Head Days

I have always believed that life tastes better with a touch of silly. A silly song. A silly dance. A silly way to raise funds. I think silliness has a magical bonding power. It lets you realise that while life is obviously very, very, very serious and your problems are very, very, very important... life in general is yummy. This isn't a case of rose coloured glasses, or glass half full spin. Life really does offer us beautiful things to look at, smell, touch, taste, hear and experience. It throws in some tough challenges but on the whole us human beans are rather good at solving them.

'I is not understanding human beans at all,' the BFG said.' You is a human bean and you is saying it is grizzling and horrigust for giants to be eating human beans. Right or left?'
'Right,' Sophie said.

One problem we have is that men often don't discuss health issues. Certainly not uncomfortable things like testicular cancer and prostate cancer. Even more difficult to discuss are less clearly identifiable problems like mental illnesses or even just general mental health. Broken bones are easy to identify and are easily commiserated between male friends by sending a Chopper Reid clip. Banter or silliness can help the conversation get started, and lets be honest, there are few things sillier than a moustache. Here are a few examples - Mofrog, Moro, Mogoen, Moleo, Mottlemo, Modad and Mo-me. Pick your favourite one and give an excessively large donation that makes you feel smugly proud for the next 11 months till Movember rolls around again. Or make sure you know your family health history. Or both.

1 in 8 men are diagnosed with a common mental disorder at any one time. In 2011, a total of 6,045 people died by suicide in the UK and over 75% of these were men. That suggests we guys have a few lessons to learn about how to help each other, and how to look for help. One great way of practicing mental health is Yoga. This is often seen as something for the ladies with men preferring to hit the road, the weights or play a team sport. I have been doing Yoga for 5 years by complete chance. It just so happened that there was a centre in the same street as me. Trying to get out of the rain of mud island, I was looking for something indoors to do and this was very convenient. Many top sportsmen have taken to yoga. If you are hard enough to grow a mo... are you hard enough to do a bow? Part of the goal of yoga is to learn to release tension from muscles with a rather simple aim of being able to sit comfortably. If you can sit comfortably, your mind can stop constantly going back to the bits that are sore. You can give it a moments rest. It is a muscle too, so along with leg days, back days or  road days... it is good to fit in some head days.

Aussie Rugby team doing yoga