Latest / Teachers Talk Radio / More Than Feelings - The Science of Male Wellbeing: The Late Show with Tim Smale

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More Than Feelings - The Science of Male Wellbeing: The Late Show with Tim Smale · Teachers Talk Radio

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Good evening and welcome to The Late Show with Tim Smale.
1:39
Tonight, my guest is Ryan Park, the men's coach.
1:42
We're going to be talking about more than feelings, the science of male well-being.
1:48
And our theme really is to address the idea that male well-being isn't often talked about.
1:55
And in a world where kindness needs to come first, too many men are struggling in silence.
2:02
In tonight's show, we're going to explore the science behind male well-being,
2:06
the hormones, the mental health and the stuff that rarely gets said out loud.
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Now, please do be aware that we may talk about potentially triggering topics
2:17
such as suicide during tonight's show.
2:20
If you do find this distressing, then please feel free to leave or to mute the show for a little while.
2:27
So I want to start the show with a number.
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Three out of four people who take their own lives in the UK are men.
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And I've been sitting with that number for quite a while now.
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And I think a lot of people in education have been sitting with that number too.
2:45
We've been sitting there quietly without quite knowing what to do with it.
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And here's what I do know. The people in schools, teachers, tutors,
2:56
support staff, the people in the corridors and the people in the classrooms
3:00
every day are already doing some of the most important work there is.
3:05
They're shaping the adults of tomorrow and more and more of them are asking
3:10
the right questions about boys and young men.
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But what is actually going on beneath the surface, not only for our students,
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but also for our teachers.
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And that's what tonight is all about. Not what we're failing to do,
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but what we are ready to understand.
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And I'll be joined by Ryan Park, a men's coach who spent years working in this
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space. That's what sets Ryan apart.
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He goes beyond the emotional surface.
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He looks at the science. He looks at the hormones, the body, the whole picture.
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I'm not here as the expert. i'm a teacher i'm a dad i'm a friend i'm an uncle
3:48
and i'm a contributor and and i think this conversation matters enormously and
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i'm genuinely excited to have it with ryan and with you my listeners tonight
4:00
so let's let's get into it.
4:04
This week in Have I Got News For You.
4:10
I want to talk about the government's men's health strategy,
4:14
and it's the first of its kind in England.
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And it was launched in November 2025.
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Its key commitments include £3.6 million for suicide prevention,
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as well as a desire to expand mental health teams in schools to reach an additional
4:32
900,000 students by April 2026.
4:35
The strategy acknowledges that men are less likely to seek help.
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They're more likely to die by suicide and they're more likely to suffer in silence.
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And I think what is clear throughout that strategy is that there is a stigma
4:52
around men's mental health.
4:55
But the strategy itself is largely focused on physical health,
5:00
on cancer screening, on cardiovascular disease, on life expectancy,
5:03
and all of these are really, really important.
5:06
But it does skirt around what I think is maybe a harder conversation,
5:11
the emotional and the psychological reality of what it means to be a man in 2026.
5:18
It is genuinely encouraging that the government has finally put men's health on the agenda.
5:24
And a 10-year strategy is no small thing, but strategies do take time.
5:30
They work from the top down. They work through systems.
5:33
There are funding streams to consider. There are institutions to consider.
5:37
And I think what Ryan's work tells us is that there are men who are struggling
5:42
right now, and we can't always wait for a system to catch up with them.
5:48
What Ryan believes and what evidence behind his coaching, I think,
5:53
shows is that the answers are often already within reach.
5:58
In the way that men live, connect, in the way that men talk.
6:02
And this men's health strategy might point the direction, but I think Ryan is
6:08
already walking the road.
6:09
And the question that I'm going to want to put to Ryan tonight is,
6:13
are the approaches we're taking the right ones, or is it actually time to rethink how we reach men?
6:21
And so for me, in terms of my thoughts, I've been teaching for over 20 years
6:26
and I've worked with thousands of young men, some brilliant, some struggling.
6:30
Many of them are both brilliant and struggling at the same time.
6:34
And, you know, those who were struggling are rarely the ones who have told me
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they're the ones who are struggling.
6:40
They were the ones who maybe showed it through behavior, through withdrawal,
6:44
through trying to disappear in the back row.
6:46
And we have really spent decades asking boys and men to talk more.
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And I do think that matters.
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But I wonder if we spent enough time asking why they don't and what is in the
6:59
way, like what the culture of classrooms, the playground, the changing room
7:03
actually says to a young man who's finding it hard.
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Throw into that mix the manosphere and the pressure that can be placed on the
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shoulder of boys in school only becomes that little bit of here.
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And I think schools reflect the world and in the world, men who struggle are
7:20
still often met with a version of manner.
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It's less visible than it used to be, but it's there.
7:27
And on top of that, do we understand the strategies that contribute towards
7:31
positive mental health?
7:33
And do we understand they differ for boys, for girls, for men and for women?
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So tonight, I really want to know what we can actually do, not the theory, the practice.
7:42
And please do feel free to reach out,
7:45
put your comments out those great questions are
7:48
put towards ryan and we'll see
7:50
where we go with our discussion tonight so i'm
7:53
going to introduce my guests ryan park is a coach
7:56
he's an author and he's a tedx speaker specializing in how hormones lifestyle
8:01
and goal-setting impact male mental health thank you tim for welcoming me to
8:06
teachers talk radio onto the late show no problem as i always say on my show
8:11
there is no expense spared on the special effects My daughter's recorded this one for you.
8:18
There's a bit of promotion in case anyone has got any jobs for voice acting
8:22
for my daughter. Please reach out and email me.
8:25
So Ryan, please, I'm so happy to have you on the show.
8:29
I think this is such an important topic to sort of start discussing out in the
8:34
open and to give airtime to.
8:36
So where I really want to begin is, well, at the beginning. Can we start with
8:42
your journey and what led you down this particular path?
8:46
Yeah, lovely. The part of my story that's relevant for our conversation,
8:50
Tim, really begins in June 2019, where I bumped into a lady who I hadn't seen in years.
8:57
And I was really excited to hear the latest about her son, because Jenny's son,
9:01
Brad, was taller than me, more muscular.
9:04
Some would say slightly better looking. I know that's hard for you to believe,
9:07
but a strong argument could have been made.
9:08
But the important thing to know is that Brad had a fast car,
9:11
a big house, and a great job.
9:13
Plus, he was a dad with a loving wife. And I like to believe at the time that
9:17
I was on the same trajectory as Brad, but I was just a couple of years behind
9:20
because of the age difference.
9:22
Then I saw the look on his mum's face and I thought, oh no, what have I said to upset her?
9:26
And she asked, oh my gosh, Ryan, you're asking me how Brad is.
9:29
You don't know. Brad has taken his own life.
9:32
Now I was really taken aback by that, Tim, for a couple of different reasons.
9:37
One reason was of course the initial loss of Brad. I was not expecting that.
9:42
But the other thing that took me back is at that point in my life,
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I'd always heard and believed that the reason why men might die from suicide
9:48
at higher rates than women is simply because they don't talk and they don't
9:52
reach out for help when they need it.
9:54
And yet Brad was the most open and articulate man that I knew.
9:58
In fact, I found out after his death that two years before he died,
10:02
he decided to reach out and get some help with his mental health.
10:05
He did this in many ways, but one of the ways was Brad went to see his doctor.
10:10
Well, Brad's doctor did, of course, what doctors are trained to do.
10:13
So Brad was referred to talking therapy and prescribed antidepressants.
10:17
Brad attended talking therapy, took antidepressants. And two months before his
10:22
death, his mum, Jenny, who worked in mental health herself, said,
10:26
Brad, call me every night.
10:27
Tell me how you feel because you've got to get these feelings off your chest.
