Dear Dr. Diamond,

I am forty-eight and have been married 26 years.  I’m noticing that I am unusually cross and nasty with my wife who I love very much.  It just comes out unexpectedly before I realize it.  Then it is too late.  I feel like apologizing, but somehow I never do.  I can see the hurt in her eyes and I feel terribly guilty.  I don’t understand why I do this.  Can you help me?  John

Although Irritable Male Syndrome and Male Menopause can occur at any age, it is quite prevalent at mid-life. What is it about mid-life that causes men to become angry?  Why do they take it out on the person they say they love the most?   These are the kinds of questions I hear from women who are trying to understand what is going on in their relationship.

In order to understand what is going on with men at mid-life, we have to recognize that mid-life is a difficult time for women as well as men.  In fact, middle age is the worst time of life for most people.  An international study of 2 million people from 80 nations found that men and women in their 40′s were more likely to be depressed and weren’t as happy as other ages.  The researchers found happiness levels followed a U shaped curve, with happiness higher towards the start and end of our lives and leaving us most miserable in middle age.

Interestingly, in the U.S. they found a significant difference between men and women with unhappiness reaching a peak at around 40 years of age for women and 50 years of age for men.  I think this is one of the reasons that women are often “blind-sided.”  The unhappiness men feel surfaces at different times than it does for women.  The woman’s happiness has been on the upswing for 10 years and all of a sudden her man tells her he’s unhappy and wants to move out.

The researchers found the same U-shape in happiness levels and life satisfaction for 72 countries from Albania, Argentina, and Australia to Iceland, Iraq, and Ireland, to the United States, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe.  When asked what he thought caused this mid-life unhappiness, lead researcher Dr. Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick in England said he wasn’t sure.  “My best conjecture is that people eventually learn to quell their infeasible aspirations,” he says. “They manage to get their expectations into line with what they can actually achieve.”

Many men feel unhappy and, not understanding why, blame their partners.  It can be helpful to know that the mid-life slump in happiness may be affecting everyone and won’t be solved by leaving their wives or finding another partner. “It looks from the data like something happens deep inside humans,” says Dr. Oswald.  “For the average person in the modern world, the dip in mental health and happiness comes on slowly, not suddenly in a single year. Only in their 50′s do most people emerge from the low period. But encouragingly, by the time you are 70, if you are still physically fit then on average you are as happy and mentally healthy as a 20 year old.”

Oswald concludes with hope that if people can understand what is doing on with men and women at mid-life, it might help them get through this stage without wrecking their relationship.  “Perhaps realizing that such feelings are completely normal in midlife might even help individuals survive this phase better.”

I tell men and women that being unhappy doesn’t mean someone is to blame.  Mid-life is like adolescence in that respect.  Remember when we were going through puberty? We could go from very up to very down without anything happening.  It helps to remember that mid-life is just a downer for many of us.  Hang in there and you’ll find life getting sweeter as you get older.

Don’t ever let your man convince you that you are the cause of his unhappiness.  I tell people, “It’s your life, not your wife, that needs to be fixed.”

The real causes of mid-life woes are related to the losses that many men feel and their inability to talk about them, change what can be changed, and accept what we must.  Not all men experience all these losses, but most men experience many of them:

• Hormone levels are dropping.
• Sexual vigor is diminishing.
• Erections are less frequent and less firm.
• The beautiful image we had of our partner when we first fell in love is replaced by one who looks much older and less attractive to us.
• Our own image of youthful vigor and physical prowess has changed to one where we see a “dottery old-man.”
• Children are leaving home.
• We long to follow them, but feel trapped in a life we’re not sure we chose.
• Parents are getting sick and dying..
• Retirement seems less and less possible.
• Friends are having their first heart attacks and cancer scares.
• Hopes and dreams are fading away.

Although mid-life men and women may both be unhappy, men more often express their unhappiness through anger.  Women more often express their unhappiness through sadness.  Men “act out” their pain and often blame those closest to them.  Women “act in” their pain and often feel guilty and blame themselves when things go wrong in the relationship.  Women are more likely to talk about the losses they are experiencing.   Men tend to keep their feelings bottled up.

