We've been on the move, right back to Edinburgh where it all began... This time we've had a couple of days at the Festival Fringe and while there we met up with the Edinburgh Blue Balls to join them on their weekly dip in the sea at Portobello beach! Blue Balls is a group for men to find community and the (potentially rather cold) swim is an opportunity to support each other and improve our mental and physical health. We like to swim, but do we like to swim off the Scottish coast...?

Everyone needs to talk more about mental health and we’re no exception, especially in these weird times. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counselling.

Sometimes we just need to talk for a while about how we feel and what’s going on with us. This is one of those times. With Wez away on magical duties, Matt and Nick began talking about friendship, but ended up having a much longer mental health check-in than usual.

Everyone needs to talk more about mental health and we’re no exception, especially in these weird times. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counselling.

The boys get together to talk about physical health, fitness and its effect on mental health. We’re all at different levels of fitness and interest in exercise, though we seem to have sprouted some unexpected new year’s resolutions (not that we’d admit to them, of course).

Everyone needs to talk more about mental health and we’re no exception, especially in these weird times. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counselling.

We were slightly delayed in recording this episode because of a health problem, so it seemed fitting that we talk about it. Much of our discussion is about Matt’s recent heart attack, how it made him feel, and the impacts of health  – good and bad – on us and those around us. 

Everyone needs to talk more about mental health and we’re no exception, especially in these weird times. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counselling.

In this episode we’re talking about time (and using the word “time” far too many times). All of memories and much of how our modern life is organised and driven are rooted in time. We talk about how we feel about time, the mental health issues where time seems to have an effect, whether it’s OK to be late for meetings, but also how our relationship with time has changed as we’ve gotten older. It’s a strange elastic thing that controls our lives and it can be hard to get a grip on.

Everyone needs to talk more about mental health and we’re no exception, especially in these weird times. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counselling.9

We do it every night, and are supposed to spend up to one third of our whole lives doing it, but catching a good night’s sleep can be really difficult. And when we don’t get enough sleep, everything seems to harder. This time we’re talking about sleep – whether we manage to get enough, what happens to us when we don’t, and what we can do to ensure we catch as many Zs as possible.

Everyone needs to talk more about mental health and we’re no exception, especially in these weird times. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counselling.

The world around us is complex, confusing and at times can be simply overwhelming. Even worse, it’s impossible to escape the world entirely. This time, our conversation is inspired by a recent article in The Guardian (see link below if you’d like to read it too) about how our environments affect us, and that perhaps many aspects of bad mental health are from an inescapable world around us. It’s tough, but we can get through it together.

Everyone needs to talk more about mental health and we’re no exception, especially in these weird times. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counselling.

Article in The Guardian by Sanah Ahsan

We met up at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where Matt is performing his acclaimed one-man mental health music and spoken word show. Among the many shows at the Fringe is Man Shed, a dramatised one-man play inspired by the international Men’s Shed organisation. We sat down outside the Symposium Hall with the playwright Euan Martin and actor Ron Emslie to talk about these two shows, their mental health themes and what it’s like to do a show rooted in trauma.

Everyone needs to talk more about mental health and we’re no exception, especially in these weird times. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counselling.

Links:

Men’s Shed UK: https://menssheds.org.uk/

Man Shed: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/man-shed - at the Pleasant Courtyard, 14:15 till 29 August

Matt’s show, We Are What We Overcome: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/we-are-what-we-overcome - at theSpace @ Symposium Hall till 27 August