I am a huge Al Pacino fan and could probably recite almost all of his movie monologues by heart, especially those that
came out during my college years. Out of all of his dramatic expositions, there
is a line from Devil’s Advocate
that just stayed with me for years.
Love? Overrated. Biochemically no different
than eating large quantities of chocolate.
John
Milton (Al Pacino)
This simple quote made me realize how
our emotions and mental state isn’t just based on how we feel, but can actually
be a result of our body’s chemistry, lesson I never quite seemed to pick up
from any Bio or Chem class. In the usual philosophical debates that followed
any cool movie, my friends and I began to discuss how our body’s biochemical
balance can directly affect our moods, thoughts, and emotions just as much as
our moods, thoughts, and emotions affect our biochemical balance. You see, chocolate’s
phenethylamine causes the same endorphin based euphoria that falling in love
does, proving that our emotional state isn’t as subjective as we would like to
believe. After an extensive amount of nonsensical philosophizing to the extent
of this realization, we proceeded to unbalance our bio-chemistry with cheap
beer. These where my college years, what did you expect?
That was close to 20 years ago; a
time when hormonal imbalance was something women had during PMS and clinical
depression was still extremely stigmatized with countless damaging stereotypes.
Back then, men apparently didn’t have any hormones regulating their body and
the only chemical imbalances you had to deal with was alcohol, motor oil, and
some kind of unending supply of methane gas.
As hard to believe as it might be, today
we live in a more scientifically literate world. We now understand how
depression isn’t someone who’s simply “sad” or “has an off day,” and recent
tragedies serve as a reminder of how dangerous it can be when left untreated. We
now accept how a simple chemical imbalance within our body can lead to
catastrophic results. Unfortunately, even with all of this is knowledge, men
still refuse to go to a doctor unless they can no longer avoid it. The funny
thing is that if their car has even the most minor change or unusual noise in
its engine, they’ll spend endless hours trying to figure out what’s wrong. That’s
a bigger problem than what most men realize or want to openly admit, as we will
work to maintain anything other than ourselves. Before you criticize this
mentality, consider how we constantly tell men not to show signs of weakness or
how we make fun of men when they are sick. This has turned going to a doctor into
an open admission of weakness and unmanliness.
As we get older, the fire that would
burn within our soul’s furnace starts to dwindle. We will resign ourselves to
accept that we are now a pale comparison to the warrior we were in our youth or
refuse to acknowledge just how much our bodies change with the years as we
desperately fear growing old, of losing the man we were in our twenties. We start blaming “life” as we become “too old
for this shit” as we wonder what happened to us as we reach middle age. To mediate
this feeling, men will usually take the “never read the instructions” route, as
we bottle up our issues and ignore the problem and expect it to magically go
away, only to have those problems grow unchecked within ourselves. With that
mentality, no wonder why out of the top 10 leading causes of death in the US, men outnumber women
in 6 of them, with one being equal between the genders, and women outnumbering
men in only 3.
We tend to think that most of these
problems are a result of inevitably getting old, yet in many cases they start
to show themselves long before we can technically call ourselves old. With the
average life expectancy for men being 79 years, why would we consider our late
30’s and early 40’s as growing old? Middle age is just when you finished the
break-in period of your body, yet this is precisely when we start seeing most men’s
health issues. What if it isn’t that we are growing old that’s causing our health
problems? When you take into account the fact that the group with the highest suicide risk is men between 45 and 65
years old, you have to start considering that
the answer might lay elsewhere. What if the problem isn’t we’ve grown old, but
rather the fact that we often ignore what happens to our body as we grow older?
As women hit middle age, they understand
the need to go to the doctor for a full checkup. They are fully aware that
their bodies’ chemistry will drastically change due to menopause and, as these
changes happen, there are plenty of other health complications that happen due to
the domino effect brought about by these changes. Women understand there is no shame in
taking care of themselves as it’s the smart thing to do. But men don’t really
have to worry about things like menopause and body chemistry changes, right?
Not really. A large number of men
start suffering from “male menopause” as soon as they get past their twenties.
