The owners of a North Belfast gym are aiming to help men overcome their mental health challenges by hosting a series of events in a bid to get them talking.
In an area with some of the highest mental health and suicide rates in Northern Ireland, the guys from Fit House on the Antrim Road are encouraging men to share any mental health issues in a bid to break down stigmas and help build bridges.
Fit House will host its first ever Men's Day this Sunday, January at 9am in the gym and it follows a successful Women's Day event held a few weeks ago.
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Owner and fitness instructor, Sean McCafferty told Belfast Live: "Ted X speaker and mindset coach Philip Brady will be the guest speaker on the day, who is renowned in the fitness industry.
"He will be covering a range of topics including mindset strategies to lead in life; how to build confidence and manage yourself when making changes so you can stay resilient and focused; how to make habits stick and remove obstacles from growth and how to prevent burnout.
"We'll also have some local youth leaders with us on the day as well. I’m sure we can all take a lot away from this event and apply it to what we do day in day out.
"Our recent Women's Day was very successful although it had a different approach and focused on issues such as female nutrition, exercise around the menstrual cycle etc.
"We decided to make Men's Day more about mental health because we'll probably never get a large group of them in a room ever again so we felt it was the right time to try and hit as many heads as possible.
"Those coming in on the day are obviously leaders in their own profession so they can relay lots of information on those they support.
"We hope to focus on making habits stick as we have found that a lot of people come in and are motivated to change but when the motivation wears off, they tend to drift away. We also want to try and remove any obstacles when it comes to personal growth."
Figures published last November revealed that the number of suicide deaths in Northern Ireland has increased and is the highest since 2015.
Suicide deaths were highest for men between the ages of 25 and 29 and 45 and 49, while for women the highest number of suicide deaths were between the ages of 20 and 24.
In 2021, 74.3% of suicide deaths were men and 25.7% were women. The suicide death rate (standardised for age) for both males and females has been on a general upward trajectory since 2019.
The rate for males increased from 19.1 per 100,000 males in 2019 to 21.5 in 2021, while for females, the equivalent rate increased from 6.0 per 100,000 females in 2019 to 7.3 in 2021.
Sean added: "Sadly North Belfast is rife when it comes to suicide rates and as a gym, we have the resources to help try and combat that through physical activity.
"We do find a lot of people come to us for that reason and to help their mind too so we felt there was a need to run some events focused on mental health.
"We are also going to be running a follow-up programme that will coincide with Men's Day. It will be a weekly drop in session for men called Coffee & Curls.
"It will pretty much be a free drop in session for fellas to let off a bit of steam, grab a coffee and have a chat. This will run for four weeks and if it’s a success, we will continue it on."
You can find out more about Fit House Belfast's upcoming events on their Facebook and Instagram pages.
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