Sort Your Head Out: Mental health without all the bollocks

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Remember to take pleasure in the little things- a rainbow, a sunset or a smile from a stranger in the street I must say here that screaming, sobbing and climbing the walls aren’t obligatory. Also, not all the course was painful – there were momentsof wild energy, blissful peace and immense playfulness. The sheer inventiveness of it surprised and delighted me time and again. I feel it works because it’s so intense, so focused and stretches over a week. Knowing you don’t have to ‘gather yourself together’ to face the world at the end of an hour’s session gives the psyche the freedom to let go and allow the tough stuff to surface.

Keeping it all inside was what nearly dragged Sam under. Then he began to open up and share his story with others. Soon his life started to get better and better. Now, he's written this book to help you do the same.Regular exercise and eating a whole food diet is encouraged to maintain our body's optimum health but what about our minds?

Regular physical activity has been proven to have a positive effect on your mental health and wellbeing. This doesn't mean you have to run a marathon; there are lots of other things you can do to keep active! In this extract from his new book, broadcaster and journalist Sam Delaney tells how he embraced a simpler, more idle lifestyle to save his mental health The core message is accurate and a lot resonates. Some practical advice. A yet another good book to put on the shelf marked "Shirk, Rest and Play".

Surprise yourself and try something different. Achieving a goal or learning something new can increase your confidence as well as being fun. We all have something we'd like to try. Do it today!

Find out what classes are available in your community and sign up for something that takes your interest Liked the look of this one and Sam Delaney (Journalist, podcaster, editor) looks like someone to investigate more. I craved stimulation at all times. I was terrified of even fleeting moments of boredom. I thought of myself as being constantly on the run from lapsing into that fat bored kid I had once been. The truth is, I was probably just scared of ever being alone with my own unfiltered thoughts. I am still very much a work in progress. I still overdo it sometimes. I still say yes to things I shouldn’t. I sometimes fill dead evenings with chocolate and make myself an espresso at 8 p.m. at night because . . . I don’t know why – it’s just something to do, innit?Sort Your Head Out” is Sam Delaney’s attempt to draft a no-nonsense guide to men’s mental health. He does so less through recourse to medical or academic research, but largely by drawing on his own experience of crushing anxiety, alcoholism, and drug addiction. In doing so, Delaney has written a self-help guide free of earnest psychobabble that seeks to connect with a group often overlooked in the discourse on mental health: working class men. In 2018 I had a complete nightmare, losing my radio show and TV show within a couple of months of each other. Shortly afterwards, my production company descended into a state of financial pandemonium and all sorts of professional and deeply personal conflict ensued. I was miserable, exhausted and scared of the future. I had been sober for three years and, despite the prevailing chaos, I wasn’t once tempted to throw myself off the wagon. I figured however bad things seemed, my mental health would be a great deal worse with a hangover. Mind you, this was the first big test I had faced since I quit drink. The book is very episodic and comes across slightly repetitive. I imagine a lot of the text may have started off life as a blog. It has a very bloggy feel about it. Chapter 18 is typical starting;

But when he reached his thirties, work, relationships and fatherhood started to take their toll. Like so many blokes who seemed to be totally fine, he often felt like a complete failure whose life was out of control; anxiety and depression had secretly plagued him for years. Turning to drink and drugs only made things worse. Sam knew he needed help – the problem was that he thought self-help was for hippies, sobriety was for weirdos and therapy was for neurotics.The Scottish Association for Mental Health is urging people to to talk to friends and family about any mental health issues they may be dealing with. When I landed my first job in journalism I told myself that the best way to succeed was to never stop. When I finished at the office I would go home and write down ideas, do bits of research, read other newspapers and magazines obsessively. I was a product of Thatcherism – totally in thrall to my own productivity. I didn’t just want a steady job that paid the bills. I wanted to create great things constantly and be defined by them. And I also wanted to get totally shitfaced every weekend (plus sometimes on a Thursday).