10:31
Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting these things didn't help Brad. I'm sure they did.
10:36
But what struck me at the time was here was a man who'd done all the things
10:40
that we tell men in crisis to do.
10:42
And yet he still wasn't here anymore. I wondered what else could Brad have done?
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And Brad's mom, Jenny, shared with me some of the statistics that you shared
10:51
with our listeners a moment ago.
10:52
She let me know that every five hours, four people take their own lives in the
10:57
UK and Ireland, and three of those are going to be men.
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Well, I took what Jenny said very seriously. There and then I set aside one
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day every week from June 2019 to the end of the year to learn everything that
11:09
I could about male mental health and well-being.
11:12
And on my very first day of research, I was reading a study that stopped me
11:15
in my tracks because it just happened to mention that there appears to be one
11:20
day every year where heart attacks jump up in men by potentially as much as 30%.
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And yet on the same day of the year, heart attacks in women actually go down.
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And we've spoken about what day this is. So can I share it with your listeners?
11:34
Yeah, please do. Yeah, absolutely. So the day every year where heart attacks
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jump up in men and on the same day of the year go down in women,
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according to lots of evidence, is actually the Monday after the clocks jump forward by an hour.
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So it's the introduction of daylight savings time, which, well,
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in the UK happens in March, around this time now.
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When I learned I had to know why why would
12:00
the exact same thing happening impact men and women
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so differently I found that no single study had actually tried to answer that
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question so I spent the next really about the next six hours reading around
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this phenomenon myself just searching things like google scholar and pub med
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and here are some things that I learned that seemed irrelevant to me.
12:22
So when the clocks jump forward by an hour, in theory, we should go to bed an
12:27
hour early to avoid losing sleep.
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But have you ever actually done that, Tim?
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No. Well, I try, especially with two children who are a little bit more resistant
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to clock changes. It's hard. Yeah.
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Yeah. In theory, we should, but I don't think anyone does.
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So when the clocks jump forward, it's like this mass science experiment where
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almost everyone loses an hour of sleep at the same time.
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Now, what happens in your body when you lose even an hour of sleep depends upon
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whether you're biologically male or female.
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A male body losing even one hour of sleep seems to lower a hormone called testosterone for a few days.
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And in a male body, it's been found that as testosterone goes down,
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the chances of having a heart attack go up.
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And when I learned that, I remember thinking that's really weird because I don't
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know about you, but at that point in my life, I had never heard anything positive about testosterone.
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In fact, I remember when I was a kid and I went to a boys school and when there
13:27
was a fight in the playground, I would often hear teachers saying,
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it's no wonder they ended up fighting. There was too much testosterone.
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You heard that when you're in schools.
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Yeah, it's always, testosterone is blamed for a huge amount.
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It's increasing strength, it's increasing aggression, right?
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That's the stereotype I always see about testosterone.
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That's what I'd always heard as well. So I wondered, how can a hormone that
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seems to increase strength and aggression,
13:57
this pub that seemed to make my classmates, this pub, this hormone that seems
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to make my classmates fight in the playground or in the pub,
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how could that also seem to protect men from having a heart attack?
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So I decide next week, I'm going to learn about this hormone testosterone.
14:11
So the following week comes around. My first research question of the day was
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why does testosterone make men aggressive?
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And I could tell after about 60 minutes of reading scientific papers that testosterone
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actually hasn't been found to make men aggressive. That's an urban myth.
14:26
Our modern understanding is that testosterone is a hormone that has a calming
14:30
effect on men and boys. It calms stress hormones or the stress reaction.
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So knowing that testosterone isn't bad, my next question then was,
14:39
why is it associated with better heart health in men?
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And what I found over the next couple of hours, days, and weeks reading scientific
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studies is not only is testosterone associated with better heart health in men,
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it's also associated with better mental health.
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There are multiple studies that very clearly demonstrated that on average,
15:01
men who are depressed have much lower levels of testosterone than men who are not depressed.
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And some studies suggest the difference is about 30%, which is really significant
15:10
when it comes to one single hormone.
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And this is not only in middle-aged men, it seems to be men of different age groups as well.
15:19
So this was the link with male mental health that I started learning about,
15:23
specifically with depression.
15:25
Which made me wonder about the links between suicide, the biggest killer of
15:29
men under the age of 50 in the UK.
15:31
And it turns out that since the early 2000s, there have been multiple studies
15:36
that have shown that in men, lower testosterone levels are associated with stronger
15:40
thoughts about suicide, more frequent suicide attempts, and more aggressive methods.
15:45
In fact, there's a very old study, which there's some things about the study
15:50
that I don't particularly like how it was carried out.
15:52
But there was an old study from 1986 that actually measured the level of testosterone
15:57
in the bodies of men who'd sadly died from suicide.
15:59
And it actually found that they seemed
16:01
to have an extremely low level of testosterone just before they died.
16:05
Now, when I learned this, I was very interested because in the UK and Ireland
16:09
today, we know that the biggest killer of men up until the age of 50 is suicide.
16:14
And suicide and depression men both appeared to be linked to having a low level of testosterone.
16:20
Now, over the age of 50, the biggest killer of men in the UK and Ireland today
16:23
is heart disease. Heart disease is also the biggest killer of men worldwide.
16:28
And it turns out that heart disease, heart attack, heart failure,
16:32
and high blood pressure in men are all associated with and often predicted by
16:37
having a low level of testosterone.
16:40
This means low testosterone comes first and lets you know that you're about
16:43
to run into problems regarding heart health.
16:47
Now, after heart disease, the next biggest killer of men over the age of 50
16:51
in the UK and Ireland today is cancer.
16:54
And you may know now the most common cancer to be diagnosed with in the UK is
17:00
actually prostate cancer. Yeah.
17:03
And you can probably guess where I'm going with this because multiple studies
17:05
have shown that actually having a low level of testosterone is associated with
17:09
greatly increased rates of prostate cancer diagnosis,
17:13
specifically aggressive prostate cancer, which is the kind that needs to be treated.
17:19
You can't live with it like you can with less aggressive forms of prostate cancer.
17:23
So I always start with this story, Tim, because this was my first few weeks
17:26
of trying to understand male mental health.
17:28
And it completely flipped what I thought it was all about. I started out with
17:31
these assumptions I'd never really questioned, ideas like testosterone's bad
17:36
and men just need to talk.
17:38
And pretty soon I could say, hold on a minute, testosterone isn't bad. It's actually vital.
17:42
Unfortunately, this is something that isn't communicated to men or boys.
17:45
And worse, there's actually stigma associated with testosterone that prevents
17:49
them from being able to find this stuff out.
17:52
But the other thing I could see pretty early on is it seemed too simplistic,
17:55
the idea I used to have, that men and boys just need to talk.
17:59
Of course, talking's vital for everyone, but no amount of talking would fix
18:03
a hormonal issue like low testosterone. I realized there must be more to it than talking alone.
18:08
Yeah i think it's uh you know it's it's
18:11
similar as a teacher in a school you know you you do
18:14
kind of think that that's it you you want to get guys talking there's
18:17
been all sorts of pshe lessons and and and sort of training that that has sort
18:22
of reinforced that exact idea which is to um is to encourage people to talk
18:27
and to talk about their feelings and to sit with their feelings and you know
18:30
i'm i'm quite an emotional person so i you know i i am used to talking about
18:34
my feelings So I've always projected that, I guess, as well.
18:37
So I'm really kind of excited to start having a look at how testosterone will
18:41
affect us as we kind of get deeper into the science.
18:43
But Ryan, thank you so much. We've made it to the end of the first part of the show.
18:48
So I just want to shout out to AQA, who sponsor TTR and tonight's show.
18:56
Are you ready to make an impact beyond the classroom?
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AQA is looking for teachers like you to become examiners this summer.
