“Mental health isn’t its own entity. It’s everyday life.” 100m Olympic champion Noah Lyles once confessed. Fighting health issues, constant bullying, anxiety, and depression have always been a challenge. However, the 27-year-old has turned to therapy, so that poor mental health doesn’t reflect on his track performance. Now Lyle’s younger brother and fellow athlete has opened up on his journey inspired by his older brother.

The Olympian’s younger brother didn’t share his brother’s health issues. However, performance anxiety was something that always held him back. “I was having a very hard time actually transferring my practice to the track. Even though I was running great in practice… I wasn’t seeing it on track.” said Josephus Lyles during his conversation with André Chapman Jr.

“(So) I started working with the mental coach,” explained the track and field athlete. However, his therapist didn’t address the performance issue stemming from anxiety in the beginning. Instead, the focus was on improving Lyles’ mindfulness. Josephus Lyles’ coach wanted to prioritize overall mental health, and performance would follow. And the coach was right.

Noah Lyles younger brother started seeing improvement almost immediately. It became an everyday thing for the sprinter, as he would go into each session and “practice mindfulness” alongside his sprint training. “That’s probably helped me, like, a ton, because I feel like I’m a pretty anxious person. In terms of racing, I feel like it allowed me to, like, run more freely,” added Josephus Lyles.

When Josephus Lyles didn’t make the 2020 Paris Olympic team, it devastated Noah Lyles. “I wanted to do this together.” the 27-year-old told TIME in 2021. Several injuries, including a serious quad injury, have also affected Josephus Lyles’ career. However, focusing on improving his mental health instead of the setbacks helped the former relay Junior World Champion to bounce back.

The 26-year-old Adidas Pro athlete secured a 200m bronze medal at the 2023 NCAA Championships. While the younger Lyles sibling is yet to make an Olympic squad, the sprinter is confident about his mindset. Watching his older brother defy the odds to win 100m gold has only acted as a further inspiration. However, even the Olympic medalist credited his therapist for helping him clinch gold in Paris.

The call that helped Noah Lyles clinch Olympic gold

Sports psychologist Diana McNab and Noah Lyles have been longtime collaborators. Besides working on improving the athlete’s overall mental health, the therapist also developed a pre-race protocol with Lyles. This routine or, as they like to call it, a ‘script,’ is designed to help the athletes get into the zone the night before a crucial race. So it was no surprise that they connected ahead of the 100-meter final in Paris.

“Always Zen chimes!” McNab told TIME about how she starts the pre-race script. After ringing the chimes three times, Lyles started his breathing exercises and then ‘visualized’ his success. Yet that wasn’t the end of the pre-race ritual. McNab instructed Lyles to wake up in the morning of the race and “imagine you are 12-15-old Noah – laughing, fun, fearless.”

The goal of this protocol was to take away any anxiety ahead of the most important race of Noah Lyles’s life. And as the world witnessed, their equine protocol paid off inside Stade de France. Despite getting a slow start, Lyles closed the gap during the final 50 meters, winning gold in Paris. While Josephus Lyles has yet to reach those heights, therapy has helped him become a better athlete. Who knows? Maybe we’ll see the Lyles brothers competing side by side on the world stage in the future.