“How can I get him to open up and talk to me?”  This is one of the most common questions I get from women.  It isn’t easy, I know.  But here’s a simple thing you can do.  Go for a walk.  Over the years, I’ve found that men are more comfortable with “side-side” communication, rather than communicating “face-to-face.”  He’s more likely to open up when you’re walking and you’re not looking into each other’s eyes.

There may be a biological basis for the different ways the sexes deal with their feelings when they are under stress.  We’ve all heard of the stress response in which our bodies prepare us for “fight” or “flight.”  When a wild animal burst into the camp of our hunter-gatherer ancestors they would either fight the intruder or run for their lives.  Until recently we assumed that the way men and women dealt with stress was the same.

But fight or flight is only part of a bigger picture, according to Shelley Taylor, Ph.D., a psychology professor at UCLA.   Taylor and her colleagues found that stress can elicit another behavioral pattern they call “tend and befriend”–especially in females.  Taylor’s team found that, during tough times, stressed females spend significantly more time tending to vulnerable offspring than males.  They also found that women reached out to female friends and relatives more.

Men, particularly, as they age have fewer close friends and have more superficial connections with family than is true for women.  My wife tells me that the best thing I ever did for our marriage was joining a men’s group.  She believes, as do I, that the “befriending” I experience in my men’s group helps keep me from being so angry around my wife.

I’ve also gotten much closer to my adult children as well as our grandchildren.  Life can get lonelier as we age.  Being involved with young people, “tending” them, not only keeps us feeling young, but it gives our lives meaning and purpose.  Often midi-life men who seem mean, are hungry to be of help to others.  We feel mean and ugly when we don’t feel we have anything valuable to contribute.  Being deeply involved with friends and family can be the most important antidote to IMS and male menopause that we have.

You may want to write down your own thoughts.  How do you feel when he blames you for his unhappiness?  What losses has your man experienced?  What losses have you experienced?  As they ask in AA recovery circles, what’s helped you to accept those things that can’t be changed, to change the things that you can change, and the wisdom to know the difference? Please share your comments below.

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This is typical of the thousands of letters and e-mails I have received from women all over the world since The Irritable Male Syndrome:  Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression was first published by Rodale in 2004.  I get the question, why is my husband so angry?, a lot. More and more women are feeling the pain of living with an angry male and want help for themselves, their children, and for the man they all love.

Anger is an increasingly serious problem in our society today according to Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and former President of the American Psychological Association. “Out-of-hand anger ruins many lives,” he says.  “More, I believe, than schizophrenia, more than alcohol, more than AIDS.  Maybe even more than depression.”  Seligman’s research also shows that when couples fight, it can damage their children, often in lasting ways.

Anger Manifests in Different Forms 

Paul Ekman, Ph.D., one of the world’s experts on emotions and author of Emotions Revealed, says that anger is expressed in many ways.  “There is a range of angry feelings, from slight annoyance to rage.  There are not just differences in the strength of angry feelings, but also differences in the kind of anger felt.  Indignation is self-righteous anger, sulking is passive anger; exasperation refers to having one’s patience tried excessively.  Revenge is a type of angry action usually committed after a period of reflection about the offense.”

We often perceive anger as a negative emotion that can damage people and their relationships, yet anger can also lead to emotional and spiritual growth.  The practices readers will learn in the book can deepen and enrich their ability to be more loving to their partner and to others.  In his book Anger:  Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hahn says, “In the past, we were allied in making each other suffer more, allied in the escalation of anger.  “Now we want to be allied in taking good care of our sorrow, our anger, and our frustration.  We want to negotiate a strategy for peace.”

