It isn’t weak to ask for help! MMH (Mens Mind Health)

Hello everyone,

I wanted to address a few things and help boost awareness in “Mens Mind Health” in this blog today. I have chosen to Change the language, as you can see from the title from Men Mental Health to “Mens Mind Health” I just think it sounds less scary and therefore, hopefully drops the stigma the word “Mental” which, unfortunately still has in some groups of society, especially in a lot of men from the age of 35 years up.

I recently had the privilege to be invited as a guest on a podcast by Stu Allen, who is the Headmaster of the prestigious Extreme Academy of Pro-Wrestling in East Sussex, joining me as a guest was Jon Franklyn who is the manager of my successful Barber Male Grooming Room “Smooth Operators” in Battle East Sussex, and who signed the Barbers to The Lions Barber Collective, which is a global collective of Barbers founded by the award winning Barber ‘Tom Chapman’ to raise awareness for suicide prevention. You can listen to this below:

Barber shops, gyms, wrestling, boxing and kick boxing clubs and academies can be and should be safe places for men to talk.

The Lions Barber Collective train Barbers with knowledge of how to spot people suffering with mental health issues, to recognise, ask, listen and help by allowing the person to offload without judgment, the Barbers will learn how to protect themselves from taking in other peoples issues at the same time. The Lions Barber Collective also campaign for the awareness of mental wellbeing and suicide prevention and have featured on the mainstream media, TV, Newspapers and many other forms of media.

We need to make help accessible and engaging for our men and women, but men in particular have a tougher time gaining help, and these big, strong, men in barbers, gyms, wrestling, boxing and kick boxing clubs are opening up and leading by example, which is helping, but we need more to open up in the media more often, and train teachers in primary schools as well as in secondary schools, colleges and universities to recognise, ask, listen and help.

Facts:

1. Deaths around the world resulting from suicide is 78% in men.
2. The highest suicide rates in the UK is men aged 45-49. In the Republic of Ireland the rate is highest among men aged 55-65.
3. Men with mind health issues are less likely to have received mental health treatment than women in the past year. However, men are more likely to die by suicide than women, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
4. In England 1 in 8 men have a common mental health problem. However, men may be reluctant to seek support for their mental health or disclose mental health problems to loved ones.
5. Men are less likely to access psychological therapies than women, in England men make up 36% of referrals to therapies. So, men are more likely to use potentially harmful ways to cope like using drugs or/and alcohol. And if they seek help for just the addiction, the real issue/s often go unsolved, treating just the addiction will only lead to an addiction to something else in many cases, because the symptom is being addressed and not the creator (the cause, the reason for the addiction in the first place) this is where my qualification as an RTT (Rapid Transformational Therapist) works fast, it gets to the Cause of the symptom/s reframes it/them then helps the person move on without the cause of what was hurting them.
6. Higher rates of suicide are amongst minority communities including gay men, war veterans, BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic people) and those with low income.

The most vulnerable group in England of death by suicide are middle-age men from lower socioeconomic-economic backgrounds.

Why?

This may be due to socioeconomic hardship, unemployment, under employment, relationship breakdown, lack of social support, no education in coping skills which are all common risk factors for suicide.

• Do men feel that traditional therapies and counselling are a pain to find access to?
• Do a lot of men have a mindset that therapy won’t meet their preference or needs?
• Are men less likely to research various available therapies than women would?

Therapy need to be engaging for the client, are some men embarrassed to really take part, because of the feeling of being “out of control” the fear of appearing weak, not living up to traditional manly traits because they still feel they need to live up to what they think are social expectations and traditional Gender Roles?

Traditional societal expectations are how men “should” behave and what masculinity is, eg. Do they feel they should be the bread winners?

Do they think they should have manly, masculine traits like strength and control?

I am not saying that these traits are negative at all, but after some research the thinking is that men relying on these “strong” traditional ideals, thinking that this is what men need to have to be a “man” are more than likely impacting massively on men’s mental wellbeing.

On the podcast accompanying this blog, Stu and Jon both agreed that this is the case for most men aged 35yrs and older.

Men who feel they need to conform into the traditional masculine role of feeling strong, in control, powerful, STOIC (meaning of stoic in the dictionary: a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining) says it all! will find it difficult to recognise mind health symptoms in themselves if they cannot open up and speak to somebody about their emotions, the result being they are less likely to seek out help.

Treating “substance” addiction is treating the symptom of the issue, in my opinion, you need to get to the root cause, the reason and deal with that. This is why I became an RTT (Rapid Transformational Therapist) because it gets to the root of the issue and changes the mindset to it. Otherwise the substance addiction can often just flip over to yet another substance or another addiction eg. Sex, gambling or substance abuse, which in turn can lead to breaking the law to feed the addiction.

Fact: Men make up the vast majority of the prison population, in these prisons high rates of mental health problems have been observed along with increasing rates of self harm, these men need support!

We need to help and support men, and men in the media, physical strong men in gyms, so called popular men in groups, people down the pub, everywhere, need to come out a lot more to say “hey, we are human, every human being will have mind health issue/s at some point in their lives, it is ok to not be ok, and to talk about it. There is no shame, no weakness here, there are people who want to help, who do care, so talk to someone you trust, or to someone in an organisation equipped to listen, connect with someone, join a group, a community, because feeling disconnected makes you more vulnerable to events or feelings that can make matters worse.

