Self-care for Men By Ericka Foster
Men are tough. And men who have done some time might be the toughest. So when you throw out terms like “self-care” to a tough guy, they bounce off him like raindrops on an umbrella. Or do they? "Men just deal with stress differently," Edward Hallowell, MD, explains in a WebMD article. Dr. Hallowell is founder of the Hallowell Center in Sudbury, Mass., and author of Crazy Busy: Overstretched, Overbooked and About to Snap! Strategies for Coping in a World Gone ADD." Men tend to judge their value on performance, and the additional obstacles of being released from prison can be…stressful to say the least. The physical signs of stress include fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, headaches, indigestion, skin problems, and sexual dysfunction. But often men don’t think that they can slow down enough acknowledge those things. The emotional effects of stress such as sadness, insomnia, job satisfaction, anger, or mood swings can too easily be chalked up to “life”, instead of what they really are – red flags. Stress is going to happen. In fact, some stress is actually healthy, it can encourage a man to be more competitive and reach a goal. Self-care can help identify that stress and curtail it before it gets out of hand. "Men notoriously have trouble putting their feelings into words," says Dr. Hallowell in the WebMD article. "They bottle things up so they're more subject to the damages of stress." A man can use the technology at his fingertips to record or type in the things on his mind without feeling like a 12-year-old girl recording things in a journal. Those recordings can be kept safely behind a password where only he knows they exist, and they give him the chance to process his feelings. Talk therapy Fortunately, more and more people are talking about the benefits of therapy and mental health care. Olympic swimmer and gold medalist Michael Phelps is a spokesperson for Talkspace, a company offering teletherapy. In a recent episode of NBC’s This is Us, African American characters Sterling K. Brown and Omar Epps discuss the value of therapy. There are many opportunities for those re-entering society to participate in discussion groups. In
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