Stressed Out Men Become Angry

Most of us recognize that stress is increasing in our lives.  We notice it as we drive to work, when we feel rushed and overwhelmed, when we come home to relax, but find more and more things at home that demand our attention.  In my years counseling men and women, I have found that men and women often express stress in their lives differently.  Women often “act in” their stress and feel sad and depressed.  Men, on the other hand, often “act out” their stress and become irritable and angry.

Women often internalize their pain and blame themselves for their problems.  Men often externalize their pain and blame the women in their lives.  When I counsel men, I often hear a litany of complaints that often focus on their wives.  After listening and empathizing I begin to help them recognize that it isn’t their “wife” that is the problem, but rather their “life” that is out of balance.  I also help them see that the stress isn’t just coming from their internal state of being, but also results from the world around us.

We are living at a time of major earth changes.  We have moved beyond the era of peak oil and are reaching limits of all our natural resources, what author Richard Heinberg describes as “peak everything.”  Our economy is changing rapidly and more and more people are out of work or worried about losing their jobs.  Global warming is real and we are all feeling the effects of a planet that has an increasingly “high fever.”

 Healing Ourselves, Healing Our Planet 

Most of us are tired of war and would like human beings to get along with each other.  But it seems that wars go on and on.    The truth is that we can’t stop wars until we learn to stop fighting with our mates.  If we can’t learn to get along with the one we love, how can we expect to get along with people we don’t know and don’t understand?  The good news is that we are learning how to become more peaceful partners.  We are learning the skills of non-violent communication.  We are learning how to listen with a more open heart, to put ourselves in the shoes of the other person.

Here’s a little exercise that developed by the folks at the Institute of HeartMath and it’s guaranteed to reduce stress in your life and help you feel more loving:

1. Put your attention on the area around your heart.  Place your hand there to feel the life pulsing through you.
2. Imagine that with each breath you breathe in you are taking in healing energy through your heart and with each breath you breathe out you send that loving energy out to someone you’d like to feel more loving towards.
3. Think of a time when you felt deep gratitude.  It could be a memory of one of your children, or when you first fell in love, or the time you were overwhelmed by the beauty of a sunset.
4. Continue to breathe while you hold this memory of gratitude.

Think what it would mean if everyone in the world did this exercise three or four times a day.  Are you willing to start?  It’s easy and you have nothing to lose but your anger.

You can also take the Quiz to learn more.

What do you think? What tools have been effective for you in dealing with your, or your mate’s, anger?

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In Newtown, 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed 26 people, including 20 six and seven year-old children.  In Boston, 19 year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect, has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction in the deaths of three people and wounding of 170.  His older brother was killed in a shootout with police following the bombing. 

Within weeks after the Newtown killings, Warren Farrell, Ph.D. wrote an article for USA Today titled “Guns don’t kill people — our sons do.”  After Newtown many parents cried out, “What’s making our children kill?” But it is not our children who are killing says Farrell, “It is our sons.”  He reminds us that “All but one of the 62 mass killings in the past 30 years was committed by boys or men….It’s time we go beyond fighting over guns to raising our sons.”  Farrell, one of the world’s experts on men’s health is calling on President Obama to use his power to focus national attention on males.  “With one executive order, President Obama can create a White House Council on Men and Boys to work with the Council on Women and Girls he formed in 2009.”  Farrell’s proposal and the research he cites in support of his proposal can found at http://www.warrenfarrell.name/. 

A national focus on men and boys would recognize the importance of rites of passage for males as a critically important means of preventing violence.  I recently returned from southern California where my 15 year-old grandson and I attended a powerful rite of passage experience, the Call to Adventure, sponsored by the Los Angeles Men’s Center.

Center director, Stephen Johnson, Ph.D told us, “Our young males are yearning for a sense of belonging.  Inner city youth, succumbing to the dramatic absence of fathering and mentoring, turn to urban gangs for a sense of belonging.  Males from privileged and underprivileged backgrounds often perceive acquisitions as the measure of manhood.”  Johnson started offering the Call to Adventure retreats 14 years ago to make a difference in the lives of young men and older mentors.