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You'll build your CPD, strengthen your understanding of the Mark Scheme and
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gain fresh insights to really enhance your teaching.
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It's flexible, paid work that fits around your commitments with full training
19:18
from their experts and ongoing support from experienced team leaders.
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Whether you are an early careers teacher or have years of classroom experience,
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examining with AQA is a valuable way to develop your knowledge and join a community
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So if you're interested, join AQA as an examiner this summer and visit aqa.org.uk
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forward slash apply and do so today.
19:45
So the next segment of our show is the shout out boards.
19:50
I guess I don't need to say it and do the special effect. I don't. We'll see.
19:54
Look, This is the part of the show that we dedicate to anyone who needs a shout out.
19:59
Are there any teachers or leaders who are deserving of some extra recognition,
20:03
a kind word or a general bit of educational love?
20:08
You can feel free to drop if you are listening to the live show in the comments,
20:12
or you can direct message me on somewhere like LinkedIn.
20:15
But please do contribute. And if you have any questions for Ryan,
20:18
then please do also drop them into tonight's chat.
20:22
Now, my shout out tonight is for everyone connected to a school community right
20:26
now, because this is the time of year that is relentless.
20:30
Teachers are drowning in marking, planning, and trying to hold it together for
20:33
20, 30 kids who are quietly anxious.
20:37
Teachers are working one-on-one with students who need a little bit more support with the curriculum.
20:43
Admin teams are coordinating exams, timetables, and there are a hundred things
20:48
being balanced and juggled that nobody sees.
20:51
The cleaners are keeping the place running so everyone else can focus.
20:54
Parents are trying to read the room at home when it comes to their kid walking
20:58
through the door, stressed and silent.
21:01
And students who are revising, worrying, comparing themselves to everyone else
21:04
around you. Look, everyone I think is carrying something right now.
21:08
So if you're in that world, whatever your role is, you matter.
21:11
You matter to how the building feels. You matter to how those kids feel and
21:15
how those kids are doing.
21:16
So please do take a breath, sit down with a hot mug of tea or hot chocolate,
21:21
relax, listen to tonight's show, and just know that you are doing enough.
21:26
And we are so grateful. So thank you.
21:30
The next part of this feature is our lessons learned.
21:35
Brian, is there a mistake or a tough moment that's ended up teaching you something
21:40
valuable? Because ultimately, we're all human, right?
21:44
Yeah, there's a really big tough moment which happened quite near the beginning
21:48
of this journey, which was in 2022.
21:50
I had the honor of being invited to deliver a TEDx talk at TEDx NSGillan. Amazing.
21:55
It was about, I spent about six months preparing.
21:59
I wasn't used to public speaking at the time so you know I put a lot of effort into it and.
22:05
It seemed to go really well on the day I had a lot of really fantastic
22:08
feedback and some people that saw the talk
22:11
have stayed in touch with me since or they've brought me in to deliver training to
22:14
their businesses so it resonated with them and then
22:17
the organization of TED decided not to
22:20
publish the talk so it's not available online and I
22:25
can't go into I don't want to go into too many details of
22:28
what happened just you know I don't want organizations that
22:31
I have a lot of respect for to come off in a bad light but the
22:34
end result is it it felt like it the message
22:38
to me early on in this journey was like there isn't
22:41
an interest to understand male mental health and well-being and you're wasting
22:46
your time here so it was a big learning curve for me and what I did is I actually
22:51
I got a bootlegged copy of it because someone who saw it said like I'm watching
22:56
this talk still so you should definitely have it.
22:58
And I showed it to some people that I knew well, but that had been a bit critical
23:04
of the information I'd shared with them in the past.
23:06
This was years ago, you know, and what I was sharing really lacked the nuance that it has now.
23:12
And I couldn't talk in so much detail about the connection between different scientific studies.
23:16
And so when I shared this with people who were at the time a little bit,
23:21
they would give me good pushback.
23:23
They essentially told me that what I was doing is I came out just sharing.
23:28
Like scientific evidence. And I didn't first appreciate the misconceptions people
23:34
had in their mind about things like testosterone.
23:38
And that was a massive moment for me. I really made a list of all their concerns.
23:42
And then when I spoke about it the next time, I started addressing those concerns one at a time.
23:47
And suddenly things opened up. It was a great example of it was the biggest
23:52
kick I'd received probably in my adult life for quite a while, so much work.
23:57
And but it also showed me the way and through
24:00
it not doing what it was meant to do it then
24:03
created the path for me afterwards but I had to learn from it and that was
24:06
very hard it was really hard I felt like the work was wasted yeah that is definitely
24:12
a hard lesson to learn but thank you so much for for sharing with um I yeah
24:18
I I have made so many mistakes in terms of the classroom I do remember a slightly different topic,
24:25
but I do remember a lesson of mine.
24:27
I committed hours to it. I was doing a World War I poetry, and so I was trying
24:32
to kind of bring it to life with James Blunt's No Bravery.
24:36
And so I spent forever sort of putting into the oven the dulciet de coramette.
24:44
And I sort of put it in, I aged it, I kind of smeared it with coffee.
24:47
I thought the students are going to absolutely love it.
24:50
And it sort of came out and these look like really authentic documents.
24:53
It took me forever to do it.
24:56
And then I sort of went in, I was so excited about doing this.
25:00
And the student response was, oh, she's boring.
25:05
I was mortified, absolutely mortified. And I think what I learned was you don't
25:10
always need to buy into gimmicks. It's like being yourself is enough in the classroom.
25:14
But yeah, I didn't win that particular group round to the idea of the beauty
25:18
of World War I poetry and comparing it to James Blunt.
25:22
Great song, can I just add, No
25:24
Bravery. Fantastic song that I must have listened to way too many times.
25:29
Yeah, he's a super cool guy. He used to go into driving his tank around because
25:34
he used to be a tank commander with his guitar strapped on the side of his tank
25:37
and then sit around campfires. I just thought, what a cool guy. what I call a brokester.
25:44
So we are now moving into part two. And here is really what I want to get sort of,
25:49
where I want to get stuck into the science and start to sort of understand,
25:53
because in the first part of the show, you've talked a lot about testosterone,
25:56
Ryan, and I sort of really want to understand, look, if testosterone is so important,
26:02
what can males actually do about it?
26:06
Yeah, really important question. And this is really the thing that I've learned
26:10
since, which is really the basis of why I'm working with men in organizations,
26:16
because this is the hook that really interests men and boys in well-being is understanding this.
26:21
So let's do it. Let's open the door and get into it.
26:24
So the first thing you can do is explain why is there a link between low testosterone
26:27
and all these biggest killers of men? Because there is.
26:31
And then we're going to look at, okay, what do we do about it?
26:34
So first thing is, why is there a link?
26:36
In my opinion, my professional opinion, it's not because testosterone is magic.
26:40
What we're looking at here, the problem is not a lack of testosterone.
26:43
It's that low testosterone is actually a sign of bigger problems in a male body.
26:49
Specifically, low testosterone is a sign of a problem called insulin resistance.
26:55
It can also be caused by stress or inflammation. But essentially,
26:58
if something is causing low testosterone, whether it is stress,
27:01
insulin resistance or inflammation, we've got to act in order to improve our
27:07
health to get testosterone back to those higher levels.
27:11
So this means my approach is actually,
27:14
Yes, there are some people that you could bring on a show that we talk about
27:17
the benefits of taking testosterone, but I'm not.
27:19
In order to get back to a healthy level of testosterone, what we need to be
27:24
able to do is to look after our body and minimize things like insulin resistance and inflammation.
27:30
And the way that we're going to do that is with a lifestyle-based approach and
27:35
it's extremely effective if done right.
27:38
So there are five big factors that we need to know when it comes to testosterone levels.
