By Hollie Harris
“The world lost Anthony Bourdain to suicide.
My request today is for you to check on your mates and those you ride with.
We need to do better at encouraging men to reach out. Men take their own lives at four times the rate of women.
Men experience more illness, more accidents, and die earlier. A boy born in Australia in 2010 has a life expectancy of 78 years while a baby girl born at the same time could expect to live to 82.3 years old.
This week, and every week, find a way to promote the physical and mental health of those you love. Go for a ride, talk about what matters to you, be there to help.
Yours sincerely,
Anne Savage
Chief Executive Officer
Bicycle Queensland.”
Ms Savage makes a worthy call. This is an issue we need to talk about at great length, but for as long as I can recall, the Aussie bloke doesn’t do much of one thing – and that’s talking. We need to get our guys talking! In an increasingly dis-connected society, it’s time to CHOOSE to re-connect again.
With the help of local psychologist Dave Clarke, we hope to give the guys out there, parents of young men, wives, sisters or friends who are concerned a nudge to seek help early on if things are getting tough.
“We need to continue to destigmatise depression, anxiety and stress, and to legitimise and in fact applaud help-seeking, especially in men, but also of course in our women and young people,” Dave says.
With an average of six men now taking their lives every single day in this country, it’s time for change and we need to do this while our men are young. Life is precious and precarious. We are struggling as a whole, across the human front – let’s get better at this.
DEPRESSION
Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide and is a major contributor to the overall global burden of disease.
People who have gone through adverse life events (unemployment, bereavement, psychological trauma) are more likely to develop depression.
Prolonged or excessive job stress is a risk factor for mental health problems, and accounts for 13 per cent of depression in working men
Depression will say to you ‘suck it up, get through it, everyone else can cope, toughen up. Its saps enthusiasm and optimism and it feels VERY much individual and permanent. But, trust and know IT CAN CHANGE.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Even if it feels out of reach, you can heal from mental health issues – sometimes even stronger than before. Dave Clarke is passionate about helping clients through depression and anxiety. He has his own journey with depression and has learned how to incorporate strong foundations of self-care in his life to maintain his health for the past 16 years.
“I have had two separate significant bouts of depression, one around 16 years ago, which responded quickly to treatment, and one about 10 years prior to that whilst living in the UK,” he says.
Dave sought treatment and had a very rapid recovery with his second bout of depression and has learned how to self-care these days.
“Challenging the unhelpful cognitive habits that we fall into is the central key to treating depression, but its best done when you are maintaining a stable foundation of healthy self-care.”
The four corners of this foundation are sleep; exercise; nutrition; and stress management (which focuses on replacing unhelpful methods such as self-medicating with alcohol or other substances, with more helpful and grounding approaches such as mindfulness, music or sport).
“This is a foundation that I now coach all my clients in, regardless of whether we are working on mood management, relationships or family work,”
“Just as a sturdy house needs to be built on a robust foundation, any psychological work that my clients and I conduct needs to be based on a stable foundation of self-care.”
“Use technology in ways that work for you rather than against yourself. For example, mood management smartphone apps such as Smiling Mind and the resource-rich Calm app provide ample novel avenues to improve your stress management and enhance overall self-care and wellbeing. Calm provides a great deal of psychoeducation and in fact has fantastic resources regarding what it terms the four pillars of self-care.”
OUR YOUNG GUYS ARE DOING IT TOUGH
Young men are less likely to seek help, with only 13 per cent of young men aged 16 to 24 years seeking help for a mental health and are less likely than any other group to get help. Four out of five are afraid of what others will think of them.
Long-standing research suggesting one in five adolescents experience depression by the time they reach 18 years of age. 50 per cent of mental health conditions emerge by age 14, so it’s vital to intervene as early as possible.
A difficult experience may affect our kids for days or even weeks. A big move, a death in the family, or just going through a tough time. A low mood which is accompanied by other symptoms – lack of sleep, loss of appetite, severe irritability, loss of energy and interest in usual activities indicates a possible depressive illness. Sometimes, the illness can creep in without any major reason at all. If we keep a look out for early signs, we can seek help sooner.
SO WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?
“Disconnection is also at the heart of depression – not only real, social isolation, but even the perception that we are ‘going it alone’ and that no-one understands,” says Dave.