There were more than 40 boys, many from poor, inner city neighborhoods, who attended the 4 day retreat.  Some of the most powerful experiences occurred when we met in small tribal groups facilitated by trained leaders and attended by 8-10 boys and their mentors.  We went around the circle and talked about why we were here.  My grandson, Deon, opened up immediately and told the group, “I’m lost in my life and I need guidance.”  Young and old knew what he meant and many shared their own feelings of being lost.  For the first time I had a deep experience of the violence that so many of these kids live with every day.  One boy talked about killings he had seen in his neighborhood and Deon also talked about people he knew who had been murdered.  Another young boy said that didn’t want a lot in life, just to know that he would survive another day.

Steve Branker, one of the Men’s Center organizers said, “The pressures that these young men face in everyday life are astounding. Instead of primarily dealing with such things as schoolwork and girlfriends, they are dealing with whether or not they will come back alive after they walk out of their homes each day.”

I thought to myself, “God, they’re so small and what they are dealing with is so big.”  I felt the terrible loss and pain that so many experience, but also the courage they had to break free of the life of violence and to reach for something better.  I felt deeply blessed to be able to share this experience with my grandson and the other mentors who were committed to helping these kids survive their childhood and grow into adults who had something they could look forward to in life.

After 4 days together we had gotten very close, had confronted fears, and made commitments for the future.  But we knew that this was just the beginning.  As we gathered for our final goodbyes Stephen Johnson reminded us about why we were here and what we still had to accomplish.  “Our boys, young men, and our mature men are calling on us to explore with clarity what the role of fathers, grandfathers, and mentors should be. If we do not provide a sacred role for our boys as they grow, they are more likely to join a gang, abuse their lovers, abandon their wives and children, subsist in emotional isolation, and become addicted, hyper-materialistic, lonely, and unhappy.”

Johnson told us about his many years of experience offering rites of passage for males.  “A boy needs a structure and discipline in which to learn who he is. He needs to live a journey that has clear responsibilities and goals. He needs a role in life. Without these, without the role training that accompanies these, he does not know his sacred and important objectives in life.”  Deon leaned over and whispered to me, “Can I come back next year?”  I told him I would do everything I could to see that he was able to come back. 

I would like to see programs like these available to every young male in America.  Rites of passage have been a part of traditional societies throughout human history.  It has only been in recent times that our culture no longer offers them and male violence has increased.  We need to re-institute these important aspects of community life for all our young, but particularly for our young men.

Malidoma Patrice Some´ Phd., is a West African Elder, author and teacher.  He has come to the west to share the ancient wisdom and practices which have supported his people for thousands of years.   He describes the importance of elders who can support and perform rites of passage for the young males in society.  He says, “Elders and mentors have an irreplaceable function in the life of any community.  Without them, the young are lost—their overflowing energies wasted in useless pursuits.  The old must live in the young like a grounding force that tames the tendency towards bold but senseless actions and shows them the path of wisdom.  In the absence of elders, the impetuosity of youth becomes the slow death of the community.”  If we want to keep our communities alive and free from violence, we need more rites of passage for young men.  

I’d love to hear your input.  Please share a comment below.

But the reality was different.  She got back to her old self, but our problems remained.  After one of our many blow-ups she suggested, in her usual kind way, that maybe I was going through some kind of male change of life.  I was insulted.  It was bad enough that I had to go through her menopause, she wasn’t going to turn me into a she-male going through my own male menopause.  No way!

I decided to explore the changes that men go through between the ages of 40 and 55 and prove to her that it was nothing like what women went through.  Surely there was no such thing as “male menopause.”  At first, my preconceptions were validated.  Most doctors and health-care professionals were convinced that men might go through some kind of psychological or social mid-life crisis, but only women had hormonal changes.  And of course only women could have an end to their menstrual cycles since only women had menstrual cycles to begin with.

The first shock to my belief that male menopause was a myth came when I got the results from a questionnaire I had developed detailing possible hormonal, psychological, and social changes that men and women experience.  I had asked questions about “hot flashes,” sure that this was something only women had.  To my surprise, I found that 25% to 35% of the men I surveyed said they had times where they were burning up and had sweats, even when the room was cool.