27:43
At the beginning of my journey, I wasn't actually optimistic because I had always
27:46
heard that the biggest factor when it comes to testosterone levels is age.
27:50
I'd always heard that once men get to about 30, testosterone levels naturally decline.
27:54
And I can change a lot, but I can't change my age. So that wasn't very optimistic.
27:59
But what I know now from really internalizing over 300 different studies related
28:05
to testosterone levels and also seeing testosterone levels in the hundreds of men I've worked with.
28:12
Age is not the biggest factor when it comes to testosterone levels which is
28:16
extremely positive for us to know because the five factors we're going to talk
28:19
about we can influence them a
28:21
lot more than we can influence our age so factor number one is what we eat.
28:27
Specifically, the most important figure when it comes to what males are eating
28:32
is the sheer volume of carbohydrates that we're eating that raise blood sugar levels.
28:38
In fact, since about 2020, there's been quite a few studies that have monitored
28:43
testosterone levels in men who have followed a low carbohydrate diet.
28:47
So low in carbohydrates, high in natural unprocessed fats. and what they find
28:53
is that that really helps with getting back to a healthy level of testosterone.
28:57
In fact, there's one meta-analysis, a study of studies,
29:01
that concluded that it seems to work really consistently, that low-carbohydrate
29:06
diets increase testosterone levels in men and it seems that the lower a man's
29:11
testosterone level when he changes his diet,
29:14
the more it works to improve testosterone levels.
29:18
So, extremely positive, no one's out of the range where it would help reducing carbohydrates.
29:23
So this is, yes, of course, this is energy drinks and sugars in tea.
29:26
We're talking about reducing, but it could also be based on your current health.
29:30
We might also need to be careful about things like porridge, pasta, bread.
29:35
Those things that raise blood sugar levels. So that's one key thing.
29:41
When I learned this, I was very keen to experiment with my diet.
29:46
And what I found is that after eight months of following low carbohydrate diet,
29:50
I had a level of testosterone that's very rare now, but 50 years ago was probably what most men had.
29:57
Because in the last 50 years, testosterone levels have roughly halved in men
30:02
across the developed world.
30:04
And this is not just in middle-aged or older men.
30:08
This is also found in young men. In fact,
30:11
there's reasons to believe that men now in their 20s or their late teens have
30:16
lower levels of testosterone than men in the 1970s had in their 60s.
30:24
Yeah, that's quite a stark kind of finding, right? And this is down to diet
30:30
as the there's the first pillar.
30:33
If you speak to lots of people, they'll say, we don't know what it is.
30:37
It could be microplastics in the water. It could be things like estrogen in the water supply.
30:43
You know, it could be a change in the role of men. But in my mind,
30:47
it's actually a lot simpler than that, because what we know is that the more
30:52
men eat carbohydrates that raise their blood sugar levels, the lower their testosterone levels.
30:56
And we also have very good studies that show that if men follow a low carbohydrate
31:01
diet, then it reverses that downwards incline and takes them back to a much
31:06
healthier level of testosterone.
31:07
And they haven't changed the estrogen in the water, the microplastics in their brain.
31:11
None of the other things have changed. The only thing that's changed is diet.
31:14
So to me, and I might be oversimplifying it here, but it seems pretty simple
31:18
that it's really down to what we're eating.
31:21
And many men, if they reach out for help with improving their health or their
31:25
testosterone levels, they'll be given a generic one size fits all advice,
31:29
which is something like you reduce fat, you eat lean proteins and you eat more complex carbs.
31:35
And if I wanted to reduce my testosterone levels, that's actually what I would do.
31:41
So, so that's one thing, which is we need to be eating real food that contains
31:46
natural fats and isn't too high in carbohydrates, but there's four other big
31:50
factors. And if any of these,
31:53
It's like a chain. If any of the links are broken, then it could be the single
31:57
problem that's causing low testosterone.
31:59
My experience is, most of the time it's down to what men are eating. The next one is sleep.
32:05
There's reasons to believe that each hour men are asleep, testosterone increases,
32:09
and each hour awake, testosterone decreases.
32:13
So sleep's enormously important. This is why if you get a testosterone test,
32:16
you're told to do it within the first few hours after waking and before eating as well.
32:21
So we have diet we have sleep then you'd probably guess exercise that's absolutely essential and,
32:29
the amount of exercise that we all need according to lots
32:31
of different sources and according to the nhs in
32:34
the uk is 150 minutes of
32:38
exercise a week and at least two resistance sessions and there's reasons to
32:42
believe that once you get to 150 minutes a week or 20 minutes a day exercise
32:47
becomes about one and a half times more effective than antidepressants and one
32:52
and a half times more effective than CBT talking therapy for dealing with stress,
32:58
anxiety, and depression.
33:00
And this is worth knowing because if you have a friend or a colleague who reaches out,
33:05
because they're feeling depressed at the moment, reaches out for help and goes
33:08
to see their doctor, then your colleague or your friend might leave that doctor's
33:12
appointment with a referral for,
33:15
antidepressants or sorry, a prescription for antidepressants and a referral
33:18
for talking therapy, just like Brad did.
33:20
But your friend might not yet know that the most effective thing they can do
33:24
is something that has no waiting list, no lead times, no nasty side effects
33:28
to put on some comfortable shoes and be physically active.
33:32
And then our last two is vitamin D, which our bodies make naturally from being
33:39
in the sun, D3 specifically.
33:42
And your body's great at making D3, but during the winter months,
33:46
many of us in developed countries, we just don't get out enough into the sun
33:50
because we're working, which is also important for our wellbeing and our mental health.
33:54
And so many healthcare providers recommend that most adults should supplement
33:58
vitamin D through the winter months.
34:01
And the last thing is sobriety.
34:03
There's reasons that each alcoholic drink significantly lowers testosterone.
34:10
And it's also been found that in chronic or heavy drinkers, I should say,
34:15
they tend to have, they're very likely to have low testosterone and it stays
34:18
for quite a while after they stop drinking, does eventually recover.
34:22
But the key thing is these these are our key ingredients for a healthy level of testosterone.
34:28
And when I saw that list of key ingredients for a healthy level of testosterone,
34:31
I remember thinking, oh crap, because I knew Brad and I know that,
34:36
yeah, he did all the things we tell men in crisis to do.
34:38
He reached out for help, went to see his doctor, attended talking therapy,
34:41
took antidepressants and called his mom every night and told her how he was feeling.
34:45
But I also knew Brad well enough to know that,
34:48
real food, sleep, sunlight, exercise, and sobriety. They just weren't on Brad's list of priorities.
34:56
And I realized at the time they weren't on mine either. And I started to believe
34:59
that sometimes I think it's trying to be a man that kills a lot of men.
35:03
Yeah. Yeah, agreed. I would say that when I started out being a teacher, I had a wonderful time.
35:10
I had like honestly wonderful colleagues and I had a blast, but you would survive
35:15
until Friday with your busy week. and then you would go out and you'd go drinking.
35:19
And that was part of the culture and probably part of being a man. I played rugby.
35:26
The culture was to drink a lot and to drink quickly.
35:29
And, you know, it was in inverted commas part of the fun, but there was also
35:33
that pressure. It was hard to say no as you got the group of guys together.
35:38
And I also think, you know, like touching upon so many of these points,
35:41
I'm sort of looking at my sort of show prep notes. I sort of score them out
35:45
on post-it notes just in front of me.
35:48
You know, I'm looking at sort of the teacher surveys that come back that say
35:51
that 78% of teachers are stressed, 84% of leaders within schools are stressed.
35:57
Yeah, 30% of 11 to 16 year olds are sort of presenting with mental health conditions
36:02
and that's leading to absence from school.
36:05
50% of mental health conditions are established by age 14.
