Young Blood - Men’s Mental Health

Finding someone to speak to about your mental health as a man can be frustrating. We're told to open up, be vulnerable and reach out. But sometimes the result doesn't feel like what we're looking for. Philip Armstrong understands that. After 15 years in the Australian Defence Force, he was medically discharged for staph infection while also trying to process the loss of his fellow soldiers in a tr...

How many of us have had our sporting aspirations crushed by injuries? Not to mention the chronic aches and pains that can creep in, take hold and become part of who we are as we age into our ripe old 30s and 40s - on the fast track to our inevitable decline...BUT I've got some good news, my guest today says it doesn't have to be that way... Suffering from osteitis pubis from his mid-teens,...

Bryce didn't think much about becoming a dad, until he started building a life with his wife Marie. Their journey towards becoming parents got off to a rough start, enduring a miscarriage, before Marie eventually fell pregnant with their son, Harry. The pregnancy was healthy and normal all the way to full-term, when Marie noticed Harry wasn't moving. They went to hospital expecting reassurance, bu...

After years trying to start a family, Mark and his wife Angela were deflated, and wondering if it was going to happen for them. When they finally conceived, it felt like everything was going right — until a routine scan revealed their unborn son Hudson, had a serious heart condition. Faced with the scary prognosis of future complications, they rejected the confronting option to terminate the pregn...

When a viral image of a football fan sticking a flare up his arse during England’s Euro 2020 final against Italy surfaced, it wasn’t just a meme, it was the most unlikely of doorways... For UK stage performer Alex Hill, it became both the inspiration and the vehicle to explore loneliness, friendship, masculinity, mental health, and what it really means to belong. His debut play, Why I Stuck a Flar...

Gambling, in one form or another, has been part of human societies for centuries. Those wanting a betting opportunity could find one if they looked hard enough, but it was a far cry from the gambling bombardment we’re exposed to in the Western world today. Australians lose more than $30 billion a year to gambling, and new figures show New South Wales residents lost $2.5 billion on the pokies alone...

When you hear the word psychiatrist, you might think medicating mental illness, but there’s more nuance to it than that. Psychiatry brings together biology, psychology medicine and lived experience to understand what’s going on in someone’s mind and how to treat it.  Aleem is a Pakistani Australian who migrated here 16 years ago, became a psychiatrist and in doing so recognised a major need to inc...

Sydni grew up on the Hawaiian island of O'ahu, in a tight-knit community with a culture she says expects men to be tough and keep their emotions to themselves. Her father was one of those men. Loving and strong, but never one to share what he was going through. When her younger sister went missing in late 2023, Sydni and her family were thrust into the national spotlight overnight, facing huge str...

Five years ago, Flynn was on this podcast as a teenager living with cystic fibrosis. CF is a genetic condition that affects one in 2,500 Australians, causing mucus to clog the lungs and digestive system, requiring constant physio, medication and hospital check-ins to stay well. Thanks to modern medicine, many people with CF now live into their 40s and beyond, but it means staying ever vigilant and...

No guest this week. Instead, here's my rambling about life and the podcast in the following order: - Australian of the Year Awards - Getting married - Contemplating fatherhood - Getting in the best shape of my life - Showing up as the best version of me - The future of the podcast - Protecting piece of mind

Around 70% of Aussie men are overweight or obese, and most of us would say we’d like to lose some fat and drop a pants size or two. Maintaining a lean, healthy body we feel happy in, is relatively simple, but it's far from easy. We generally know the importance of exercise and the basics of nutrition, but the way our emotions drive our eating habits is much less talked about. When life gets st...

Corporal James Overall served as an Australian Army medic for a decade, deploying overseas on multiple occasions, including to Afghanistan in 2015. He was instrumental in 6 mass casualty events, as a highly skilled trauma care provider and auxiliary security force member, awarded the United States Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (NAM) for his outstanding service. Frequently under immense p...