From there I decided to bite the bullet and do a more in-depth study.  Based on the results I wrote three books, Male Menopause, Surviving Male Menopause, and The Irritable Male Syndrome.  After years of research I concluded, “Male menopause (also called Andropause) begins with hormonal, physiological, and chemical changes that occur in all men generally between the ages of forty and fifty-five, though it can occur as early as thirty-five or as late as sixty-five.  These changes affect all aspects of a man’s life.  Male menopause is, thus, a physical condition with psychological, interpersonal, social, and spiritual dimensions.”

“The purpose of male menopause is to signal the end of the first part of a man’s life and prepare him for the second half.  Male menopause is not the beginning of the end, as many fear, but the end of the beginning.  It is the passage to the most passionate, powerful, productive, and purposeful time of a man’s life.”

Many men were still skeptical, but women got it right away.  “Of course, men experience hormonal changes.  I’m glad someone finally acknowledged it.”  When men recognized that there was help and the help could improve their sex life, they were on board as well.  The main skeptics seemed to be the medical professional, mostly male, who didn’t want to admit that there was any “real change” going on for them or their patients.  I got nasty letters and guys walking out of the room when I presented at professional conferences.

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer reminds us that “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”   We’ve definitely passed through the first stage and second stage.  My books have been translated into more than 20 foreign languages and I’ve been asked to present my findings at conferences throughout the world.  I get letters from men and women telling me that what they have learned from my books have saved their relationships and in some cases saved their lives.

Even the medical community is getting on board.  Kenneth Goldberg, M.D., former Medical Director of the Male Health Institute says, “Men know little about their bodies and even less about their aging process.  Male Menopause provides valuable information that can help a man and his partner live better and longer.” 

It’s a clear indicator that the male change of life is real, when we now have our own term, manopause.  In their book Manopause:  Your Guide to Surviving His Changing Life, authors Lisa Bloch and Kathy Silverman tackle his changes head on.  The truth is we’re all in this together, men and women.  We can recognize that we are all fully human and have hormonal, physiological, psychological, sexual, social, cultural, and spiritual changes.  But there are differences between men and women at all stages of life, and that’s wonderful.

What’s your experience with Male Menopause?  Please share a comment below.

You also take the Male Menopause Quiz.

In this era of sexual equality we sometimes forget that we aren’t just human beings.  We are also male human beings or female human beings.  Bly reminds us that we are male or female right down to our very cells.  And those cells sing a different song depending on whether we carry an XY in our genetic makeup or an XX. 

Many of us have been raised by women because our fathers have been absent, either physically or emotionally.  Many of our teachers in the early years were women.  We hunger to know that unique experience of being surrounded by a symphony of powerful, loving men.

I drove down to Bakersfield on Tuesday and picked up my grandson, Deon, and took him to Los Angeles to participate in a rites of passage adventure for young men.  Deon is 15 years old and we’ll be joining other young men and their mentors—fathers, grandfathers, uncles, teachers—to be together for four days.  This is The 14th Annual Call to Adventure Rites of Passage Retreat (CTA) offered by the Los Angeles Men’s Center.

I’m hoping this will give us an opportunity to deepen our connection with each other and also other men.  This is a critical time in a young man’s life and I’m hoping this will help set him on the right path towards becoming the man he’ll feel proud to become.  Wish us well.  

How has a mentor impacted your life?  And/or how has being a mentor impacted your life?

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I went to his website and learned that The TreeSpirit Project is many things, including: 1. a collection of fine art photographs by Jack Gescheidt of naked, vulnerable humans celebrating trees and the natural world; 2. the life-changing experiences people have making the photographs; all are volunteers, not paid models; 3. a mission to spread awareness of the critical role trees play in our lives, both globally and personally.

I sent Jack a note suggesting he might be interested in our efforts in Willits to protect the Little Lake Valley and stop the Caltrans bypass. 

