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Sunday Game Plan: This Father’s Day, Check In on the Men You Love: A Gentle Guide to Men’s Mental Health

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Thank you, Mariana Lamar, creator of Whole Health HQ for contributing another article for the Sunday Game Plan. I am sure anyone who reads this will learn something from it.. Whole Health HQ is a blog designed to share and connect with introverts who want to achieve optimal health and wellness.  I am going to share this blog post that Mariana wrote, addressing the importance of Men’s Mental Health especially on Father’s Day.

June is Men’s Mental Health Month, and Father’s Day lands right in the middle of it. The dads, partners, and sons we love deserve to feel good too, not just to keep holding everything together for the rest of us. And here’s the hopeful part: most of what helps men feel better is ordinary, doable, and something we can encourage from right beside them. The hard part is usually just noticing. Men are far less likely than women to reach out for help when they’re struggling, often because a lifetime of “be tough, handle it, don’t burden anyone” makes asking feel like failure. Which means the people who love them are often the first to see it.

This isn’t about what’s wrong with the men in your life. It’s about what they might need, and the small, kind ways you can make it easier for them to feel like themselves again.

When He Doesn’t Quite Seem Like Himself

The picture most of us grew up with (someone visibly sad, tearful, withdrawn) is real but incomplete. When a man is struggling, it often shows up sideways. According to the Mayo Clinic, it can look like:

  • Irritability or a short fuse that seems bigger than whatever set it off
  • Throwing himself into work, using busyness as a way not to slow down and feel
  • Quietly pulling back from the people and the hobbies he usually loves
  • Drinking more, driving faster, making choices he wouldn’t normally make
  • Aches that don’t have a clear cause: headaches, exhaustion, a stomach that’s always off

You don’t need to diagnose anyone, and it isn’t your job to. Think of this less as a checklist to monitor him against and more as permission to trust your gut when someone you love seems off. Noticing is an act of love, not surveillance.

A Few Loving Things Worth Encouraging

None of these are dramatic interventions. They’re small, they’re backed by real evidence, and almost all of them work better when they’re not done alone.

Protect his sleep. A Center for Disease Control (CDC) study of more than 273,000 adults found that people sleeping six hours or less a night were about 2.5 times as likely to wrestle with frequent mental distress. Seven hours isn’t a luxury; it’s the floor everything else stands on. A wind-down routine, phones charging outside the bedroom, a quiet hour that isn’t more screens. Protecting his sleep usually means protecting yours in the same move, which is its own small gift.

Build in actual rest. Research summarized by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) suggests mindfulness may ease anxiety and stress about as well as proven therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy. But rest doesn’t require an app or a cushion. Fishing. A long drive with no destination. An evening on the porch. Whatever his version of winding down looks like, encourage it and guard it from being scheduled away.

Let him say no to something. The “I can handle one more thing” reflex is often what wears good men down, and accumulated stress feeds anxiety and low mood over time. Saying no to one optional obligation he doesn’t really owe anyone isn’t selfish. It’s how he keeps going. You can make it easier by saying it first: “You don’t have to go to that” lands very differently coming from someone who loves him.

Keep him connected. The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory put real weight behind something we already feel in our bones: close connection is genuinely protective, on the level of the big health habits. Men tend to keep fewer close friendships than women, and those are usually the first to go quiet when life gets busy. So be a connector. Nudge him to text the friend he keeps saying he misses. Set a standing plan with another couple. Some of the most honest conversations in our house have happened over a cutting board, chopping vegetables shoulder to shoulder with nobody making eye contact, so a weeknight dinner you cook together counts more than you’d think.

Get him moving, ideally with you. One of the largest reviews we have, a 2024 meta-analysis in The BMJ drawing on 218 trials, found that exercise eased depression about as effectively as therapy or medication in many studies, though the researchers were careful to say the evidence isn’t airtight yet. A walk after dinner does it. A weekend bike ride does it. And movement with another person stacks the connection benefit right on top of the physical one.

Natural remedies, with a gentle word of caution. Some people add supplements or botanicals to their routine, and a couple are worth knowing about before he does. St. John’s wort comes up a lot for low moods, but the NCCIH is clear that it interacts with a surprising number of everyday medications, including antidepressants, birth control, and blood thinners, so it’s genuinely a check-with-the-doctor-first thing rather than a try-it-and-see one. Separately, some men reach for hemp-derived products to take the edge off after a hard day. If that’s already part of his routine, the kindest thing you can do is help him be informed about it, and it’s worth starting from a clean summary of what a product actually contains.

How to Actually Start the Conversation

Wanting to check in and knowing how to do it are two different things. Movember’s ALEC approach gives you a simple structure for when you’re not sure where to begin.

  1. Ask. Be specific. “I’ve noticed you’ve seemed a little off lately. Are you doing okay, really?” A real question, rooted in something you actually saw, opens a different door than “how are you,” which just gets a reflexive “fine.”
  1. Listen. Resist the urge to fix it on the spot. Let him say the thing without you jumping to reassurance or solutions. You’re making it safe to talk, not solving a problem yet.
  1. Encourage one small step. Once he’s opened up, suggest something doable: a doctor’s appointment, getting outside this week, a text to a friend he trusts. Keep it small enough that he can actually say yes. A whole new routine is easy to put off; one appointment isn’t.
  1. Check back. This is the step everyone skips, and it might be the most important. Follow up a few days later. “How’ve you been since we talked?” tells him the door is still open, and that your support didn’t expire when the conversation did.

