Making Mo-ves on Mental Health

By Gemma Good

Eighteen years ago, two friends met up for a beer and a chat in Australia. Among the topics of conversation were fashion trends and particularly how moustaches were not in this category. They decided to bring them back for a cause and so ‘Movember’ was born.

Men across the globe now grow 'a Mo' to raise awareness around men’s mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer, and testicular cancer.

Getting in on the action is Shercock Boxer Owen Duffy, who has committed to clocking up 60 kilometres in November for the 60 men lost to suicide every hour of every day.

Despite little opportunity to take to the ring this year, as a Movember Ambassador, Owen has a different fight on his mind; that of tackling the mental health crisis.

He has organised ‘Sunday Strolls’ taking place every Sunday for the month of November, which are “stroll paced” walks encouraging people to meet up and have a chat.

Explaining his reasons for getting involved with the campaign, the athlete said: “The Movember campaign just felt like it would work in well with Transform Ireland.”

Owen started his own personal training business just over a year ago, which he said is “going nice and strong".

“As much as everyone understands that they need to look after themselves physically, I wanted to bring some sort of awareness to people how to look after themselves mentally.”

As a fitness instructor, Owen said he finds a lot of people come to him struggling with their mental health.

“You can see it in their body language,” he explained.

“They’re looking at the ground, they’re not proud of the person they are or the body that they’re in.”

At the beginning, Owen always asks his clients ‘What’s your target?’ with minimal response. With proper nutrition, training and advice, the instructor gets a lot of satisfaction seeing “the transformation in their strength and confidence” upon asking the same question six months later.

“If something gives me a bit of a knock, I’ve got people to keep me accountable,” he said, listing nutritionists, coaches, physiotherapists, and sport psychologists.

Owen is delighted to be able to give this to his own community.

Speaking of his own struggles with mental health, the professional boxer said he would have “very much suffered” with living in his own head when he was younger.

“As a person, I set very high standards for myself; when I take on goals, I am relentless in making it my business to achieve things.”

With this, the Shercock boxer says “there’s never always going to be good days.”

“In the past I would have beat myself up and focused a lot on the temporary issue that arose at the time,” he said, explaining he now questions his thoughts.

“Will this issue be an issue in six months' time?” he asks.

He advised people with something on their mind to “just throw it out there".

“It always nice to get different versions and perspectives from different people.”

Growing up in Ireland, the Shercock man understands that this can be difficult for men, which he puts down to the “old school” way of thinking.

He spoke of the pressures on men to “put a brave face on” and “get on with it".

“It's not put out there that men should be sad or have emotions of upset,” he said.

“With depression and everything going through the roof, I always try to find the positive and negative.”

For Owen, a positive thing that can be taken out of the pandemic is that it encouraged people not to live such a “go go go" life.

“A lot of people fell depressed and were struggling mentally,” he said, explaining that people were “afraid of sitting in their own space".

In Owen’s opinion, a lot of people avoided things that were “setting them off” before the pandemic hit.

“They would make themselves busy instead of being constructively busy,” he said, furthering that lockdown forced people to have more “me time.”

The personal trainer recommended that people dedicate at least three hours in a week for themselves.

“By doing so you are going to give off a happier version of you,” he said.

Despite the common belief that you must be on top form all the time, Owen stressed that “it is okay not to be okay".

“There’s definitely no such thing as being weak by speaking out, if anything I think it’s being clever.

“You're doing yourself a favour,” he added.

Exceeding his initial goal of €250, Owen’s Movember fundraiser has raised over €900 already. He thanked everybody who has contributed to his campaign so far.

Join Owen and his team at The Castle Lake this Sunday at 10am for the final ‘Sunday Strolls’ walk of the month. Those wishing to donate can do so on https://ie.movember.com/mospace/14351113?mc=1