a plan built around both.
— CLINICAL CARE · ATHLETES & HIGH PERFORMERS
Understanding performance pressure
I was a competitive bodybuilder. I know what excellence costs, and I know how quietly it wears on you when you are always the strong one.
Athletes and high performers carry real physical and mental loads: training, competition, injury, recovery, and an identity built around output. Mental health conditions are just as real in this group, and often harder to spot, because struggling can look like discipline.
Most providers do not understand what it costs to perform at your level, or how much of your identity is wrapped up in your body. I do.
What it can look like
Strong on the Outside. Running on Empty on the Inside.
It rarely announces itself. More often it hides inside a schedule, a plan, and a body that still performs.
Anxiety
Racing thoughts, tension, and dread before training, competing, or presenting, or a constant sense of being on edge.
Low Mood and Burnout
Flat motivation, heaviness, and less joy in the thing you used to love.
Sleep and Recovery Trouble
Waking early, restless nights, or rest that never feels like rest.
Injury and Identity
A plateau, an injury, or a body that is changing can feel like losing a part of yourself.
Food and Fueling
Rigid food rules, under-fueling, or fear of body change, sometimes with low energy availability.
Focus and Overwhelm
Trouble starting, finishing, or switching tasks, often missed in women who learned to compensate.
Why it happens in women
We Look at the Whole Picture, Not Just One Symptom
Estrogen and progesterone shift across the cycle, around pregnancy, and through perimenopause. Those shifts can change mood, sleep, anxiety, and recovery. Training load, low energy intake, and stress add to it.
Hormones are part of the picture, not an afterthought.
Your History
When it started, what has changed, and what has already been tried.
Training and Recovery
Sleep, energy, injuries, and the load your body is carrying.
Hormones and Cycle
How your cycle and life stage may be shaping mood and performance.
Mood, Anxiety, Focus
What is happening in your mind, named clearly and without judgment.
How I treat it
Your Plan Starts With You
I build a plan around the pressure you are actually under, not a generic wellness protocol. That can include therapy and EMDR for the identity shifts that injury or change can bring.
When medication makes sense for you, I can prescribe and manage it. You do not have to prove you are struggling to be taken seriously here. I already know what it costs.
When to reach out
You Do Not Have to Wait for It to Get Worse
Mood or anxiety is affecting your training, sleep, or relationships.
You are pulling back from people or things you love.
Food, weight, or body image feels out of your control.
You have felt this way for more than a couple of weeks.
If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 in the U.S., or go to the nearest emergency room.
Meet your psychiatric provider
Christine Archer, MSN, PMHNP-BC
Psychiatric nurse practitioner for women
I was a competitive bodybuilder, so I know what excellence costs. I have spent over 20 years working with women, and I treat the pressure, injury, and identity shifts that come with performing at a high level.
Our visits are by telehealth in Maryland, Washington State, and New York. You see the same provider each time, one who remembers your story.
- PMHNP-BCBoard-Certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner
- Integrative Health and NutritionPost-Master's Certificate
- EMDR TrainedEye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
- PSI TrainedAdvanced Perinatal Mental Health Psychopharmacology (2025)
- Menopause SocietyCertification candidate
- Former competitive bodybuilderWomen's health advocate
Getting started
Three Steps to a Plan That Fits
You decide each step, at your own pace.
Book a free consultation
A 15-minute conversation about what is happening and whether we are a fit.
Complete your evaluation
We look at your history, your body, your hormones, and your goals together.
Build your plan
A plan shaped around your life and your pace, by someone who has lived it.
Questions athletes ask
Before You Book
Do I need to compete at an elite level?
No. This care is for women who train, perform, or carry high demands, whether you compete, coach, lift, run, or simply push yourself hard.
Will you talk to my coach or team?
Only if you ask me to, and only with your written permission. Your care stays private by default.
How do visits work?
Visits are by secure video. I see patients in Maryland, Washington, and New York.
You don't have to carry it alone.
A free 15-minute consultation, and a real conversation about what is happening. Telehealth across Maryland, Washington, and New York.