There is a familiar idea about older men and mental health: keep going, don’t make a fuss and deal with things yourself. For some men, particularly those who grew up when conversations about mental health were far less common, that will feel recognisable. For others, it won’t.
That distinction matters. Older men are not one group with one way of thinking, and “men don’t talk” is too simple to be particularly useful. Someone may be perfectly comfortable talking about how they feel. Someone else may talk about being tired, fed up, wound up or not quite themselves rather than using the language of mental health at all.
Here in Moray, there is another part of the picture. Retirement, bereavement, changing health, caring responsibilities and loss of routine can all affect someone’s social world. In a rural area, distance and transport can make maintaining those connections harder. Sometimes the problem isn’t an unwillingness to talk. It is that there are fewer natural opportunities for the conversation to happen.
Why can mental health be difficult to talk about?
We learn how to talk about emotions from the families, workplaces and communities around us. If those conversations were not common when someone was younger, finding the words later in life may not come naturally.
That doesn’t mean they lack feelings or awareness. They may simply express what is happening differently. Someone experiencing low mood might say that they can’t be bothered with anything any more. Anxiety might be described as poor sleep, constant worrying or feeling on edge. Another person may become quieter, stop doing things they normally enjoy or seem unusually irritable.
None of those changes proves that somebody has a mental health problem. What they can tell us is that something has changed, and that can be enough reason to ask how things are going.
Stoicism can be a strength, until it becomes isolation
There is nothing inherently wrong with being self-reliant. Being dependable, practical and able to get on with difficult things may have helped someone through demanding work, family responsibilities, illness and loss.
The difficulty comes when coping starts to mean that support is never allowed in.
Someone can value independence and still need other people. They can be private without having to be isolated, and asking for help does not undo a lifetime of being capable.
We don’t need to tell older men that the way they have lived their lives is wrong. A more useful approach is to make support easier to fit around who they already are.
Later life can bring significant change
Poor mental health rarely exists separately from everything else happening in someone’s life. In later years, several substantial changes can sometimes arrive close together.
Retirement may be welcome, but it can also remove routine, workplace friendships and a role that has been part of someone’s identity for decades. Bereavement can change the shape of everyday life completely. Health problems may make familiar activities harder, while giving up driving can have a particularly significant effect in a rural area.
Some men become carers for partners. Others may find themselves living alone for the first time. Friends move away, become ill or die. None of these experiences automatically leads to poor mental health, but they can gradually reduce the amount of contact, purpose and routine in someone’s week.
Retirement is about more than stopping work
Work gives us more than an income. It can provide a reason to get up, somewhere to go, people to speak to and a sense of being useful or competent.
Some people adapt to retirement happily and quickly. Others are surprised by how much they miss those less obvious parts of working life.
New routines can help fill that gap. They might come through hobbies, volunteering, looking after grandchildren, community groups, part-time work or simply having regular places where people know you and expect to see you.
The activity itself matters less than having some structure, purpose and connection.
Connection doesn’t always begin with talking about mental health
One of the most useful lessons from community groups for men is that people do not necessarily have to gather specifically to discuss their mental health in order to support it.
Conversation can be easier when it happens alongside something else: repairing something, gardening, walking, making a cup of tea, watching football or helping with a community project. There is a shared purpose, and nobody has to arrive prepared to explain how they feel.
That is part of the appeal of Men’s Sheds.
A Men’s Shed is not a counselling service. It is somewhere people can spend time together, work on practical projects, share skills and have ordinary conversations. That ordinary quality can be exactly what makes it valuable.
The original version of this article highlighted Men’s Sheds in Moray, including Lossiemouth, as examples of places where connection can grow through doing rather than through formal support.
Someone can turn up because they enjoy woodworking or want to help fix something. Over time, familiar faces become acquaintances and acquaintances can become friends. A conversation about a job in front of you may eventually become a conversation about retirement, bereavement, health or something else that has been difficult.
There doesn’t have to be a moment when the activity stops and “mental health support” begins. Often, the connection itself is part of the support.
How do you start a conversation with someone you’re worried about?
You don’t need specialist language, and you don’t necessarily need to begin with the words “mental health”.