If he shuts it down, that’s okay. Plant the seed, tell him once that you’re there, and then just keep showing up like normal. A lot of men respond to steady presence more than to a single earnest talk. And when you do bring it up, lead with what you’ve noticed rather than a diagnosis. “I miss you” reads very differently than “I’m worried about you,” even when they come from exactly the same place.

One Small Thing On Father’s Day

If this feels like a lot, it isn’t meant to. This Father’s Day, pick one thing. Hand him a genuinely plan-free afternoon. Take that first walk together after dinner. Or just ask him the real question over a meal and actually listen to the answer. The men we love rarely need us to fix anything. They need us to notice, and to keep showing up. That you read this far means someone in your life is lucky.

Sunday Game Plan: Uncomplicating Health: Simple Shifts for a More Resilient Life

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Image: Freepik

A few weeks ago, Mariana Lamar, creator of Whole Health HQ.  Her blog is designed to share and connect with introverts who want to achieve optimal health and wellness.  After publishing two game plans for NYC Restaurant Week and Long Island Restaurant Week, I am going to share this blog post that Mariana wrote, which highlights ways of maintaining a healthy lifestyle through awareness and shifting habits such as scrolling late at night or early in the morning instead of resting.  Thank you Mariana for contributing another article for the Sunday Game Plan. I am sure anyone who reads this will learn something from it.

Move Your Body Daily

You move more than you think — you just stopped counting it as exercise. That stretch you did getting out of bed? That counts. The walk across the parking lot because the close spots were taken? That too. Bodies don’t need perfection. They need participation. Keep your limbs in the game and your joints from stiffening. Don’t worry about tracking steps — worry about forgetting to step. Make movement part of the background, like music you forget is playing until it stops.

Prioritize Rest and Recovery

Rest is too often the first thing we trade and the last thing we protect. But sleep isn’t an accessory. It’s core maintenance. You can survive without it — people do — but the cost builds quietly. Your decisions start to wobble. Little annoyances start to feel heavier. There’s no medal for exhaustion, and nobody’s handing out trophies for burning out. Reclaim bedtime. Build a shutdown habit that doesn’t involve a screen glowing inches from your face. You don’t have to be perfect — you just need to be consistent enough that your brain knows when to quit for the day.

Connect with Others

You can do a lot on your own — but you weren’t built to go it alone. Humans regulate in pairs. We soften through conversations, even short ones. A quick check-in. A joke in a text. Shared silence on a walk. It’s not about having deep talks every day; it’s about staying tethered. You’re not bothering people — they’re waiting, too, for someone to reach out. Don’t let isolation sneak in under the disguise of “being busy.” Connection doesn’t require a big gesture — just a nudge that says, “I’m still here.”

Align Your Career and Purpose

What you do all day feeds back into how you feel — and not just when the paycheck hits. If work is draining you dry, it’s going to show up everywhere: in your body, your relationships, your sense of possibility. Sometimes the answer isn’t quitting. Sometimes it’s retraining. Shifting. Giving yourself permission to grow. For example, you might explore a healthcare administration degree — something fully online, flexible, and accredited. It won’t fix everything. But it can remind you that you’re allowed to evolve, and that your well-being includes your work, not just your weekends.

Reclaim Attention with Nature

Your nervous system knows what a tree is. Even if you don’t think of yourself as “outdoorsy,” your brain recognizes sky, leaves, shadows shifting with the wind. That recognition slows you down — not in a bad way, but in a reset way. You don’t need a trailhead; you need a window. A pause on a walk. Something real to look at that isn’t pixels. Let your eyes stretch past the screen. Let your breath catch up. Nature doesn’t demand anything of you. That’s part of why it works.

Create a Daily Structure

You already have routines — they might just be accidental. Checking your phone first thing. Skipping breakfast. Checking emails before dressing. What if you picked one piece to do on purpose? Wake up, open a window, drink water before caffeine. Something repeatable, something grounding. It doesn’t have to be a ritual with candles and affirmations. Just something that says, “I’m starting now.” When your day has edges, your mind can settle in the middle. Otherwise, it spills everywhere.

Cultivate Emotional Habits

Most people think emotions just happen to them — but the truth is, we rehearse them. Bitterness, stress, hope, appreciation — we get good at what we repeat. Gratitude doesn’t mean pretending things are fine. It means learning to hold two truths: some things are tough, and some things are still okay. Saying thank you to no one in particular. Writing down one sentence before bed. Giving yourself a break for not doing more. These aren’t tactics — they’re survival skills. You can still be angry. You can still struggle. Gratitude just gives the struggle somewhere to breathe.

Most people think they need a reset button. What they really need is a few things to stop breaking. You don’t have to start over — you just need to start smaller. Put one thing back in your own hands. A walk. A meal. A better bedtime. You won’t feel the change in a day, but you’ll feel it later when you haven’t fallen apart. That’s what health really is. Not optimization — orientation.

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