This Movember, mental health expert Noel McDermott looks at men’s mental health issues and ways to improve wellbeing. In the UK, 3 out of 4 suicides are by men. By normalising feelings, staying fit and healthy and finding the proper support to overcome life’s challenges as well as Mental Health challenges. We can help reduce the rate of male suicides.
*Trigger Warning* The below articles discuss male suicide. If you are very concerned about your mental health or for someone else. Please seek out professional support.
1. Life Ensurance
- No not a financial pay out but ensuring you have a reasonable chance of having a decent life. The formula here is normalisation + resilience = you’ll be fine. Normalisation is accepting that you are not broken or somehow deficient if you feel rubbish, when you think your life is rubbish, or rubbish events happen to you. There is such a bizarre narrative around men. That we somehow shouldn’t feel bad in a normal way and process those feelings in the way we are designed to as social animals. Processing in a way we are biologically designed to as social animals (such as getting group support from other furry mammals) is resilience. So here is the formula: for example losing your job, 1 = you are going to feel rubbish, like a failure and burden etc (normalisation), but 2 = go talk to others who care about you, take you out of yourself, remind you you are not alone (resilience) = 3 you are going to be fine.
2. Fit check
- Are you fit for life? Would you pass your MOT? Here’s the big secret: most illnesses we treat are lifestyle-based. The most important lifestyle changes you can make are physical activity, exercise, and an active lifestyle. Whatever you want to call it. The changes to your improved quality of life, reduced mortality, improved social networks, and increased feelings of well-being. As well as your reduction and ability to manage anxiety and depression are measurable and have been thoroughly measured. There is a mountain of evidence supporting an active lifestyle for health and wellbeing, and you get this for free. All you need at a minimum is 2.5 hours per week of moderate exercise to improve your health and well-being significantly.
3. When you are in a hole stop digging:
- To stop digging, you need to know you are in a hole. Most mental health issues have a significant element of what is called a ‘lack of insight’. So people don’t know they are depressed; what they ‘know’ is “I’m a failure”, “I can’t go on”, etc. Simply put, they experience themselves as their symptoms and become their illness. It’s very different to breaking your arm or catching a cold. When you find yourself in this position, look at what you can do about it, such as Psych-ed (psychological education). Learn the signs of psychological illness, which are pretty much the same for us all.
- Your resilience network should have informed people who are unafraid to let you know if you are acting oddly.
- Have an action plan to put into place for times you or your loved ones are not coping.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you are showing signs of psychological distress. Call your GP, increase your resilience behaviours, and increase your health and well-being activities.
- Here’s a link to a self-test for anxiety and depression from WHO.
Noel comments: “Of course there are more things and refinements you can add but essentially start today, add a new behaviour, make that a habit then add another new behaviour. Don’t remove but add replacements”.
Men & Suicide
In the UK, over 700,000 people take their own life each year – that’s one person every 40 seconds (World Health Organization) and 115 people die by suicide in the UK every week (ONS).
As we become more open about the subject and greater mental health support has been put in place suicide dates have been decreasing. The UK has seen a greater drop amongst women with deaths halving since 1981 but with men only dropping by 20%. The gap between men and women has grown and it seems when suicide is decriminalised it reduces deaths from women more. Recently the downward trend in suicide deaths reversed. It seems this may not have been simply due to the pandemic which is therefore very worrying. Previous research has shown a clear link between unemployment and increased suicide rates. Even though the UK is largely two income households, men’s salaries are still usually the main income.
What is also clear is that we can prevent suicide by men with a clear focus on the issues nationally.
What can you do to help?
- Take the issue seriously but don’t let it scare you so much you can’t talk about it
- If you think you or someone is at immediate risk, call the emergency services or go to a local hospital
- Talking about suicide can help. Engaging in a sympathetic human conversation while distressed can be helpful.
- Suicidal ideation is usually temporary. Talking to someone while they have these thoughts will allow them to work through their feelings and thoughts. Always refer to a professional for the appropriate therapy and or help.
- Be non-judgemental in your conversations with people who are struggling. They may appear bent out of shape for something small or unimportant to you. Remember that you are not inside their head and didn’t experience the probably several hours or days preceding.
- Suicidal ideation is most often an expression of another mental health condition and is treatable. Getting mental health support for that condition is crucial, whether this is through medication, psychological therapy, and/or behavioural therapy ,
- Stop using drinks or drugs to manage anxiety, depression, trauma, etc. Substance misuse, although often offering temporary relief at times, will worsen the psychological problem. It can sometimes increase the probability of suicidal ideation as a consequence. Many people find their suicidal thoughts lessen or go away when they stop abusing alcohol.
Mental health expert Noel McDermott is a psychotherapist and drama therapist with over 30 years of work within the health, social care, education, and criminal justice fields. His company, Mental Health Works, provides unique mental health services for the public and other organisations.