36:09
You know, and I'm kind of looking at all of this research. And there's also
36:13
this other thing about the fact that teachers just don't have that much time.
36:18
I think it's about 70% of teachers say that their job impacts on their ability
36:21
to have time to do things.
36:24
That's why it's so important to talk about mental health, because we do get
36:27
these kind of cultural demands and it's to work ever-increasing hours,
36:32
to sort of have that drinking culture, to relax in the evening with a bottle
36:36
of wine or with a couple of beers.
36:37
And actually that's, that's then building on top of some of the problems that
36:42
maybe people are starting to see within people that they love,
36:44
they care about, they want to talk about all, all, all themselves.
36:48
And I do sort of see that sort of trend. And there's also this other research
36:53
that comes out as well, I think, from a teacher well-being point of view,
36:57
that our students model from our behavior and teacher well-being is inextricably
37:04
linked to student well-being.
37:06
Because for many students, the adult in the room they're seeing for that hour
37:10
of maths, English, French, history, whatever it might be, is someone having
37:14
the most contact with in the day because your parents are working long hours
37:17
or there's difficulties at home etc,
37:19
so how do you think it's really important and and
37:22
i guess there's a there's a few things that that i want to kind of touch on
37:25
as we as we look down at this particular rabbit hole is is you know that there
37:28
is this this sort of pressure in society there are cultural pressures so there
37:32
are lots of noises being made about testosterone so right is it as simple as
37:37
i can i can you know as we see with some parts of the gym culture,
37:41
like I can supplement testosterone.
37:43
Is that the way to solve this problem?
37:47
In my opinion, no, not really. So there are certain supplements,
37:51
things that we can take that might address something like a deficiency in our bodies.
37:57
So that can be done. And as I said, it might be that it's something like vitamin
38:02
D3, as an example, that could be address with a supplement potentially.
38:06
But the really key thing is the lifestyle factors. It's to do with,
38:11
for example, what food are we eating?
38:13
You know, if I'm going to the gym and I might be working hard at the gym,
38:17
but if I'm putting junk food into my body,
38:22
essentially a lot of processed food, a lot of refined carbohydrates,
38:25
a lot of sugar, it doesn't really matter what kind of supplements are added to that.
38:30
The raw ingredients aren't there because we want to reduce the inflammation,
38:35
the stress on our body, the insulin resistance, we just don't have the conditions
38:39
for really good hormonal health unless we get some of those basics right.
38:44
Yeah. I mean, is there the counter worry to this? Is there the possibility to
38:49
have too much testosterone?
38:51
Yeah, it's a really important question. And what I'm talking about is making testosterone.
38:57
That's why I made that distinction between making it and taking it.
38:59
Obviously, taking it has to be done with medical supervision,
39:01
but there's what's called a negative feedback loop in the body,
39:06
which means that when testosterone gets to a certain figure, then
39:10
everything the body eases off the gas as it
39:13
were and so it doesn't just get higher and
39:16
higher and higher until you have a problem in my experience
39:19
testosterone goes up to about 30 nanomoles per litre we're getting a bit technical
39:22
there but once it goes up to there it just generally stays there but most men
39:28
are going to be well below that in today's society unfortunately yeah are there
39:33
sort of is there anything that teachers or schools can actually do with this kind of information?
39:38
Because I guess at school, we can't test testosterone levels.
39:42
Are there any sort of practical takeaways that we might have?
39:44
Yeah, I think there's two really big ones. One of them is just a theme of engagement, really.
39:51
Because when I work with schools and share this information and teachers take
39:56
it away, they come back to me afterwards and say, this has led to some brilliant
40:00
conversations around wellbeing with boys and young men.
40:04
And the other thing is I've also delivered quite a few sessions for,
40:07
we would say, sick form age boys or young men, and they are so engrossed and
40:14
engaged in a conversation which is about,
40:17
think about this, it's a conversation about not eating junk food, reducing sugar in food,
40:21
getting the exercise, getting the sleep,
40:24
getting outside and not drinking alcohol.
40:26
And it's a cool conversation about looking after them.
40:30
And I think if we don't provide this kind of information about topics they're
40:34
interested in, like testosterone, as an example, because there's nothing wrong with talking about it,
40:39
if we stigmatize testosterone, then we will only drive them into the hands of
40:44
online communities that will
40:45
educate them in it and then also impart their own versions of morality.
40:50
And I think that this is a great opportunity to engage with boys and also men
40:56
around their well-being just by not stigmatizing it,
40:59
taking a scientific approach and treating this important hormone as an important
41:04
hormone that we should learn about. Yeah, true true.
41:08
So the next part of the show is… Slate rant.
41:14
Slate rant. Are there anything that you, dear listeners, would like to get off your chest?
41:20
Is there anything that you are being bothered by in education?
41:23
We have a positive show. It's a positive arc in the way that we discuss things.
41:27
And I'm really excited about keeping it positive.
41:30
But at times, sometimes we seem to hold our hands up and laugh at the situation
41:34
that we find ourselves in or just to get something off our chest,
41:37
because we're also a community that supports each other.
41:41
And a rant that I've come across recently is just the battle,
41:46
I think, that we have in many of our classrooms to deliver more and more content.
41:52
There's more and more being added to what we need to offer in the classrooms. And I sort of get it.
41:58
I know that we need to cover new topics and new content, new requirements.
42:01
The world gets ever more complex.
42:04
And we are preparing the kids for so many things. Our show two weeks ago was
42:08
on preparing young people for the year 2040, which is still mind-blowing to me.
42:14
But I do also wonder if sometimes we're losing something in the process,
42:18
that there's got to be an expense, there's got to be a cost to putting more
42:24
on the curriculum and taking time away to explore rabbit holes.
42:28
One of the things that attracted me to being a history teacher,
42:31
one thing that I loved was being able to dive down the odd rabbit hole and sort
42:36
of go and explore different topics and show students why I fell in love with my subject.
42:41
And sometimes I think we just need to sort of say to exam boards and to governments
42:47
who are determined to set standards and to take us forward is that sometimes
42:51
being able to sit with what we've got and just breathe for a moment and see
42:55
the beauty of the subjects we've got is something that should be celebrated and should be rewarded.
42:59
Because ultimately we want young people to make decisions about what they love
43:03
and what they want to do in the future. So let's give them the chance to do so.
43:07
My worry is that especially at this time of year, our focus is just it's on
43:11
the exams coming up and therefore things kind of get lost.
43:16
So do you have anything that you want to get off your chest?
43:19
Any rants, any ideas, any questions you want to contribute to the show?
43:23
I have an absolute expert on the show talking about male mental health that
43:26
applies not just to men, but to everybody.
43:28
So please feel free to ring in with your questions.
43:32
Just put them into the comments box so that
43:35
is so smoothly
43:39
segwaying from where we were ending up part two
43:42
ryan where we were talking about boys in school i
43:45
sort of want to talk a little bit more about the young men that we have
43:48
have in schools and and i think a lot of this we can extrapolate as
43:51
well to to to members of staff but you
43:55
know we we sort of touched on some of the maybe more negative cultural
43:58
influences you know lots of us have seen that the documentary
44:01
by louis theroux as we look at the manosphere and there are
44:04
lots of a lots of competing pressures on our young people in schools so you've
44:10
you've had the opportunity to deliver in lots of of different schools do you
44:15
have a perspective like an honest viewpoint in terms of how well schools are
44:20
supporting boys well-being.
44:23
I think I wouldn't have very many unique perspectives because my involvement
44:27
in education is coming in, delivering sessions, making sure that it supports
44:31
what the educators are doing.
44:33
But I've not spent that great amount of time in school. I'm very much like a speaker coming in.
44:39
I have, however, had the opportunity to work with some young men.
