Young Blood - Men’s Mental Health

Gambling, in one form or another, has been part of human societies for centuries. Those wanting a betting opportunity could find one if they looked hard enough, but it was a far cry from the gambling bombardment we’re exposed to in the Western world today.

Australians lose more than $30 billion a year to gambling, and new figures show New South Wales residents lost $2.5 billion on the pokies alone in just three months in 2025.

The ba...

When you hear the word psychiatrist, you might think medicating mental illness, but there’s more nuance to it than that.

Psychiatry brings together biology, psychology medicine and lived experience to understand what’s going on in someone’s mind and how to treat it. 

Aleem is a Pakistani Australian who migrated here 16 years ago, became a psychiatrist and in doing so recognised a major need to increase access to psychiatric services ...

Sydni grew up on the Hawaiian island of O'ahu, in a tight-knit community with a culture she says expects men to be tough and keep their emotions to themselves.

Her father was one of those men. Loving and strong, but never one to share what he was going through.

When her younger sister went missing in late 2023, Sydni and her family were thrust into the national spotlight overnight, facing huge stress and the brutal commentary of coun...

Five years ago, Flynn was on this podcast as a teenager living with cystic fibrosis. CF is a genetic condition that affects one in 2,500 Australians, causing mucus to clog the lungs and digestive system, requiring constant physio, medication and hospital check-ins to stay well.

Thanks to modern medicine, many people with CF now live into their 40s and beyond, but it means staying ever vigilant and factoring the disease into their fu...

Around 70% of Aussie men are overweight or obese, and most of us would say we’d like to lose some fat and drop a pants size or two.

Maintaining a lean, healthy body we feel happy in, is relatively simple, but it's far from easy. We generally know the importance of exercise and the basics of nutrition, but the way our emotions drive our eating habits is much less talked about.

When life gets stressful, food becomes an easy form of...

Corporal James Overall served as an Australian Army medic for a decade, deploying overseas on multiple occasions, including to Afghanistan in 2015. He was instrumental in 6 mass casualty events, as a highly skilled trauma care provider and auxiliary security force member, awarded the United States Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (NAM) for his outstanding service.

Frequently under immense pressure to perform in life or death...

On the cusp for a decade, but never quite making the big time in professional surfing, Cooper's life was destined to go down another path.

After seeing his sister lose multiple friends to suicide and facing his own challenges, he educated himself on mental health and founded The Good Human Factory to connect people with simple tools to improve their wellbeing.

It took off, and has since grown into countless nationwide workshops f...

Matty signed up to serve in the Australian Army and deployed to Afghanistan as a young soldier.

On his 22nd birthday he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and soon discharged from defence.

For the past 7 years he's shared the unfiltered ups and downs of his journey through Instagram, and was recognised with an OAM for his contribution to brain cancer awareness.

He’s since travelled to some of the most dangerous parts of the ...

Masculinity is one of the hottest debates in our culture right now. Boys are growing up in a world that never switches off, where social media, peer pressure and online figures shape how they see themselves and each other.

Daniel is right in the thick of it. He spends his days in schools across Australia, speaking to tens of thousands of young men about identity, relationships and mental health. His work is about giving boys the spa...

David migrated from Scotland to Australia as a teenager, worked his way into local government, and by his late thirties, had become South Australia’s youngest ever Opposition Leader. But the pressure of holding that position took a toll he eventually couldn’t hide...

In 2024, a video surfaced showing him using cocaine, sparking front page headlines, intense scrutiny, and the collapse of his career. Initially in denial out of shame a...

There’s positive signs male suicide is finally trending down.For the first time since the Suicide Prevention Australia Community Tracker began quarterly reporting on suicide related behaviour in 2022, the stats have swung in the right direction...Suicidal thoughts, plans and attempts have all reduced.According to the latest national report for September:Serious thoughts of suicide: 19% → 13%Making a suicide plan: 6% → 3%Attempting ...

 Tom's worn a lot of different hats in his life. Tradie, AFL footballer, musician and model. On the surface, it looks like the dream run, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

Through it all, he's grappled with bouts of anxiety and depression, experiencing his most intense symptoms in a Richmond guernsey. Not understanding what he was dealing do with, he hid it for years, until telling the truth eventually started to set...

When JK was studying radiation therapy, he never imagined he’d one day become a cancer patient himself. At 33, he was diagnosed with Burkitt’s lymphoma, one of the most aggressive blood cancers, after a lump suddenly appeared on his neck.

He went through months of gruelling chemo while raising two young kids, relying on his wife Pam and their support network to hold the family together. From his hospital bed, JK launched How Bloody ...

In a famous study, people were asked to sit quietly in a room for 15 minutes. They’d previously tested a mild electric shock and said they’d pay to avoid it. Yet when left alone, they were given access to a shock button.

Despite there being no reward, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to zap themselves during the experiment (Wilson et al, 2014).

Conclusion: Many participants found it so uncomfortable to be alone with their thoughts, ...

40% of Australians feel lonely at any given time and loneliness is linked to higher risks of depression, cognitive decline, a weakened immune system, and even premature death.

If you’ve ever felt lonely, this episode will help you make sense of it. We break down what loneliness really is and practical ways to address it.

My guest, Nigel Polak, President of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, talks through the ...

Connor was 16 when his life was turned upside down.

After his first relationship ended, he felt off, but didn’t know why. It came as a shock when a GP visit revealed he was living with severe depression.

It got worse before it got better, culminating in a suicide attempt that almost robbed him of an awesome future.

Like flicking a switch, waking up in hospital to a second chance fundamentally shifted his approach to life — but the roa...

A Stanford study recently found AI chatbots only responded safely to 50% of serious prompts, such as those related to suicidal ideation and psychosis.

About 1 in 5 replies were harmful, validating dangerous thoughts. (Stanford, 2024 via NY Post)

How many of us are using it?

A nationally representative sample survey of U.S adults found 60% have used AI for emotional support.

Nearly 50% believe it can be beneficial. (Zhou et al., 2024 &a...