Kick that fear to the curb, and talk, if the first person you speak to isn’t brave or confident enough to hear what you want to say, that’s them, NOT YOU!

So choose to speak to someone else you trust, or seek help from the list below. Don’t wait, waiting achieves nothing good, it creates more over thinking and worrying that can result in chronic stress, that can turn into anxiety and eventually depression.

MEN we call on you to be an example to our young brothers, our young boys, together we can make Mens Mind Health, Healthy!

We must teach all of our young people that its normal to feel scared, out of control and overwhelmed sometimes, BUT WE MUST TEACH THEM, GIVE THEM THE TOOLS, THE COPING SKILLS before these negatives become habit, making the cortisol levels in their bodies create serious life threatening health problems, both physically and mentally.

Why are we not making mindfulness, coping skills, brain functions, how the mind works part of the national curriculum in schools???? ( my next blog coming soon)

Let us all look after ourselves and each other, this is more important now than ever, with the Coronavirus lock down. We need to be aware that people who are on lockdown may be living alone and feel more disconnected than ever, they have nobody to talk to about money worries, no one knows yet when the government financial help will arrive, these are tough times, but even tougher if you were already struggling with mind health issue, so be aware of others and pass on helpful information and contacts of where support is available (please see below)

YOU ARE ALL ENOUGH! YOU ARE ALL MORE THAN ENOUGH!!

Say it over and over again, put three to four alerts on your phone stating:

‘I AM ENOUGH’ ‘I AM MORE THAN ENOUGH’

There are many types of therapy, counselling and support systems out there waiting to help you, not all are available on the nhs, but you are worth paying a fee to achieve a happier, healthier you, value yourselves, because believe it or not when we value ourselves, other people will do that too.

You are not alone, talk to someone you trust, you are enough guys!

Tips on coping skills:

*Get help if you need it, to learn to love yourself, not in an egotistic way, but in a deep meaningful way, love your inner child (we all have one)! Forgive yourself, realise that you are needed and wanted in the world, you have been chosen to be here by more than your mother and/or father. You survived out of 20 to 100 million little sperm, so you are stronger that you think, and needed in this world!

*Set three or four alerts on your phone saying ‘I AM ENOUGH’ sounds woo woo, but believe me, it definitely helps, say it to yourself (out loud if you can) often! Your mind is always listening, and will begin to believe what you tell it,

*Praise yourself often! Our minds are listening all of the time, be mindful of your language, be kind to yourself, be ok with not feeling ok sometimes, STOP calling yourself names when you make a mistake, you’re human, mistakes is how we learn!

*Meditate, there’s plenty of short guided meditations on YouTube. Just 5x minutes a day (best first thing in the morning) will set you up for a good day, set the intention for a ‘productive day with ease and calm’

• Write 3 things down you are grateful for every day, it could be simple like the hot coffee you enjoy, the fact that you can move your body, the bed you sleep in. This changes perspective in your sub conscious mind, it keeps cortisol down and creates a better quality of life for you and the people around you.

*It is most important to practice these daily especially when you feel well and on top of things, so your mind, brain and body have learned the habit of healthy thinking and feeling, so when things go wrong, you will cope so much easier and move on so much quicker.

Your thoughts that are repeated become your feelings and beliefs, all thoughts and feelings trigger chemicals in your brain, that effects your body health on a cellular level, SO work on your thoughts you have a choice, I choose healthy thoughts and feelings, this is not always easy, it takes practice, practice, practice, especially when things are going well for you, because this is obviously so much easier to do at those times, the healthy mind habit will serve you well when life throws those curved balls.

Read helpful books, watch funny films, stay away from negative, fearful TV news and programmes will help tremendously, yes we need to be aware, but don’t dwell on the negative. Play your favourite music, sing and dance around your space. Learn to breath in through your nose inflating your belly, then out through your mouth. This not only has a calming effect on the brain chemicals, it actually helps lung and heart health too.

There are many more things you can do, sometimes we need a helping hand, your job is to work on your mind health every day, just like you would work in the gym etc on your body health, which of course creates the healthy brain and mind chemicals like serotonin, but sometimes we all need a bit of extra help and support, so reach out, help is out there.

(Why aren’t we teaching this in Schools?) will be my next blog.

If you want to arrange an RTT session with me, Linda Smith, please email me on info@changeyourlifewithlindasmith.com to arrange a free 20x minute call to ensure RTT is for you.

Here are other well known organisations that can help you:

CALM – https://www.thecalmzone.net/

SAMARITANS – https://www.samaritans.org/
TEL: 116 123 (24 HR) This number is free to call from both landlines and mobiles, including pay-as-you-go mobiles. You do not need to have any credit or call allowance on your plan to call 116 123.
EMAIL: jo@samaritans.org

THE LIONS BARBER COLLECTIVE – https://www.thelionsbarbercollective.com/
SMOOTH OPERATORS – https://www.sosmoothoperators.com