44:44
And also I went through a phase of doing quite a lot of mentoring as well.
44:47
And generally, I think that there is a real sense, especially around young men
44:51
that they don't entirely feel involved in lots of aspects of community.
44:57
They feel quite disengaged and that when they do reach out for support is not
45:01
the support that they were perhaps hoping for.
45:03
But I don't, I'm not going to put that on the doors of the school system.
45:08
I think that my experience of schools is that despite the restrictions,
45:14
despite the budget constraints, despite the pressures to achieve the program, the academic results.
45:20
I think that there's more and more of a drive from people at all levels in schools
45:24
to make sure that they are creating well-rounded people.
45:28
And yeah, that's really difficult to do when you have so many,
45:31
when your hands are tied in so many ways. I can't even imagine how difficult it is to do.
45:35
But my overall understanding from visiting schools so much over the last 12
45:40
months is seeing actually a very positive message about these educators and
45:45
all kinds of staff in schools who care so much and are working so hard and they do get burned out.
45:51
But there's just the most amazing intentions there, considering all of the obstacles
45:56
that are thrown in their way.
45:57
So that's my main takeaway, really, from spending a decent amount of time in
46:01
schools over the last 12 months, mainly international schools.
46:06
One battle that I see is one with energy drinks.
46:11
You know, that seems to be a change in culture. And I find that quite interesting.
46:16
But when we want to sit with boys that we maybe sense are struggling or finding
46:21
difficult, and the shutters start to come down, is there any advice you could give us on how we maybe,
46:29
for want of a better word, break through it?
46:32
That's too strong a term. But how do we kind of help boys to open their eyes
46:37
to some of the things that we're worried about? Okay, I'm really happy to talk about this.
46:41
This is quite a big part of the sessions that I provide to educators and quite a bit of my experience.
46:46
So if I had to condense everything I've learned from reading and internalizing
46:52
about 1500 different studies, they're at least the ones I've stuck in my spreadsheet
46:56
for reference later, my hundreds of coaching calls, my experience mentoring
47:00
and all my lived experience.
47:01
If I had to condense it all into one single sentence, It'd be way oversimplified, but it'd be this.
47:06
In general, while positive female mental health is about feeling connected,
47:12
it's about doing things that raise connection hormones like oxytocin,
47:16
positive male mental health is about feeling capable.
47:21
And in my work, we go into this quite a lot about how the hormones that reduce
47:26
stress in a male body are different hormones to the hormones that reduce stress in a female body.
47:33
And I'm not saying for one second, and I'm sure no one thinks I am,
47:37
I'm not saying this means that women and girls don't need to feel capable and
47:41
men and boys don't need to feel connected. That would be totally ridiculous.
47:44
But what I am saying is the skew is slightly different.
47:47
And often when we want to have important conversations with boys,
47:50
we might approach that important conversation with the very best of intentions
47:56
by actually undermining that sense of capability.
48:00
And I'll give you an example of this, which is something like, I'm worried about you.
48:06
I've noticed something and I'm concerned. It doesn't exactly scream capability,
48:09
does it? I'm worried about you.
48:11
Like I'm okay, but I'm worried about you.
48:15
And I think from my experience is that boys and men have got very good at shutting
48:22
down conversations that make them feel incapable.
48:25
And there are some hormonal reasons for that, I believe, which we explore in my work.
48:30
But just at the on the very top level I think
48:32
that what we're dealing with here is we've created this
48:36
situation where in order to carry on with the conversation you're going to be
48:39
put in a situation where you don't feel capable anymore we're worried about
48:41
you you're the you're the problem here and so what I think we can do and I talk
48:46
about this a lot in my work is we can approach the situation create a safe space
48:50
where we actually make people feel more capable in the way we approach these
48:54
important conversations.
48:56
And one of the steps that I talk about is just picking and highlighting a strength
49:02
you've noticed in the other person at the beginning of the conversation.
49:05
I noticed you did that. That's really impressive. Or even something like,
49:10
hey, we all normally rely on you. You're the one that helps with this thing.
49:14
Lately, I've noticed that you're not getting it done like you normally do.
49:19
Is something up that we can talk about?
49:21
You know, would you like to talk about solutions this is a very
49:24
very small tweak but the feedback i have from educators is
49:27
that it's quite a fantastic way to open up conversations by not
49:31
undermining that feeling of capability in the way that we approach boys right
49:36
it's really interesting okay yeah are there i mean are there also other parts
49:42
of school culture that maybe contributes to making male mental health a little bit a little bit worse.
49:49
Oh, it's a really big question. I wouldn't single out necessarily any parts
49:55
of school culture necessarily.
49:57
I've seen that one thing that comes up a lot when I've been doing mentoring
50:00
in the past of boys is if they're, okay, now I am singling out a part of school culture.
50:06
The part is if they're on a team and then they're removed from that team to
50:10
focus on something like to focus on studies or something, maybe they've fallen
50:13
behind in studies, they need to catch up.
50:15
Something that the we talk about
50:17
in in one of the pieces of training that i do is one of the things we look for when
50:20
we're having conversations is is there a
50:23
sense that people have been removed from a team lately there's a
50:26
really interesting study from 2020 that was carried out by the samaritans so
50:31
for international listeners mental health charity in the united kingdom that
50:35
operate a listening line for people in need so the samaritans they interviewed
50:39
this is men not boys They interviewed men who'd reached out for help and found that help was engaging.
50:44
And they asked them, what was it about the support that you found engaging?
50:47
And they were surprised that men were really clear about what it was.
50:51
And they essentially found that men find support engaging when it makes them
50:58
feel like part of a team, gives them the opportunity to make a contribution
51:02
and helps them to work towards shared objectives, not just their own.
51:05
We're essentially talking about teamwork and purpose here.
51:09
And there are some things that inadvertently with the best of
51:11
intentions we sometimes remove people from those teams because we
51:15
want them to focus on their own studies or you know an important part of their
51:21
academic progress and i think we should be very careful about that because sometimes
51:25
teams provide a lot of support a lot of purpose a lot of camaraderie that is
51:31
hard to replace in other ways.
51:33
Yeah, interesting. Yeah, we also have this kind of competing pressure that comes from.
51:40
Online voices that maybe don't have the same, you know, I'm trying not to project,
51:45
but maybe don't have the same sort of viewpoints that we're sort of trying to
51:51
instill within schools.
51:53
Are you noticing within your work that there are real pressures coming from that kind of sphere?
51:59
Is there any advice that you can give as schools are trying to sort of face
52:04
the challenge on that front as well?
52:08
I can tell you my thoughts on this not everyone's going to like my thoughts
52:12
on this but I'll tell you which is when we're talking about,
52:16
at the moment we're talking about things like online influencers I imagine voices
52:20
that are projecting a way of life that is not necessarily moral,
52:24
and yet it's resonating with young people especially young boys why might that
52:29
be well I think that what we need to do sometimes is understand what is it about
52:34
that messaging that's appealing to them.
52:37
And sometimes it is just that they are
52:40
trying to find they're trying
52:43
to find some help in terms of how do i get
52:46
a job how do i make money how do i get a partner how do i be popular and these
52:53
are things that are not necessarily being provided from the mainstream but there's
52:56
obviously appeal there you know if you want to if you want to compete against
52:59
any kind of service or offering You have to first understand what is their value proposition.
53:04
And I think that what we do a lot of is focusing on, well, how do we discredit
53:09
this kind of online voice?
53:11
But what we're not asking in some instances enough is what was missing from
53:16
that person's life and education that made them go to, why could they not apply
53:21
their critical thinking?
53:22
What was it about that that made them feel heard and listened to?
53:27
Because until we understand that, we're not going to be able to compete with
53:29
it. I'll share a quick mentoring story, if I may.