Starting with what you have actually noticed often feels much more natural:
“You’ve been a bit quiet lately. How are things?”
“I’ve not seen you for a while. Everything all right?”
Or perhaps simply:
“Fancy a coffee?”
The purpose isn’t to engineer a disclosure. It is to make contact and give somebody an opportunity to say more if they want to.
If they say they’re fine, that may be the end of the conversation for now. Asking was not pointless. Knowing that someone noticed and was genuinely interested can make it easier to say something another time.
Listen before trying to fix it
If somebody does tell you they are struggling, the urge to reassure them can be strong.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“There are plenty worse off.”
All of these may be meant kindly, but they can close the conversation just as it has started.
You don’t need to find the perfect thing to say. Often something straightforward is better:
“That sounds hard. What’s been happening?”
“How long have you been feeling like this?”
“What would help just now?”
Sometimes the person will want practical help. Sometimes they may need professional support. Sometimes what they need first is simply to say out loud that things have not been good.
Listening does not make you responsible for solving everything.
Practical support matters too
Mental wellbeing is tied closely to ordinary life. If someone has stopped going out because they no longer drive, transport may be part of the problem. If bereavement has left them overwhelmed by paperwork, practical help might relieve some pressure. If they have become isolated, inviting them somewhere may be more useful than repeatedly telling them they need to “get out more”.
This is particularly relevant in rural communities, where a relatively small change in circumstances can make maintaining social contact noticeably harder.
Support might mean giving somebody a lift, helping them find a group they would actually enjoy, having lunch together once a week or sitting with them while they make a telephone call.
None of those things replaces mental health care when it is needed. They simply recognise that sometimes the next step becomes easier when somebody doesn’t have to take it entirely on their own.
When you are seriously worried about someone
Most periods of low mood, loneliness or difficulty do not mean somebody is thinking about suicide. But we should not avoid the subject when there is genuine reason for concern.
Men remain disproportionately represented in Scotland’s suicide figures. In the latest published National Records of Scotland statistics, covering 2024, the probable suicide rate among men was 2.9 times the rate among women.
If you are worried that somebody may be thinking about suicide, you can ask them directly. You do not need euphemisms or a complicated script.
“Are you thinking about suicide?”
Asking the question does not create suicidal thoughts. It gives somebody an opportunity to tell you what is happening and allows you to respond to the situation in front of you.
If someone’s life is at immediate risk, phone 999 or go to A&E. If urgent mental health support is needed in Scotland, contact NHS 24 on 111.
The important thing is not to feel that you have to manage a serious situation alone.
We don’t need every conversation to look the same
Perhaps one of the difficulties with campaigns encouraging men to “open up” is that they can unintentionally create another expectation about how people are supposed to communicate.
Not everybody wants to sit face-to-face and have a long conversation about their feelings. For some people, the important conversation happens while walking the dog. For others, it is in the car, over a cup of tea or while working on something together.
Some men will comfortably use words such as depression or anxiety. Others may talk about sleep, loneliness, pressure, frustration or simply not feeling like themselves.
We can meet people there.
The aim is not to persuade every older man to communicate in the same way. It is to create more opportunities for connection, notice when something seems different and respond well when someone does decide to tell us that things are difficult.
Making it easier to talk in Moray
The original article called for older men to “break the silence”. The intention was good, but three words make the solution sound much simpler than it is.
We cannot solve isolation or poor mental health by telling people to talk more. We can make talking easier by creating the conditions around it: regular contact, community groups, practical activities, people who notice when somebody hasn’t been around and conversations that don’t suddenly become uncomfortable when life gets difficult.
Men’s Sheds are one example, but the same thing can happen through sports clubs, volunteering, walking groups, friendships, families and neighbourhoods.
Sometimes good support begins with somebody noticing that a familiar face is missing. It might be a phone call, a lift somewhere, a cup of tea or a job that could use another pair of hands.
None of those things looks particularly dramatic.
But somewhere in the middle of ordinary life, they create connection. And with enough connection and trust, it becomes a little easier for somebody to say when things haven’t been going well.
That’s a more realistic place for the conversation to begin.
