Men, I have a question specifically for YOU! How are you feeling today? This month? This year? How do you feel about yourself as a son, a dad, a brother, a partner, a friend? What keeps you up at night? June is Men’s Mental Health Month, a subtopic of Mental Health Month, and it certainly deserves its own attention!

 

Firstly, we should discuss what mental health is. It includes our mood and stress levels, our self-awareness, and the ability to identify and express feelings, even challenging ones like sadness, loneliness, self-doubt, or envy. It’s managing these emotions in healthy ways and minimizing less healthy habits (emotional eating, overspending, excessive substance use, too much phone, TV, or gaming time. It’s getting help when you need more support.

 

Mental health struggles and challenging emotions certainly aren’t new, though paying attention to them has become more of a focus lately. Major figures, and especially male characters, across religious texts, written stories, oral traditions, and literature have experienced self-doubt and feelings of “not being enough.” They’ve felt deep stress, grief and loss, heartbreak, and fears about the future.

 

Just look at one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches from the play Hamlet, where Hamlet speaks about the pain of his life and fears of death. “To be or not to be, that is the question.” He’s mourning the loss of his father, the King, and feeling deep anger and betrayal about his killing. He fears what will happen to the kingdom. These are age-old concerns, that still affect the modern man.

 

Meet Marco, a man in The Bronx going through a difficult time. Marco works long shifts for the MTA and has two school-aged kids and a wife. His mom recently moved in because her health has worsened. At night, he often tosses and turns in bed with racing thoughts about the past days and even distant events. Marco worries about whether his child will get the special education services they need to be able to have a job or a family in the future.

 

He thinks about his mom’s declining health and all the things that can go wrong.  At work, Marco dreads certain interactions with coworkers who can be rude or dismissive. Often, he finds himself feeling his temperature rise and his heart quicken. He even feels a lump in his throat, like he might cry. By evening, he’s beat. He often watches TV alone with a drink, though his wife wishes they talked more in the evenings, because it’s their main chance to connect.

 

And his physical health? Marco’s gained weight over the past few years and is at a very high risk for diabetes, according to recent lab results. He’d like to cook more at home and bring lunch to work. He aims to cook Sundays but feels exhausted and often has some beers instead. Marco tries to use the gym at least twice a week but often skips because he feels overwhelmed by tasks for his mom’s care. Plus, he’s so tired that it wouldn’t be a good workout anyway, so why bother?

 

Marco and other men like him need dedicated support. It can be difficult to step out of your comfort zone to ask for mental health support, but it can also be lifechanging. To begin, ask your doctor to connect you to a therapist in their practice, or call/use the website of your insurance provider to find one. A therapist is a TRAINED listener and a mental health EXPERT.

 

They can listen to us in ways our loved ones often cannot. A therapist can help us spot negative patterns in speech and thinking that add to our distress or low self-worth. For example, Marco skips the gym because he feels “too anxious to have a good workout.” This is a classic example of cognitive distortions, negative thinking patterns that affect how we see ourselves and the world.

 

Another huge benefit of therapy is that we can explore subjects we normally keep private. Some topics might include overuse of risky substances, sexual identity, desires and sexual behaviors, or self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Others are simply emotions like self-doubt, jealousy, and fear.

 

These topics are often stigmatized or considered shameful (they’re not, they’re normal!), which means we are unlikely to talk about them with loved ones. However, burying these feelings often leads to significant distress. For example, our friend, Marco, wants to talk about how he’s drinking more than usual to cope with stress, but he thinks his family might judge him or his buddies will dismiss the issue (“It’s just a few beers with the game!”).

 

Besides therapy there are ways we can learn about, and improve, our mental health on our own. We can use frees apps, YouTube videos/webinars, free online classes, or digital/paper workbooks to learn about topics like stress or anxiety. Or we can join a network of people going through similar situations and attend free support groups about mental health and wellness topics.

 

These are also powerful tools. We can do simple actions like setting a daily reminder, such as a phone alarm, to make time to write about your thoughts and concerns. For example, Marco sets an alarm for Sunday afternoons and makes an honest list on his phone about his worries that week. Don’t expect to do this spontaneously, because most of us simply won’t!

 

Instead, choose reoccurring dates and times to do any of these self-directed mental health habits, like writing in a journal, using an app, or watching/reading about mental health.

 

Men: This summer, practice the most important form of self-care by getting honest about your hardest emotions and your response to them. Encourage the men around you to do the same. You deserve happiness and health!

 

Claire Garon, MPH, CLC, is a senior health educator with the Office of Community & Population Health at Montefiore Health System.