“Our young people are growing up in a paradoxical digital world, which promises interconnection but actually delivers isolation. I believe that Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms, if not well managed and self-regulated, cause dissatisfaction with life to fester, and that they breed loneliness and discontent with our lot in life.
“We spend hours each day glued to a screen and silently reviewing the posts of other people rather than talking, playing and simply living with the people that surround us. Valuable, healthy relationship time with family and friends is sacrificed and we end up thumbing through the lives of other people, or at least the glamorised, distorted version of it that is airbrushed onto social media.
“This actually only serves to increase the sense of loss, absence or discontent that people develop. I have increasing numbers of clients, primarily men, listing their achievements, possessions, and supposedly idyllic lifestyles, but caught in the paradox of emptiness and purposelessness. It’s no surprise that recent studies suggest that heavier social media usage more than triples the risk of anxiety and depression compared to milder social media usage.”
These days, we are embracing the disappearance of the family culture. Why? Remember those non-negotiable Aussie family gatherings, Sunday dinners with in-laws and weekend BBQ’s? A few decades ago, the extended family unit kept close and grew up together and socialised regularly. Love them or hate them, these were traditions had great value to the family unit. Our men had a sense of place within the tribe.
Being raised within a community is so very important for our sons to identify themselves among the pack. Sadly, we mostly live at distance from family, relatives and community these days preferring to stick to ourselves and disconnect or busy ourselves with renovations. Men don’t tend to sit at the pub after work for a beer and de-brief anymore – they bury their heads in a phone and look at glimpses of other people’s lives online, which feeds the problem. We need to make changes toward re-connecting with family and friends and talking again.
Many mid-life males will reassess their accomplishments relative to earlier dreams. This anxiety over their current achievements usually causes a period of depression that can be debilitating. According to the research, the happiness does return and this period can also offer some of the greatest opportunities you’ll ever have. Because beneath the struggle and complexity of mid-life lies a deep reservoir of experience, perspective, and knowledge – all of which you can leverage toward a dramatic reinvention.
The good news is, millions of men who have been through this phase can testify that on the other end of the transition, there is a new perspective and intense satisfaction. It is always important to explore all avenues and ask for help when the need arises instead of suffering in silence. Life is precious, uncertain and it can begin at any age.
Prevention programs have been shown to reduce depression. Effective community approaches to prevent depression include school-based programs to enhance a pattern of positive thinking in children and adolescents. Interventions for parents of children with behavioural problems may reduce parental depressive symptoms and improve outcomes for their children. Our lives have grown so complicated these days and we must equip our youths with significant education and prevention strategies for wellbeing and mental health within the school curriculum. The statistics are screaming out for this.
You can improve your mental health by –
*Spending time in nature
*Opening up to friends and family. Sometimes you don’t realise how much you need them.
*Get off your phone. Scrolling down Facebook or escaping in pornography will make you feel worse in the long run. Delete it off your phone, unsubscribe, technology detox. It’s the addiction of this decade and proving to cause serious mental health issues.
*Meditation. Learning how to meditate can change your life. Your brain is the most powerful muscle in the body and just as you work a muscle at the gym to gain power and strength, meditation builds strength to focus in our minds. When your thoughts are negative or erratic, you can pull it back into line easily when you meditate regularly.
*Create a lifestyle and working life that is aligned with your own health and happiness.
*Most of all, seek professional help – recruit valuable, informed support to redesign your attitude, lifestyle and self-care habits in a way that fosters human connectedness rather than disconnection.
IN A NUTSHELL
Being on a waiting list to access treatment makes recovery, especially from depression, that much harder and longer to achieve. It is so important to reach out with the earliest signs.
“Local research suggests that waiting lists for psychology services in the greater Noosa area are between one or two weeks to more than a month, which is one of the reasons that at my clinic we reserve appointment times each and every week for new referrals, so that treatment commences the same week that doctors refer or individual decide to seek help,” Dave says.
“Guys, seeking help is the smart and strong thing to do, even though it may seem difficult at first. It most definitely is not a sign of weakness.
“If you are struggling and finding it hard to reach out, I challenge you ask a mate what they would do if they were struggling with mood, or whether they might consider seeking help from a psychologist – you may be very surprised at the number of men around you who have already taken the steps to taking back that more fulfilling and rewarding life!”
