Men's Emotional Health

Man’s Health: New research says feeling connected is essential. Those strong, silent types like Sean Connery’s James Bond and Cowboy John Wayne had it all wrong.
Our culture insists that independence is the male ideal. In fact, it is that feature of a male that puts them at risk for depression, sleepless nights and an inability to deal with difficult issues. We were so deeply wired to this cultural myth that we took it as something nature intended for us.
The science of the past decade has demonstrated that love, companionship and community are woven deeply into our DNA. The bond between men at war or those in a group like ours provides an emotional connection which is biological imperative.
We pay a high cost for ignoring it. Isolation is what’s unnatural—and deadly. More divorced men end up with a serious consequence, including suicide.
Men who have heart attacks and go home to an empty house and a high level of stress are four times more likely to die within the first few years. In fact, for the most isolated amongst us, the risk of premature death from any cause is up to five times higher. One study shows that your mood in you 20's is 80% predictive of your risk of getting Alzheimer’s in your 80's.
It’s not just the big stuff—it’s everyday life too. More connected people are happier and healthier and across the spectrum of life, in thousands of major and minor ways. Your degree of social connection predicts how many colds you’ll get as well as your odds of surviving cancer. Love, friendship and community can’t be written out on a prescription pad, but they should be.
Startling new images from MRI and PET scans show that emotion is at the physical center of our brains. Emotion is not nature’s afterthought, it is one of the master regulators of health and happiness in every corner of your body. You have trillions of emotional signals moving around your brain and body every day. You can’t shut emotions off. Like it or not, you are an emotional animal. It’s as much a part of you as breathing. If you understand this—and take advantage of it—your life will be better and longer. Live like a "hero," and life is likely to be lonely, boring and short.
Men have gone down a weird and perilous road in our society and that is the real reason I put together both the badminton club and the senior tennis league. I like as many women as we can get on the court, but it is the men who need the bonding most. Long commutes, computers and cubicles at work, and TV at home have created a world where isolation is more the norm than the exception. Men bonded more in the old world and when they landed on the shores of the new America. "They had to," said James Fenimore Cooper, "until the time when they would no longer need each other to build the homes, plant the seeds, share the food and network a team so that they would survive in this strange new environment." It was his work that I analyzed in my graduate work and compared it to the view of Walter Dumas Edmunds of the twentieth century. It was the difference of need in the 1700's versus the independence of the 1900's. And so the philosophy was formed in my readings and research in a graduate course in "Folklore" which I took in the mid 60's.

My dream has come true. We have that connection and men are not ashamed of the love they have for one another and the connection they feel that makes the game of tennis much more than just a game. No-one is less of a man because he hugs another man. In my Sicilian culture, men would dance arm-in-arm in the street and hugs and kisses were not considered to be awkward or a reflection of a person’s sexual preference.
Julie read the research in an article entitled, "Why Emotion Keeps You Well" by Henry S. Lodge, M.D. (co-author of "Younger Next Year.") in the Parade section of this past Sunday’s Buffalo News (6/17/07). She thought it was exactly what I had decided to do so many years ago and have continued to do these past twenty years.
Here are the basics: 1) Connect with the people who matter in your life. For many people, their families are dispersed across the country. Friends are becoming the new family. Establishing relationships may not come easily to you, but it is a biological imperative to be part of a group, then reconnecting with your community becomes a life-affirming, lifesaving and urgent priority.
Treat connecting to people like a job. That’s an unfamiliar concept, but if you think about it, it makes sense. Showing up for life is 90% of the equation. You’ve been showing up since the first day of kindergarten and every day at work since you finished school. Well, bring that skill to this new venture.
Learn from women. Start talking with the people around you, and talk about your feelings every once in a while. Women talk with each other all the time, and they generally do this much better than we do. They also—and not coincidentally—outlive men by at least five years. At least some of that is because women work harder at staying emotionally connected. Men who are married live longer than those who are not, but that’s mostly the result of coasting on their wives’ emotional connections.
A woman’s death cuts about five years off her husband’s life expectancy. If a man dies, his wife’s life expectancy dips for the first four years, but then as she adjusts to life without him, it actually increases beyond her married life expectancy.
Make the first move Almost every guy in the world wants more connections, and almost none of us is comfortable taking the first step. Your role is to be the first one who reaches out. Join in on the fun by joining a group of nice people (like our group). And whether today goes well or not, show up again tomorrow and every single day thereafter!
Tune out once in a while. One last thing: if you find yourself spending too much time alone in front of the TV, throw a brick through it, or at the very least, unplug the thing and put it in the basement for a month. There are 150 million guys in America. Let’s start connecting.
Julie was right-on with this information. Men need each other, and are usually very slow in pushing up out of the rocker-recliner, to join in with other men - for the pleasure of the company, friendship and mutual experiences. Now you know the real reason for my dedication to this Senior Tennis League.