53:32
Please. A little while ago, when I did quite a lot of mentoring,
53:35
I don't so much anymore. There's a lot of red tape and it's very different to coaching.
53:40
But when I was doing quite a lot of mentoring, I was in a situation where I had a mom.
53:45
She said, would you have a mentoring call with my son? I said, yeah, I will.
53:49
It was a few weeks until we could get on a call. And I did a briefing with her
53:53
first. I take her through what we're going to be talking about,
53:55
that kind of thing. So we have this date lined up.
53:57
And then on the day, he doesn't turn up. And I called the mom and I said,
54:01
look, you're his appropriate adult. He's not turned up just to let you know.
54:04
And she says, oh, he's fine. He's fine. He doesn't need to talk to you.
54:07
He doesn't need to talk to anyone. I said, oh, right.
54:10
Tell me about it. And she said, well, he's found this online course.
54:14
And it's amazing. She said, it costs $50 a month. He is up in the morning. He's running.
54:22
He's not drinking energy drinks and eating crap food. He's applying.
54:27
He's thinking about what jobs he wants. So when he's at the right age, he's going to apply.
54:31
I said, he's doing Andrew Tate's Hustlers University 4.0.
54:36
She said, no, he's not. She said, we've seen him on the news.
54:39
We wouldn't. I said, he is. He is. I know that program. I know how it works.
54:46
He went to that because he wanted to know what do I eat how do I exercise,
54:50
how do I get a job how do I make money why did he have to go to Andrew Tate
54:55
to learn that and we can't say,
54:58
before we blame people we need to first understand what was it that made him
55:02
feel heard in that situation so as I said it's not particularly popular but
55:06
I think it's also a positive message which is because if we can understand what
55:10
was the drive there and his mum was so happy about the changes he had seen.
55:14
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess there's, there's the idea of health and vitality,
55:19
making yourself more attractive, you know, and, and also it kind of dinged a
55:23
little bell when you're sort of talking about the importance of a team,
55:26
I guess there's that sense of belonging to a community, to a team and,
55:29
and, and therefore some of the validation that, that maybe comes from being
55:33
a part of a sports team also comes in, in, in from that.
55:36
It's, it's a really interesting, a really interesting concept.
55:39
I know the conversation will be opening out throughout schools,
55:43
across social media, across different people, and they're going to be very polarized views on it.
55:47
Sometimes it's, I guess it's when we're tackling these conversations,
55:50
it's not necessarily about projecting what we think or we want other people
55:54
to think, but opening that discourse and discussion.
55:57
Again, as you said there, to really understand what it is in that sort of world.
56:02
And maybe that's the Smailer sphere
56:05
that I'll create in the future is to sort
56:08
of uh we'll see we'll see if people want to
56:11
idolize being a bald somewhat overweight history
56:14
teacher we'll see
56:17
okay so time for a bit of a break thank you
56:19
so much going uh this is our time for
56:22
the marking break it's time
56:27
for uh everyone who's listening live to the show just uh take a little breath
56:31
to to make that cup of tea to fill up your your mug of cocoa and and for us
56:36
in true teacher fashion rides take a proper marking break and and it's just
56:39
to ask you a very simple question like what is it that keeps you sane outside of work at the moment.
56:46
Tim, is that for me or for our listeners? Sorry, that was for you.
56:51
Oh, okay. Yeah, what's keeping you saying?
56:54
I can't wait. So here, firstly, it's quality time with my son.
56:59
Yeah. He's a really special age. You know, there's a new, not a new word every
57:03
day, but there's a new thing every day. You know, he's 18 months old.
57:06
And the other thing is, in 24 hours time, I'm going to be on a flight to Brazil, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
57:13
And the last i've got
57:16
120 day streak on duolingo for
57:20
my brazilian portuguese and i've been lured into
57:23
this full sense of security that i can speak brazilian portuguese
57:26
now but i think that's only when people speak to me slowly and type and have
57:31
subtitles so your duolingo start with your brazilian portuguese for i am a dog
57:39
or i am a cat which which seemed to be what i would get with the German and French Duolingo.
57:45
And I'm able to say, I'm able to go around and say, but I never really understood.
57:52
I've probably got that wrong. And if I've got international listeners,
57:55
is that where it started? Or is it a little bit more sophisticated?
58:01
No, it didn't start with that at all, actually. I know how to say cat and dog,
58:06
but yeah, no, it didn't teach me how to explain to people I am a cat or a dog.
58:10
And it's really interesting, isn't it? Because, you know, a cat or a dog, wouldn't say that.
58:16
Well, I don't know. If I find one that does, A, I will be able to speak in multiple
58:20
languages, Ryan, to do that, and B, I'm probably going to make a lot of money with the circus.
58:27
Next part of the show. That's my son.
58:31
So my kids have insisted on coming in on my no-expenses-spread sound effects.
58:36
And so at this point of the show, across my socials, I've just been asking for
58:41
people to share their stories in the hope that I can crack your steely facade,
58:47
Ryan, and bring a smile to your face.
58:50
And so Anthony Harwood has been very kind in sharing this story.
58:53
I'm going to read it to you and let's see if we can make a grin.
58:56
If not, Anthony, I'll have to give you a look of shame.
59:00
And if not, then you can revel in the delight of making our guests laugh live on air.
59:06
So thank you to Anthony. Here's a short anecdote. So I am Anthony in this scenario.
59:10
So here's a short anecdote from one of the many mistakes I made in my early career.
59:14
As a very naive new teacher in the early 2000s, sometime during the teaching
59:19
day, a foreign gentleman approached me, who it turns out was a delivery driver,
59:25
asking if there was somewhere close by he could get some lunch.
59:29
As it was a village school, there really wasn't many places in easy walking
59:35
distance. So I absent-mindedly gestured in the direction of the school canteen,
59:39
figuring teachers often sat and ate there, so why not visitors?
59:44
I'm going to point out here for the sake of the younger teachers and also to
59:48
try and save a little bit of face that safeguarding training and protocols were
59:51
not as stringent back in those days.
59:55
Anyway, after half hour or so, it turns out my head of department had an urgent message for me.
59:59
Fearing the worst, I snuck a look into the canteen and sure enough,
1:00:03
there is this lumbering six foot plus Dutch lorry driver casually tucking into his school dinner,
1:00:10
towering over the year seven and year eight students by which he is surrounded on literally all sides.
1:00:16
For your own mental image, think of that scene from Elf where Will Ferrell is
1:00:21
clearly far too big for the tiny desks. Whoops.
1:00:25
It's a good story. I did my best. I got told I can't help out. It's a very good story.
1:00:32
I'm really grateful for the story, but it's going to be the look,
1:00:36
judgment look. No, thank you very much for sharing the story.
1:00:39
Yeah, there are so many embarrassing moments in schools that just happen.
1:00:43
This is a shout out to AQA. AQA Know teachers are the real experts in the classroom.
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That's why they work closely with teachers like you, combining your insight
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They're the UK's most chosen assessment organisation so chances are you already
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1:01:38
So, Ryan, we're going to move into our last segment of the show.
1:01:43
The the point of the show is that is to have that that
1:01:46
sort of positive arc as well you know to to
1:01:48
identify you know some of those core things that maybe we
1:01:51
have concerns about and and then also try to empower ourselves
1:01:54
a little bit about what we could actually do tomorrow so
1:01:58
to write my first question is is if a teacher is
1:02:01
listening tonight they want to start taking male
1:02:05
well-being more seriously i don't
1:02:08
mean a whole strategy i just mean a first step what could they
1:02:10
do on on a cold wednesday morning what a
1:02:14
lovely lovely question i would say the same
1:02:17
thing i would the same kind of approach if i
1:02:20
was in approach if i was trying to support an individual or a
1:02:23
group my first step would be to ask them
1:02:26
what would you like to see more of i think
1:02:29
we overthink it sometimes and you know it's
1:02:32
one of those things no plan survives contact
1:02:35
does it really we can think through what we're going to do but really
1:02:38
the first thing is is turn around just ask students
1:02:42
or ask our team you know what do you want to see more of because there's many
1:02:45
advantages that one is they do the thinking for us and the other thing is of
1:02:49
course as as educators know if they come up with the program like wow how much
1:02:55
accountability and ownership what an empowering thing to be asked by a teacher, by an educator.