To my surprise he called back right away and said he had already heard about our efforts and was coming to Willits that night to tell the group about his work and see whether there would be support for a picture that would capture our love for our valley and our desire to protect it from the devastation a Caltrans freeway would cause.

After Jack shared his work at the meeting, there was a heated debate about whether a nude photo would help the cause or create more opposition.  Some felt that a powerful photo with media coverage would attract positive attention.  Others felt that it might alienate the more conservative members of the community. 

I felt the concerns that we not cause dissention in our group, yet I felt that Jack’s work was powerful and engaging.  I liked what he had done in other parts of the country, particularly his work with the ancient forest defenders putting their bodies on the line to protect 1,000-year-old redwoods threatened by a highway widening project by Caltrans, just north of us, in Humboldt County.  There is a movie, “Out on a Limb,” being made about Jack’s work, which gives you a good feel for his generous heart and spirit.  

I’m glad Jack came to Willits and I’m glad he was able to bring us together and take the picture “Living Valley.”  See if you can find me in the picture (above).  Aren’t bodies beautiful and vulnerable, just like our trees?

Though I feel good about my own life and I feel I’ve helped a lot of people deal with male stress and depression the world still seems stressed, depressed, and in a mess.  Some would have us believe that the world is populated by evil people and if we could just get rid of them, things would improve.

But maybe we need a different way of looking at things.   Research psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen says the problem isn’t evil, but erosion of empathy.  In his book, The Science of Evil:  On Empathy and the Origin of Cruelty, he says, “Empathy erosion can arise because of corrosive emotions, such as bitter resentment, or desire for revenge, or blind hatred, or even a desire to protect.”

Roman Krznaric is a cultural thinker and writer on the art of living.  He thinks that “Outrospection” may save the world.  “I believe that empathy – the imaginative act of stepping into another person’s shoes and viewing the world from their perspective – is a radical tool for social change and should be a guiding light for the art of living,” says Krznaric.  “Over the past decade, I have become convinced that it has the power not only to transform individual lives, but to help tackle some of the great problems of our age, from wealth inequality to violent conflicts and climate change.”

Kznaric invites us to JOIN THE EMPATHY REVOLUTION IN 5 EASY STEPS!  I’ve joined.  (Make sure you watch the 10 minute RSA Animate Video – I Promise it will enliven your day!) Check it out and tell me what you think.  

Please join me on Twitter.

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My wife and I moved to Willits from the San Francisco bay area in 1991 because we wanted to live in a small town where there was a sense of community and people lived more in balance with nature.  Moving here was the best decision of our lives and we’re here to stay.  But the peace and prosperity of our community is being threatened by the proposed freeway that would devastate the valley which is the heart and soul of Willits.

I still remember reading about the area in the Mendocino County visitor’s guide.  “Willits nestles in the bucolic Little Lake Valley in the mountains of California’s Coast Range. Travelers literally cannot miss Willits; US 101, the County’s main inland artery, runs right through town. It stops being a highway long enough to become Main Street (encountering the first traffic light north of the Golden Gate Bridge) and gives the traveler a close look at this quaint western town.”

We loved the fact that the highway comes through our town.  It brings the world to us.  My office is right on Main Street and I enjoy the hustle-bustle of a vibrant community.

For decades the Federal Highway Administration and the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) have been pursuing a freeway bypass on Highway 101 around the town of Willits.  For decades the townsfolk have been suggesting simpler, less costly, and less destructive alternatives.

I would much rather get back to my regular routine, but sometimes we have to stand up and put our bodies on the line in support of the land.  Author Sam Keen captured this for me when he said, “The new human vocation is to heal the earth.

1. We can only heal what we love.
2. We can only love what we know.
3. We can only know what we touch.”

If you want to learn more about our efforts go here:  http://www.savelittlelakevalley.org/

What part of your world needs protecting?

