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, Noel advises on how suicide prevention could be thought of as pulling guys out of the river before they are catastrophically washed out to sea and lost. By normalising feelings, staying fit and healthy and finding the right support to overcome life’s challenges, we can help reduce the rate of male suicides.

Life ensurance: no not a pay out when dead 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 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. That’s it, ask any woman you are close to right now if it is any more complex than this. Let’s ram home the point, the X factor here is the diversity and depth of the furry mammals you can go to.
Fit check: are you fit for life, would you pass your MOT? Here’s the big secret, most illnesses we are treated for are lifestyle based. The single, let me say that again, the single most important lifestyle change you can make is physical activity, exercise, active lifestyle. Whatever you want to call it. The changes to your improved quality of life, your reduced mortality, your improved social networks, your increased feelings of wellbeing, your reduction and ability to manage anxiety and depression, are absolutely measurable and they have been thoroughly measured. There is an Everest sized mountain of evidence supporting active lifestyle for health and wellbeing and you get this for free basically. All you need at a minimum is a 2.5 hours per week of moderate exercise to see very large improvements in your health and wellbeing*.
When you are in a hole stop digging: to be able to stop digging you do need to know you are in a hole. Most mental health issues have a significant element of what is called ‘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 to same for us all, here’s a link to a self test for anxiety and depression from WHO**. Your resilience network should have informed people in it who are not afraid of calling you out, people who tell you that you are acting oddly. Have an action plan to put into place and don’t be afraid to ask for help if you are showing signs of psychological distress (call your GP, increase your resilience behaviours, increase health and wellbeing activities).
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 and 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 someone is at immediate risk call the emergency services to look after them
Talking about suicide doesn’t induce suicide attempts, but quite the opposite. Suicidal ideation is usually temporary and talking to someone while they have the thoughts will allow them to get through the feelings and thoughts – it’s true also for thoughts of drinking if you are sober, self harming etc. Engaging in a sympathetic human conversation while distressed is helpful
Be non judgemental in your conversations with people who are struggling. It may appear they are bent out of shape for something small or unimportant to you, but bear in mind you are not inside their head and didn’t experience the probably several hours or even days preceding which is the full iceberg of which you are only seeing the tip
Suicidal ideation is most often an expression of another mental health condition and is treatable…getting mental health support for that condition is crucial; medication, psychological therapy, behavioural therapy, social support, exercise all can be prescribed and will help
Stop using drink or drugs to manage anxiety, depression or trauma etc. Substance misuse although offering often temporary relief at times will in fact worsen the psychological problem and often create suicidal ideation as a consequence. Many people find their suicidal thoughts and feelings go when they stop abusing alcohol for example

Mental health expert Noel McDermott is a psychotherapist and dramatherapist with over 30 years’ 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. Mental Health Works offers in situ health care and will source, identify and coordinate personalised teams to meet your needs – https://www.mentalhealthworks.net/