Mental health is an issue affecting all of us, and it’s something that each of us needs to be aware of in terms of how to approach and handle it. For men in particular, however, there is currently something of an epidemic with men’s mental health issues, and this is something that is becoming more and more obvious as it touches the lives of more people. With the main cause of death amongst men under 40 now being suicide, it’s clearly an important time to think about this.
So if you are concerned about the man in your life, you need to make sure that you know how you can help them to help themselves. In this post, we are going to take a look at some of the major ways you might be able to do just that. Let’s see what might be necessary here.
Here are effective ways to support men’s mental health:
1. Exercise Together
Just a little exercise on a regular basis can often be enough to make a radical difference to a man’s mental health. If you feel that your man has not been exercising enough, then you might want to try and find a way to encourage that a little more. And that might be easier than you think. A good way is to recommend that you work together. You might schedule a jog or a trip to the gym once a week, at first, perhaps building on it over time. In any case, it’s a great way to bond and improve both your health and men’s mental health.
2. Encourage Communication
If you find that he is generally reluctant to talk about his feelings, it’s probably not that he is being obtuse. Much more likely, he has fallen prey to the subtle and pernicious notion that men should be strong enough that they don’t talk about how they are feeling. They might not even have realized that they are thinking along these lines, which is part of why it can be so damaging.
So it can be useful to gently try and encourage communication with your man, even if it only happens in small bursts here and there. If you can do that, before you know it you might find that he is opening up a lot more – improving both the relationship and his own mental wellbeing.
3. Set Up Dates With Friends
Perhaps he is not socializing as much as he could. This is another very common thing that men might find themselves doing, and it’s something that you need to make sure you are thinking about if you want to try and improve how he is faring as much as possible. If he is reluctant, then you might just need to set up some dates with friends and take him along. That can be a good way to improve his socializing ability, and it’s something that you are going to want to think about for sure. It could make a world of difference.
4. Get Him Physically Checked Out
Sometimes men’s mental health issues are very directly related to a specific physical health problem, so it is a good idea to try and rule this out. The only way to really do that is to take him to be physically checked out by a doctor, but that is certainly something that you are going to want to think about for sure. Often the problem can be hormonal, and whether he needs some hormone replacement for men or just a change in diet, it can be something that really helps him to be a lot healthier both inside and out.
5. Advocate A Healthy Work-Life Balance
A lot of men feel that they have to be providers and that they need to work hard all the time in order to be able to do that. But there is a limit to this, and if your man is working too hard, then that is going to take a toll on his mental health for sure. Try to advocate for a healthier work-life balance if you can, and you will find that you are going to have a much better chance of actually keeping him by your side for longer. It’s amazing what some time off work can do for a person.
Those are just some of the main ways to try and help your man to improve his mental health. Ultimately, of course, it is up to him, and you can’t force anything. But you can support men’s mental health and be there for them.
