{"id":2483,"date":"2026-06-01T14:52:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/edi\/?p=2483"},"modified":"2026-06-01T14:52:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:52:46","slug":"andy-porter-colleague-wellbeing-mens-mental-health-and-emotional-vocabularies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/edi\/2026\/06\/01\/andy-porter-colleague-wellbeing-mens-mental-health-and-emotional-vocabularies\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Porter: Colleague Wellbeing – Men\u2019s Mental Health and Emotional Vocabularies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Following a tragic event in 2025, I took several months away from work to look after my own wellbeing. As anyone who\u2019s ever had to go to the GP and opening up can attest, it felt like a monumentally difficult thing to do. In hindsight, the decision was obviously the correct one and I benefitted from this time in many ways, yet I spent so much time and energy worrying about whether I should take the leap and advocate for myself that it made some of the more significant, immediate, emotions even worse. This worry can be so huge for many of us that often, we simply don\u2019t do take the leap.<\/p>\n

Data tells us that men in particular struggle to advocate for their own mental health and physical wellbeing. According to the UK Mental Health Foundation<\/a>, men are less likely to access psychological therapies compared to women, with only 36% of referrals to the NHS for therapy being male. Suicide remains the biggest killer for men under 45<\/a>, and men are up to 4 times more likely to die by suicide than women. According to one report<\/a>, one in 10 men efel that they have nobody to rely on for emotional support, compared to one in every 20 women.<\/p>\n

But why, exactly, do men often find advocating for their own wellbeing so difficult? At an early age, young men and boys are taught express their emotional needs in a certain way \u2013 usually by being quiet. \u201cStop crying\u201d and \u201cbe a man\u201d are phrases often said to young men expressing their sorrow or pain. For parents, this can lead to the damaging myth that \u201cboys are easier to raise than girls\u201d<\/a>. Parents in a young boys\u2019 life often see their lack of emotional expression as a lack of emotion entirely, and boys\u2019 emotional expressions reduce the further they age into adolescence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result, boys\u2019 emotional vocabularies become stunted. Without appropriate words or actions to communicate how they feel, and when crying has long been decided as unacceptable, boys retreat to the safety of silence.<\/p>\n

The social conditioning of male emotions can begin even earlier in life. In the documentary Silent Men<\/em><\/a> (2024), a trauma specialist cites a study in which babies wrapped in blue blankets were touched for significantly less time than babies in blankets of other colours. There\u2019s a double implication; not only do adults assume that babies wrapped in blue blankets must be boys, but that because they are boys, they require less physical touch and affection than girls. \u201cWhat are we doing in our culture,\u201d the specialist asks, \u201cabout socialising boys to not be touched as much, not be seen as vulnerable, not need emotional support as much as girls?\u201d.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s emotional silence doesn\u2019t need to be a cultural issue, and this doesn\u2019t absolve many men of their abuses of power, or acts of gender-based discrimination. But men have a responsibility to improve their emotional vocabularies. Studies have shown direct causal links from male loneliness<\/a> to processes of online radicalisation, into extremist views centred around the manosphere<\/a> and Andrew Tate-inspired \u201calpha\u201d masculinity. In turn, these ideologies are linked to real-world acts of violence and discrimination against women and girls.<\/p>\n

Our wellbeing is our own; we can\u2019t expect our families and friends to know our emotional needs any better than we do. Men\u2019s silence doesn\u2019t serve anyone.<\/p>\n

Some small, simple tips I\u2019ve found that can be hugely beneficial:<\/p>\n