June is Men’s Health month and while physical health readily comes to mind when we think of men’s health, this is equally a great time to reflect on some of the significant mental health challenges faced by men and male-identifying individuals.

Gender plays a significant role in all areas of health.   Men experience some unique challenges as they navigate their mental health and are particularly disserved by a number of persistent myths and stereotypes.

“Big boys don’t cry”, “Man Up”, “Don’t ask for/you don’t need help” – These ideas are the opposite of friends to men’s well-being.

I keep hoping this type of role modelling is behind us or on its way out.  Unfortunately, these values are  hard to change and quite persistent. And whoever came up with these ideas has a lot of answering to do around the negative impact on men’s mental health and well-being.  Understanding and dealing with feelings is a critical element to maintaining good mental health.

We all come in the world as babies, crying the same way across genders. Babies have lots of feelings and they don’t start off in life shy about expressing them at all.  In the beginning, that seems fine and normal to everyone.  However, this phase does not last and all too soon the rules around who can express what emotions start to filter into our interactions with our children.

The requirement to start suppressing and masking emotions hits all of us pretty early but I would argue it is particularly harsh for boys and continue to limit them as they become men.  Stereotypes tend to allow men to be fine and occasionally angry, with physical aggression as the commonly expected expression of that anger.   Given there are hundreds of words to differentiate between feelings, and responses to express them, men deserve a bit more range.

Emotions have an exceptionally important purpose in helping us run and navigate our lives.  The feelings that arise in us provide crucial information needed to navigate situations from danger and risk to the identification of positive and helpful environments.

Imagine a truck barrelling towards you and you look up and feel nothing.  Fear gets us out of the way.  Imagine someone bestowing upon you a magnificent, life changing gift and you feel nothing. You would have no idea how to respond without the cue of joy. Dramatic examples aside, a lack of accessibility around our emotions tends to have some significantly, troublesome and limiting effects.

The good news is these limiting ideas are being more routinely challenged.

The better news is that men can respond extremely well and improve their mental health when they are provided opportunities to explore and navigate their emotions and well-being.

The best news of all is that when we know better, we can do better.

• Let us challenge those myths and stereotypes that harm all genders.
• Let us commit to allowing us all the freedom of emotional expression
• Let us prioritize our mental health as much as our physical health and get appropriate care as needed

At Thrive, we welcome the increasing proportion of men who utilize our services. Our Thursday Walk-In Clinic has an especially high number of male users.  The flexibility of not needing to plan far ahead to come in, the ability to “check-out”  what counselling is without making a commitment and the opportunity to take action in the more immediate moment is positive for many people, and tends to suit some men very well.

Mental health is a universal human concern, and men deserve opportunities to develop and maintain good mental health.  “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson