The body speaks before men do: Stress, resilience and a different kind of Men’s Health Week

By Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas CBiol

Most men I’ve worked with over the years do not usually begin by saying, “I’m struggling with my health.” They are much more likely to say they are tired, busy, wired, irritable, flat, distracted, not sleeping properly, drinking a bit more than usual, training harder than they probably need to, or finding it difficult to switch off. They may notice that their digestion has changed, that their patience is thinner, that their relationship with food has become more chaotic, or that they keep pushing through the day on coffee and momentum. And when someone asks how they are, the answer may still be, “I’m fine.”

That word can carry a lot. Sometimes it really does mean fine. But it can also mean barely functional, overloaded, or not quite ready to say more.

This is one of the reasons I find Men’s Health Week both important and slightly frustrating. Don’t get me wrong. The usual message “go and get checked” does matter, and keeping an eye on your blood pressure and prostate health is mighty important, as is not ignoring persistent pain, unusual fatigue, changes in mood, sleep or appetite.

Medical care saves lives. But men’s health cannot begin only at the point of screening, diagnosis or crisis, because so much of health happens earlier, in the daily relationship between our bodies and the demands we place upon them. It happens in the way asking for support can feel like stepping outside an invisible code. That code can shape how we carry stress, how we translate emotion into tension or silence, and how easily we convince ourselves that rest is indulgent or that skipping meals is somehow fine.

That code has a name. We tend to call it “masculinity,” although, take it from me, there is no single version of masculinity and no single way to be a man. Still, many of us have grown up with some version of the same message: be strong, be useful, be capable, be in control, do not make a fuss, don’t be needy, do not fall apart.

The problem is that our bodies do not become healthier when we ignore them. In fact, the needs we ignore tend to become louder.

Strength masked as silence

A 2025 systematic review in the American Journal of Men’s Health looked at how traditional masculinity norms affect men’s willingness to seek mental health support. Across 47 studies, the review found that norms around emotional stoicism (the classic “I’m fine” I mentioned earlier), self-reliance and toughness can make it harder for us to seek help, even when we are experiencing significant distress (Mokhwelepa and Sumbane, 2025).

It would be easy to take this too far and treat masculinity itself as the enemy. But I think that argument is too blunt, and usually unhelpful. I don’t consider myself a particularly masculine man in the conventional sense, but I do believe that many qualities associated with masculinity, such as perseverance, responsibility, protectiveness, practical problem-solving and commitment to others, can be really valuable. The question is what happens when those qualities become rigid.

Perseverance can become self-erasure. Responsibility can become never asking for help. Protectiveness can become emotional absence. Problem-solving can become an attempt to fix everything except the fact that the body is exhausted and screaming for a couple of extra hours in bed.

One of the more interesting points in the same review is that some traditionally masculine values can be reframed as resources. Strength does not have to mean emotional suppression. It can mean noticing when we are reaching capacity. Likewise, self-reliance does not have to mean isolation. It can mean knowing which tools help us stay balanced, and when we need another person beside us to help us get on an even keel, physically and/or emotionally.

That distinction matters because many men do not respond well to being told that everything they have learned about strength is wrong. It can feel patronising, and it can miss the reality that many men are trying, in the only language we were given, to keep going for the people we love. A more useful question might be: what would strength look like if it included recovery?

This also cuts across gender identity and sexual orientation. As a queer man, I see these patterns in cisgender heterosexual men, but also in gay, bi, trans and queer men, and in many people shaped by masculine socialisation in different ways. Masculinity is not one thing, and it does not belong to one kind of body or one kind of man. That is why the conversation needs to be wide enough to include the many ways people inherit, perform, resist, soften or redefine what strength is allowed to mean.

Stress as load, not weakness

From a neuroscience perspective, it is clear that stress is a biological response to demand, not a moral failure. When the brain perceives threat, pressure, uncertainty or overload, the body shifts resources towards action. Heart rate can rise, muscles prepare, attention narrows, digestion becomes less of a priority and the stress response, in short bursts, helps us respond.

The difficulty comes when stress becomes the background setting. Many men are not dealing with one dramatic stressor. In a 2022 focus group study published in PLOS ONE, researchers explored men’s perceptions of mental health and what makes mental health promotion feel more or less acceptable to men. One participant described stress as “death by a thousand cuts” (Sharp et al., 2022). Work pressure, family responsibility, money concerns, shrinking friendships, sleep disruption, relationship strain, uncertainty about the future, and a culture that still rewards being able to cope without visible support can all accumulate until the body starts carrying more than it can comfortably process. Past a certain age, caring for ageing parents is another massive load to carry that no one prepares us for. Our body may be able to absorb the impact of these stressors for a long time, but it does not do it without cost.

Chronic stress affects sleep, mood, digestion, immune signalling, metabolic health, libido, motivation and emotional regulation. It can make small things feel disproportionately irritating. It can also make rest feel impossible even when you are exhausted and make food either too much effort or too available as comfort. We can end up feeling like our body is something we drag through the day rather than something we inhabit.

Neuroimaging studies of stress responses have found that men and women engage somewhat different neural networks during sustained stress. Men tended to show greater responses in prefrontal cortical regions, while women showed stronger responses in limbic and striatal regions. In the same study, men also reported lower emotional awareness than women, which may matter when we think about how stress first shows up in the body (Goldfarb et al., 2019).

Now, as a neuroscientist, I would be careful not to overinterpret this. No group of men or women fits neatly into one neurobiological category. But these findings fit something many practitioners observe in real life, i.e., that some men do not first experience stress as a clearly labelled emotion. We may experience it as tightness, agitation, tiredness, restlessness, digestive discomfort, urgency, withdrawal or the sense that everything would be fine if everyone would just stop asking questions for ten minutes.

Nervous system literacy becomes useful here. It gives men a way to understand stress without having to start with a big emotional disclosure. We do not have to announce, “I am overwhelmed.” We might simply begin by noticing, “My jaw is tight, my stomach is off, I’m snapping at people I love, and I haven’t eaten properly today.” This is our nervous system sending us priceless information, in real time.

The body keeps giving clues

One of the reasons I work so much with the gut-brain connection is that the body is constantly communicating with the brain. Not in a mystical way, but through nerve signals, immune messengers, hormones, microbial metabolites, blood glucose changes, sensory input and inflammatory pathways. In plain English, your gut, immune system, endocrine system and brain are in conversation 24 hours a day.

In real life, this means food is more than fuel. It is also rhythm, texture, temperature, pleasure, predictability, chemistry and context. A meal eaten standing up in a stress state is not received by the body in quite the same way as a meal eaten with a little more time, breath and attention. The food may be the same, but your nervous system context is different. That does not mean every meal has to become a mindfulness ritual. Most people do not need another thing to feel bad about. I certainly don’t! But it does mean that small shifts matter.

A proper breakfast after days of running on coffee, a warm bowl of something simple after work, a few more plants across the week, or enough protein to support energy and neurotransmitter production. These all count. As does a bitter leaf, a handful of herbs, some fermented food, or a cup of tea that marks the end of one part of the day and the beginning of another.

And you may be thinking that these things can sound almost too ordinary to count, but your nervous system tends to respond to ordinary things when they happen consistently enough. The trick is not necessarily doing more, but making the helpful things easier to repeat. Because your nervous system, and that includes your brain, learns by repetition.

For men who are used to thinking about health through performance, physique or discipline, this can be a useful reframe. Food is not a test of willpower with endless ratios and macros, it’s one of the ways we can reduce load.

Why “talk about it” is not always the best opening line

The focus group study I mentioned earlier gives us a helpful way to move beyond the tired idea that men simply “don’t talk”. In particular, I love how one participant put it beautifully, and very directly: “People say men don’t talk, well that’s bullshit” (Sharp et al., 2022). The issue is not whether men can talk, but where, how, and under what conditions talking becomes possible.

With my mental health hat on, I find that really interesting because it feels humane and practical. It also avoids the slightly simplistic idea that men simply need to become more verbally expressive in the way someone else expects us to be. For some men, the conversation happens while running, lifting weights, making tea, or doing something with our hands. There is a reason “shoulder to shoulder” comes up so often in men’s mental health work and, the way I see it, sometimes the nervous system feels safer when the conversation is not in a one-to-one, face-to-face setting.

That is where lifestyle, food and herbal support can become meaningful, not because they replace mental health care, but because they can create entry points. A walk can become a check-in, a supplement routine can become a reminder that the body is worth tending, and a conversation about sleep, stress or digestion can become a less threatening doorway into something deeper.

Men’s health promotion does not always need to begin with “let’s talk about your feelings.” It can also begin with, “How are you sleeping?”, “Are you eating enough?” or “Do you want to go for a walk?”

Where adaptogens may fit

Adaptogens can sit inside this conversation too. These herbs and mushrooms have traditionally been used to support the body’s ability to adapt to stress, but they are not sedatives, stimulants or miracle cures. The most useful way to think about them is as part of a wider ecology of support for the stress response, where the ecology still includes sleep, food, movement, daylight, connection, medical care where needed, and a life that is not constantly asking the body to run beyond capacity.

Some adaptogens appear to influence the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, often shortened to the HPA axis. This is one of the body’s main stress-response systems. Others may support energy metabolism, immune function, mood or cognitive function, although the evidence varies depending on the herb, extract, dose and study population. Ashwagandha, for example, has been studied for stress and sleep, Rhodiola has been explored in relation to fatigue and performance under stress, and Lion’s Mane is being studied for potential effects on cognitive and nervous system health.

But herbal support deserves respect, and respect includes honesty. Adaptogens are not there to help men tolerate an intolerable life indefinitely. They are better understood as supports that may help the body respond with a little more flexibility while other foundations are being tended to. If a man is sleeping four hours a night, eating chaotically, working under constant pressure, drinking to switch off and feeling unable to speak to anyone, no heroic supplement stack is going to “save him.” He needs less load, more support and perhaps a route into care that does not make him feel ashamed. An adaptogen may still have a place. But it should sit inside the bigger question of what his body is asking for?

A small practice of recalibration

One of the men in the study I mentioned earlier talked about “recalibration points”, those moments when something or someone interrupts the automatic march of work, family, responsibility, repeat.

I kept holding onto that phrase after reading that study, because many men wait for recalibration to arrive as a crisis, which could be a health scare, a relationship rupture or a panic episode. Sometimes the conversation only begins when someone finally says, “I can’t do this anymore.” But recalibration can be smaller than that. It might be the moment you notice you are clenching your jaw before opening your laptop or realising you have not had a proper meal all day but have been snacking mindlessly. You might hear yourself speak sharply to someone you love and think “that wasn’t right.” You may try to blame it on your poor sleep because you’ve been waking at 3am most days over the last few weeks and finding it difficult to go back to sleep. Or you may start to notice that you only feel relaxed after two drinks, and wonder what alcohol is doing for you.

None of these moments need to become a big drama. They are useful sources of information. So, a recalibration point could be as simple as asking:

What is my body showing me? What have I been overriding? What would reduce load by even five percent today? Do I need food, rest, movement, daylight, connection, support, or medical advice? Who could I speak to without having to perform being okay?

Acknowledging those needs is nervous system intelligence, and that’s the area I feel the current narrative about men’s health is lacking the most.

A different kind of Men’s Health Week

Having said all that, the usual Men’s Health Week message still matters. Get checked, seek help, do not ignore symptoms and speak to a GP, therapist or qualified health professional if you are struggling. And if you are in crisis or feel at risk of harming yourself, please seek urgent support now.

But alongside that message, I would like to add another one. Do not wait until your body has to shout. Men’s health is also the meal you eat before you become shaky and irritable, the walk that helps your mind organise itself after a difficult day, the cup of tea that marks a boundary between work and home, and the conversation that happens sideways, in motion, while doing something else. It is the herb, mushroom or nutrient that supports your system without convincing yourself that a supplement will fix your life. It is the decision to treat sleep as repair rather than laziness, and the moment you realise that being needed by others does not mean abandoning yourself.

Perhaps the more interesting version of strength is not the ability to keep going at all costs, but the ability to respond sooner, with more honesty and less shame. So, this year, I’d like more men to start there, one small act of support at a time, remembering that every pause, meal and conversation is one way of telling the body it does not have to carry everything alone.

About Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas

Dr Miguel Toribio-Mateas is a clinical neuroscientist, nutrition researcher, applied microbiologist and Chartered Biologist whose work focuses on the gut-brain axis, neurodivergence, mental health, nutrition and nervous system regulation. His book, ADHD Body and Mind: A Compassionate Guide to Rewilding Your Nervous System with Neuroscience, Nutrition and Gut-Brain Health, is out now.

 

References

Mokhwelepa, L. W., & Sumbane, G. O. (2025). Men's Mental Health Matters: The Impact of Traditional Masculinity Norms on Men's Willingness to Seek Mental Health Support; a Systematic Review of Literature. American journal of men's health 19(3), 15579883251321670. https://doi.org/10.1177/15579883251321670

Sharp, P., Bottorff, J. L., Rice, S., Oliffe, J. L., Schulenkorf, N., Impellizzeri, F., & Caperchione, C. M. (2022). "People say men don't talk, well that's bullshit": A focus group study exploring challenges and opportunities for men's mental health promotion. PloS one 17(1), e0261997. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261997

Goldfarb, E. V., Seo, D., & Sinha, R. (2019). Sex differences in neural stress responses and correlation with subjective stress and stress regulation. Neurobiology of stress, 11, 100177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2019.100177