Gambling’s been baked into Australian culture for generations. Having a punt with your mates is as normalised today as a beer and schnitty at the pub, but for a lot of young men in particular, it quickly grows into a monster that destroys lives. Australians lose around $32 billion every year gambling, making us the biggest losers in the world, and the fastest-growing part of that is online sports...

On the cusp for a decade, but never quite making the big time in professional surfing, Cooper's life was destined to go down another path. After seeing his sister lose multiple friends to suicide and facing his own challenges, he educated himself on mental health and founded The Good Human Factory to connect people with simple tools to improve their wellbeing. It took off, and has since grown...

Matty signed up to serve in the Australian Army and deployed to Afghanistan as a young soldier. On his 22nd birthday he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and soon discharged from defence. For the past 7 years he's shared the unfiltered ups and downs of his journey through Instagram, and was recognised with an OAM for his contribution to brain cancer awareness. He’s since travelled to so...

Masculinity is one of the hottest debates in our culture right now. Boys are growing up in a world that never switches off, where social media, peer pressure and online figures shape how they see themselves and each other. Daniel is right in the thick of it. He spends his days in schools across Australia, speaking to tens of thousands of young men about identity, relationships and mental health. H...

David migrated from Scotland to Australia as a teenager, worked his way into local government, and by his late thirties, had become South Australia’s youngest ever Opposition Leader. But the pressure of holding that position took a toll he eventually couldn’t hide... In 2024, a video surfaced showing him using cocaine, sparking front page headlines, intense scrutiny, and the collapse of his career...

There’s positive signs male suicide is finally trending down. For the first time since the Suicide Prevention Australia Community Tracker began quarterly reporting on suicide related behaviour in 2022, the stats have swung in the right direction...Suicidal thoughts, plans and attempts have all reduced. According to the latest national report for September:Serious thoughts of suicide: 19% → 13%Maki...

 Tom's worn a lot of different hats in his life. Tradie, AFL footballer, musician and model. On the surface, it looks like the dream run, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Through it all, he's grappled with bouts of anxiety and depression, experiencing his most intense symptoms in a Richmond guernsey. Not understanding what he was dealing do with, he hid it for years, until telling...

When JK was studying radiation therapy, he never imagined he’d one day become a cancer patient himself. At 33, he was diagnosed with Burkitt’s lymphoma, one of the most aggressive blood cancers, after a lump suddenly appeared on his neck. He went through months of gruelling chemo while raising two young kids, relying on his wife Pam and their support network to hold the family together. From his h...

In a famous study, people were asked to sit quietly in a room for 15 minutes. They’d previously tested a mild electric shock and said they’d pay to avoid it. Yet when left alone, they were given access to a shock button. Despite there being no reward, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to zap themselves during the experiment (Wilson et al, 2014). Conclusion: Many participants found it so uncomforta...

40% of Australians feel lonely at any given time and loneliness is linked to higher risks of depression, cognitive decline, a weakened immune system, and even premature death. If you’ve ever felt lonely, this episode will help you make sense of it. We break down what loneliness really is and practical ways to address it. My guest, Nigel Polak, President of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federat...

Connor was 16 when his life was turned upside down. After his first relationship ended, he felt off, but didn’t know why. It came as a shock when a GP visit revealed he was living with severe depression. It got worse before it got better, culminating in a suicide attempt that almost robbed him of an awesome future. Like flicking a switch, waking up in hospital to a second chance fundamentally shif...

A Stanford study recently found AI chatbots only responded safely to 50% of serious prompts, such as those related to suicidal ideation and psychosis. About 1 in 5 replies were harmful, validating dangerous thoughts. (Stanford, 2024 via NY Post) How many of us are using it? A nationally representative sample survey of U.S adults found 60% have used AI for emotional support. Nearly 50% believe it c...

Andy faced some significant mental health challenges and received multiple diagnoses before he was even 18. Navigating those stormy seas early, he connected with therapy and was able to develop an understanding of himself that made it all make sense. That experience became the inspiration for his pursuit of becoming a clinical psychologist — a reality he's now on the precipice of. Andy’s got a...