One man in five dies before the age of 65.
TOGETHER we can change that.

Blog: The focus of the Beat Stress Project

The Beat Stress, Feel Better project focuses on middle-aged men’s mental health. Chris Stein explains the why in this blog.

For many people, this period can be a time when there are multiple and compounding stresses, many of which cut across genders but which may impact genders differently and result in different behaviours. According to NHS Choices, the middle years is a time when men begin to feel that time is running out. While some are having children, an event that can squeeze time and bring new responsibilities, others are not, which might impact them in other ways. Careers may dominate lives or not be as developed as people had hoped. Prospects for retirement, and the considerations around them, are viewed differently. More broadly, according to research conducted by economists Frijters and Beatton (2012) “the economic literature has unearthed a possible U-shape relationship with the minimum level of satisfaction occurring in middle age (35–50)”, regardless of gender.

These life factors are then filtered through a gendered lens resulting in different behaviours and outcomes for men and women. There is a traditional stereotype of masculinity, one that holds notions of “breadwinner”, “strong”, “silent” and potentially detached emotionally, that can lead men to situations where they do not feel empowered to share how they are faring emotionally and mentally. While this stereotype is constantly being challenged and the discrete lines between genders is blurring, it remains that men are more likely to drink excessively, more likely to smoke, and to be obese all of which can have a negative impact on a person’s mental well-being. Socially men appear not to fare well either when it is considered that 95% of the prison population is male and that 72% of the prison population suffer from two or more mental health problems. According to Crisis, 87% of rough sleepers are male. 

Perhaps the most startling figure in regards to men’s mental health is that of suicide. In 2012 78% of all suicides in the UK were male, with the highest rates recorded between the ages of 30 - 44 and 45 - 59. Despite these challenges, males made up only 36% of all referrals to talk therapies through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme.

Systems and agents, therein lies a tension, as is so frequently the case; is that systems are not able to engage men to support them to meet their needs, or is it that men just are not very good at looking for help when they need it? The answer will most likely lie on a case-by-case basis but from the above statistics and in the words of David Wilkins, former Head of Policy at the Men’s Health Forum, in “How to make mental health services work for men”, “This under-representation of men among help-seekers may also mean that the structure and style of service has tended to become better attuned to the needs of women” (D. Wilkins, 2015).

In the next blog, I will look at the proposed solution for supporting men to take action in managing their mental health.

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

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  • The Men's Health Forum
  • 82 Tanner Street
  • London, SE1 3GN

Charity registered in England and Wales (no. 1087375). Company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (no. 4142349).