Before you shut down mentally or close the tab thinking I’m going to turn this
into some preachy monologue defending wimpy guys who excuse themselves with
words like “hormonal,” understand that male menopause, or Andropause as its
clinically known, is a real thing. It just isn’t the kind of “menopause” women
deal with.
Menopause, in simplified terms for
those who didn’t pay attention during Sex Ed or Biology, is when the woman’s
reproductive system “quits” and she no longer menstruates as she reaches her
midlife. As a result, the body shuts down the production of certain hormones
(estrogen and progesterone) it did back in its youth. Although the effects
between women dealing with menopause vary, hot flashes, mood swings, trouble
sleeping, and weight gain are typical during this time. They also have to deal
with the social expectations to keep up with society’s beauty standards of
women half their age, leading to self-consciousness about their body’s changes.
To compensate for the resulting changes in their body, some women undergo
medical and hormone treatment.
So, if men don’t have a menstrual
cycle to shut down, how the hell can they have menopause? The reality is we
don’t. Andropause is something else. What happens to many men is their hormone
(testosterone) production gradually drops as they go past their twenties, sometimes even earlier. If
this drop becomes below acceptable levels, or if you didn’t produce enough testosterone
to begin with, you end up with what is called Testosterone Deficiency Syndrome.
Since this isn’t as drastic a change as in women’s menopause or because of the
social stigma of not being “man enough,” men tend to ignore or dismiss the
results of having Low Testosterone (Low T) levels. Only when they become a major
problem do some men start taking action, but by then the damage is already done.
At this time, they will try to Band-Aid
every single individual symptom by popping pills as if they were breath mints; one
to be able to deal with anxiety, another to deal with depression, another for stress,
another for sleep disorders, another for high blood pressure, yet another to
get it up, etc. Sound familiar?
Remember the fuel that kept your
soul’s furnace burning during your youth that I mentioned earlier? What do you
think was that fuel? Gasoline? It’s Testosterone and, without your consent or
prior knowledge, your body just decided to offer as tribute the one hormone
that gave you a warrior’s edge to deal with life’s challenges. Suddenly, the all
too common defeatist attitude men in their 40’s start having starts to make
sense.
The biggest challenge we face when
talking about these topics is the social stigma and stereotypes used to dismiss
some very real issues about men’s health. Whenever there is mention of Testosterone, Low T levels, or
Testosterone Treatments, most people react with visions of insecure men being
self-conscious about their penis, douchebags wanting to ramp up their game in
the sack, or muscle-head jocks wanting to find alternative option to juicing
with steroids. The fact that most online information about Testosterone Treatment start
off by focusing on an improved sex drive or muscle development doesn’t help much
either.
Not to sound like Mr. Miyagi, but
the secret to your health and well-being IS balancing your body, mind, and spirit. So when your body’s
hormones get off balance, the effects might cause multiple chain reactions that
when looked individually might seem unrelated. Do you feel like you’re old
before your time and don’t really ‘feel’ like dealing with it? It’s hard to
take action when your fuel for the furnace is running low. If you catch
yourself dozing off right after a meal or too stressed to get a good night
sleep, have you considered that it might not be the meal or work pressures that
is causing this? That comfort zone you have chosen to make camp in or lack of
interest in keeping up the good fight might just be your body trying to tell
you something. Listen to it. More importantly though, act on it.
I’m not saying that whatever
emotional or physical problem you have is testosterone related. What I am
saying is that you should go to your doctor regularly, sit down with them and actually
talk to them. Stop assuming that you know what’s important or relevant to your
visit. That’s what they trained for. You’re already paying them, so it might be
a good idea to let them do their job. Let them make the call on what’s
important or not. We need to understand that most medical conditions can be
handled before they become critical when dealt within a timely manner. Just
because you’ve avoided a doctor’s diagnosis doesn’t mean you don’t have
something that needs diagnosing.
As men, we need to stop viewing
self-care as narcissism, vanity, an admission of weakness, or even as something
that makes us “less of a man.” As a society we need to stop shaming and making
fun of men taking care of their health. Being supportive might actually mean
that men don’t have to risk their well-being just to prove themselves as men. Gentlemen,
just remember how you won’t be there for others if you’re not there for
yourself first.