I created an article that I’d like to offer you that is based on a chapter from my latest book, MenAlive: Stop Killer Stress With Simple Energy Healing Tools.

The article is titled: 7 Secrets You Must Know to Protect Yourself From Stress.

To receive a free copy simply enter your name and email below and it will be emailed directly to you.  Thanks again for your support.

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She and I had married young.  I was 22 and she was 19.  We had a little boy three years after we married and then adopted a little girl three years later.  My life revolved around my career.  I got good at it and felt proud that I could support our growing family.  My wife and I were happy in those early years and it felt like we were a team.  She managed the home and I brought in the income to buy the things we needed.  I thought I was doing the right thing.  I thought we had it all.  I didn’t think I needed to work to make and keep friends.  I thought I just had to work to keep my wife and kids happy.  It took me a long time to realize how wrong I was.

Psychologist Herb Goldberg captured the reality of men’s health and their men experience in his book, The Hazards of Being Male:  Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege.  “The male has paid a heavy price for his masculine ‘privilege’ and power.  He is out of touch with his emotions and his body.  He is playing by the rules of the male game plan, and with lemming-like purpose he is destroying himself—emotionally, psychologically, and physically.”

Will Courtney, Ph.D. is one of the world’s experts on men’s health.  In his 2011 book, Dying to Be Men, he details the current research findings that show that men die sooner and live sicker.  “Men in the United States have greater socioeconomic advantages than women,” he says.  “These advantages, which include higher social status and higher-paid jobs, provide men with better access to health-related resources.”  That’s the upside of being male.

But there is also a down side.  “Despite these advantages, men—on average—are at greater risk of serious chronic disease, injury, and death than women.”  For nearly all 15 leading causes of death including heart disease, cancer, stroke, accidents, diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, suicide, and homicide;  men and boys have higher age-adjusted death rates than women and girls.  The only exception is Alzheimer’s disease where women die at higher rates than men.

Over the years I’ve learned the benefits of such things as good nutrition and exercise to helping us live more healthy lives.  I’ve only recently learned about the benefits of social connection.  In their book Loneliness:  Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection researchers John Cacioppo and William Patrick say that “social isolation is on a par with high blood pressure, obesity, lack of exercise, or smoking as a risk factor for illness and early death.”  Now that surprised me.  I never would have thought that lack of social connections could actually cause serious medical problems.

Studies also demonstrate that men, as a group, have fewer social connections than women.  In workshops over the years I have asked the women in the audience, “how many of you have a number of close friends that you talk to about important things in your life and who you turn to when you are hurting physically or emotionally?”  Most all the women raise their hands.  When I ask the same question of men, very few raise their hands.  Most women have many close friends and confidants among their relatives and friends.  For most men, their only real friend may be their spouse and if there’s trouble in the relationship, they are totally alone.

I learned that, like me, men often have fewer and fewer close friends as we get older.  This may contribute to the fact that the suicide rate for men goes up dramatically as we age.  Thomas Joiner, Ph.D. author of Lonely at the Top:  The High Cost of Men’s Success says, “Men’s main problem is not self-loathing, stupidity, greed, or any of the legions of other things they’re accused of.  The problem, instead is loneliness.”

Joiner notes that with age, men gradually lose contact with friends and family.  “And here’s the important part,” he tells us, “they don’t replenish them.”  Instead of maintaining our friendships and developing new ones when old friends slip away, we look for Band-Aid solutions to cover our loneliness.  Some of us become more workaholic, others escape into alcohol or drugs.  Some have extra-marital affairs.  These pseudo-solutions only serve to increase our loneliness.

Most of us realize that it’s never too late to change our diet or improve our exercise.  Likewise, it’s never too late for us to admit we’re lonely, reach out to others, improve our relationships, and make new friends.  It may be the best health advice we’ll ever receive.  The alternative isn’t pleasant.  A postmortem report on a suicide decedent, a man in his sixties, read, “He did not have friends…He did not feel comfortable with other men…he did not trust doctors and would not seek help even though he was aware that he needed help.”

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