1:03:00
What would you like to see more of? So yeah, that's my thought.
1:03:03
I think educators will intuitively do it, but that's the first thing is ask
1:03:06
the person that you want to support. What would you like to see more of?
1:03:10
Yeah, it's an honest question, I think. Is the situation with regards to male
1:03:15
mental health getting better?
1:03:17
Are we actually making progress on mental health? Or is it getting worse thanks
1:03:23
to things like COVID and still the aftershock of those sorts of things and current
1:03:29
affairs and those sorts of things?
1:03:31
Will numbers stay the same? Are they getting worse or is the situation getting worse?
1:03:35
Big question. There's more noise around male mental health and well-being.
1:03:42
So that's new. When I started doing this full-time a few years ago,
1:03:46
it was almost unheard of, like the idea that the government would have a strategy
1:03:51
relating to men's health and well-being.
1:03:54
Like that seemed quite far away. There's more noise around it.
1:03:58
But my concern is that the noise around it is not necessarily focused on the
1:04:04
evidence that we have. that we could actually use.
1:04:07
You know, there's some really key things that I think could be utilized.
1:04:11
We've just scratched the surface by talking about testosterone.
1:04:15
That's just the first 15 minutes that is important to get people interested
1:04:18
in the conversation. There's so much more to it.
1:04:20
And there are also some real reasons to believe that a one size fits all approach
1:04:25
is actually not going to work for men and boys.
1:04:29
You know, there are some really key reasons to believe that and
1:04:33
we do have to tailor our approach to as
1:04:36
much as we can to the individual but where you can't do that you tailor it for
1:04:39
other things that that you can that you can tailor it
1:04:41
for generally i think the volume of
1:04:44
the noise is greater but my concern is that
1:04:47
we're not taking more of an evidence-based approach we're just getting noisier
1:04:52
and saying there's more awareness around it but i've not seen a clear gear change
1:04:57
into evidence-based solutions so that's why i'd appeal to everyone who's listening
1:05:01
to the show live or anyone who catches up on your favorite podcast streaming site,
1:05:06
please share the message and get people to tune into the show with Ryan and
1:05:10
see if it resonates for them.
1:05:12
Last sort of really big question, Ryan, is there any advice that you would offer
1:05:16
to anyone who feels that tonight's show resonates in a way where a next step needs to be taken?
1:05:27
Yes, I would say that what works for one person doesn't work for another.
1:05:32
There are so many different approaches out there. So don't give up. Do not give up.
1:05:36
And the really key thing that I've learned over the
1:05:39
last few years is no single thing is the solution not
1:05:42
testosterone not talking about how you feel not going to
1:05:45
see that professional they're all individual tools
1:05:49
that you use to build your solution so keep
1:05:52
going keep trying different things you'll find what works
1:05:55
for you and yeah you know don't be
1:05:58
afraid to team up with others in case they can help you on your journey with
1:06:01
their experience or their expertise yeah thank you
1:06:04
look i think i think what i'm taking away from
1:06:07
from tonight's show is that is that you know
1:06:09
there are lots and lots of different strategies but there
1:06:13
is more work that needs to be done with with men with boys with students with
1:06:19
teachers with men with women with all stratospheres within society and and ultimately
1:06:26
we we've got to start meeting these things head on but.
1:06:31
I would say it's a phrase that we often use in education is we've got to be
1:06:35
following the evidence.
1:06:36
We've got to start setting these pathways that actually utilize the evidence
1:06:40
in front of us in order to start making a difference.
1:06:43
And I think that's such an important takeaway for me.
1:06:47
And I want to challenge people to sort of be curious and to stay in the room
1:06:52
long enough to sort of find out about different strategies if they think it
1:06:55
would be a benefit to someone.
1:06:58
So ryan we've made it to the uh to the end of the show pretty much.
1:07:04
The most frightening part of the show is still yet to
1:07:06
come with our quick fire quiz one final
1:07:09
shout out to hashet learning this show is brought to you in partnership with
1:07:13
hashet learning publishes a professional development books and resources that
1:07:16
support great teaching and learning in schools around the world level up your
1:07:20
professional development today
1:07:22
and visit www.nashitlearning.com to explore the full range of titles.
1:07:29
Ryan, quickfire quiz. It's something that shakes the knee of the sternest senior
1:07:37
leaders within schools,
1:07:38
the kind of people you normally turn to for your behavior difficulties within
1:07:42
the building quiver at this very topic,
1:07:45
the quickfire quiz. Okay.
1:07:49
If you are happy to play, you will have one minute to answer as many questions
1:07:54
as possible in as few a word as possible.
1:07:58
And I think it's important that when we have such a heavy show to end on a bit of liberty.
1:08:03
To remember there are things that can put smiles on our faces.
1:08:06
So this is not designed to humiliate or upset. Please be to do a quiz.
1:08:13
You find that my guests get most worried about this part of the show.
1:08:17
Brian, would you like to play? of course you will have one minute to answer
1:08:22
as many questions as possible are you ready?
1:08:25
No but let's do it anyway one word that sums up how men are doing right now
1:08:32
their best what did you have for breakfast this morning?
1:08:37
A six egg omelette. If you could ban one piece of jargon forever, what would it be?
1:08:47
Oh, no, nothing blank. But I'll accept a pass. What's one thing you wish parents
1:08:52
understood about positive mental health?
1:08:56
That this is not a one word answer. That addressing problems can be as powerful
1:09:02
as just talking about problems.
1:09:04
I like it. I can like it. if you weren't a
1:09:07
men's coach what would you be doing for a job i would
1:09:10
i would love to be a builder or if i started my life again
1:09:13
i'd be a dancer ah very cool what
1:09:16
is a quote or idea you actually live by there's a quote by john a shed which
1:09:22
is a ship in harbor is safe but that is not what ships are for well that is
1:09:28
that is a rather amazing quote i that's that's really shock a I think the gong
1:09:33
came from me as that just passed through my brain.
1:09:38
You've got five. So I'm so sorry. I believe she is listening,
1:09:42
Samina. She's still at the bottom of the table.
1:09:45
She panicked on the busiest part of her day, and then that was it.
1:09:48
And I think I humiliate her on every single show that I do. Sorry,
1:09:52
Samina, please still be my friend.
1:09:53
So dear listeners, please don't forget to like, download, comment, and interact.
1:09:58
And with your support, I believe that we can make sure that teachers have a voice in education.
1:10:02
Today has been a really important topic, both personally and professionally.
1:10:07
And it's one that I would really appreciate if people could spread the word.
1:10:11
I think it's such an important message to start getting it out there that there is evidence out there.
1:10:15
There are people working in these areas to ensure that mental health is dealt
1:10:20
with in the right way and looked at.
1:10:22
So you have been listening tonight to The Late Show with Tim Smale on Teachers
1:10:26
Talk Radio. I would like to say a huge thank you to my guest, Ryan Park.
1:10:29
I am so, so grateful for the time, the dedication, the expertise and the effort.
1:10:38
I'm Tim Smale. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you next time.
1:10:46
You've been listening to Teachers Talk Radio. Tune in live and listen back at
1:10:52
ttradio.org We look forward to hearing from you next time on Teachers Talk Radio.