This November I’m taking on 30 days of challenges to raise awareness of male mental health and suicide prevention. These challenges are to be crowd sourced, so you can have an input and challenge me to a fitness challenge, a recipe, skill….. anything I can do from my doorstep given the way the world may go this winter.
The darker months of the year can be tough for everyone and finding motivation to get outside, be active and engage with others can be a challenge for many.
I hope to inspire and motivate others to get out and invest in their mental wellbeing this November
Now the challenges could be anything and not restricted to
Total mileage for the month – Running and or cycling
Total climbing for the month – running and/or cycling (remember I live near Milton Keynes….)
New exercises – home based, limited things available… no weighted squat PRs 😉
Number of times riding/running a trail
Cook something new
Try to learn a new skill
Touch your toes
Give something back to the local community
Challenge needs to be based on a worst case scenario ie possible from the front door of my house or inside the house.
Any mileage/rep totals will be spread across the month – and if history repeats, the last few days will be a nightmare
The basis is for positivity, motivation and inspiration
The time of year can be a tough one and getting out the door or being active indoors can and does make a real tangible change to mood, self worth and daily productivity
Above are my videos from last year which I chose to talk about aspects of my childhood abuse, in what I hoped was a positive way, imparting some of the lessons it has taught me. I also grew the moustache, which this year will stay on my face throughout (unless there is a shaving accident)
My ask to you, outside of challenging me in the coming weeks, is to firstly challenge yourself in November – even if its simply to make your bed everyday
And secondly, to drop a couple of quid, the price of a half decent cup of coffee into my digital piggybank (justgiving page), to raise funds for Mind and CALM.
Mind helped me out some five years ago, when I found myself in the depths of a negative episode and ended up talking about my suicidal thoughts to a GP. Having never met the GP before, I should have probably started with hello and a bit of a backstory, as my direct but polite words had her looking like she’d just seen a ghost. I was referred to Mind, after CBT wasn’t for me and had 6 sessions of counselling at their Milton Keynes office. It was enough to break me out of the downward spiral and put me in a position to lean on the lessons I had learnt from 18 months of counselling/therapy from Christiane Sanderson in my early 20s.
CALM or the Campaign Against Living Miserably hasn’t been a charity ive used directly, but I all too aware of the role they play in helping people in their time of crisis and the significance this has for men, given statically 75% of all UK suicides are male. Every night of the year, CALM offer accredited confidential, anonymous and free support, information and signposting to men anywhere in the UK through their webchat service. Chats are taken by trained staff who are there to listen, support, inform and signpost. And because calls are confidential and anonymous we don’t and can’t offer a counselling service
So please send me your challenges, be them big or small, short or long. Drop them in the comments box below, DM me on Instagram or email me at jamesmackeddie@live.co.uk
I can’t promise I’ll do everyone, if they aren’t possible due to time/life/location constraints or due to sheer volume. However, I will announce everyone I’ll be able to take part in, keep you updated and would love to see what you get up to in November too.
For those who want easy access to updates, ive created a new page, easy to spot in the top menu “30 Days of Movember” where all updates shall be linked too
Link to my justgiving page – CLICK HERE
James Mackeddie 