Sort Your Head Out: Mental health without all the bollocks

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In 2018 I had a complete nightmare, losing my radio show and TV show within a couple of months of each other. Shortly afterwards, my production company descended into a state of financial pandemonium and all sorts of professional and deeply personal conflict ensued. I was miserable, exhausted and scared of the future. I had been sober for three years and, despite the prevailing chaos, I wasn’t once tempted to throw myself off the wagon. I figured however bad things seemed, my mental health would be a great deal worse with a hangover. Mind you, this was the first big test I had faced since I quit drink. Find out what classes are available in your community and sign up for something that takes your interest There are lots of ways to keep mentally healthy and some are so easy that you might even do them already.

Covering his complex upbringing, fast paced career, struggles with addiction and recovery, and detailing lessons he’s learnt along the way, Sort Your Head Outis Sam’s startlingly raw, compassionate and hilarious account of why opening up is the first step to sorting your head out. Sam knew he needed help – the problem was that he thought self-help was for hippies, sobriety was for weirdos and therapy was for neurotics. It was only when he began to open up that things got better and better. Now he’s written this book to help others do the same." Despite believing it to be as important as, if not more than, their physical health, almost a quarter of Scottish people are neglecting their mental wellbeing. So, can you sort out your head ina week? I was deeply sceptical but, yes, I now believe you can. Will you fix all your problems? Probably not. But the process gives you a clear roadmap for your onward journey.I can’t recommend it highly enough. I told myself that football was my hobby. But going to football was always as much about getting twatted as it was watching the game. Similarly, playing Monday-night five-a-side was only a ritual we endured prior to the post-match beers.Sort Your Head Out” is Sam Delaney’s attempt to draft a no-nonsense guide to men’s mental health. He does so less through recourse to medical or academic research, but largely by drawing on his own experience of crushing anxiety, alcoholism, and drug addiction. In doing so, Delaney has written a self-help guide free of earnest psychobabble that seeks to connect with a group often overlooked in the discourse on mental health: working class men.

Delaney says about the book: “Like most blokes my age, I have been through some ups and down, including periods where I worked way too hard, drank way too much and let the stress get out of hand. I wrote this book because I didn’t feel there was anyone out there who I could relate to who was sharing similar experiences. The book is very episodic and comes across slightly repetitive. I imagine a lot of the text may have started off life as a blog. It has a very bloggy feel about it. Chapter 18 is typical starting; I craved stimulation at all times. I was terrified of even fleeting moments of boredom. I thought of myself as being constantly on the run from lapsing into that fat bored kid I had once been. The truth is, I was probably just scared of ever being alone with my own unfiltered thoughts.My three previous books were: Get Smashed - The Story Of The Men Who Made The Ads That Changed Our Lives (Sceptre, 2007), Night Of The Living Dad (John Murray, 2009) and Mad Men And Bad Men (Faber, 2015). Remember to take pleasure in the little things- a rainbow, a sunset or a smile from a stranger in the street

Then, on the sixth day, the miracle happened. I looked like seven shades of shit and my screamed-out voice had descended into a husky growl, but I felt incredible – clear, light, hopeful. When I landed my first job in journalism I told myself that the best way to succeed was to never stop. When I finished at the office I would go home and write down ideas, do bits of research, read other newspapers and magazines obsessively. I was a product of Thatcherism – totally in thrall to my own productivity. I didn’t just want a steady job that paid the bills. I wanted to create great things constantly and be defined by them. And I also wanted to get totally shitfaced every weekend (plus sometimes on a Thursday). Surprise yourself and try something different. Achieving a goal or learning something new can increase your confidence as well as being fun. We all have something we'd like to try. Do it today! I feel it works because it’s so intense, so focused and stretches over a week. Knowing you don’t have to ‘gather yourself together’ to face the world at the end of an hour’s session gives the psyche the freedom to let go and allow the tough stuff to surface.

It feels good to give. Giving your time can be very rewarding and can connect you to your community. Research shows doing an act of kindness every week boosts your mood and increases your wellbeing! I have spent years as a broadcaster both in radio and TV. I have hosted numerous shows on BBC 5Live, BBC London and talkSPORT and presented documentaries for BBC Three and Channel 4. From 2016-2018 I hosted the drive time show on Talk Radio, covering the Brexit referendum, two general elections and the 2016 US Presidential Election, live from Washington DC. I am still very much a work in progress. I still overdo it sometimes. I still say yes to things I shouldn’t. I sometimes fill dead evenings with chocolate and make myself an espresso at 8 p.m. at night because . . . I don’t know why – it’s just something to do, innit? The Scottish Association for Mental Health is urging people to to talk to friends and family about any mental health issues they may be dealing with.

In this extract from his new book, broadcaster and journalist Sam Delaney tells how he embraced a simpler, more idle lifestyle to save his mental health Regular exercise and eating a whole food diet is encouraged to maintain our body's optimum health but what about our minds? For more information, see penninghame.org. Penninghame offers a sliding scale of fees and bursaries may also be available. Then I did something that was pretty alien to me. I started to own up to the fact that I was struggling. I went to a group called Andy’s Man Club where blokes meet every Monday night for a chinwag about life, all the shit it can throw at you and all the beauty that’s to be found in it too. It helped. I started chatting to mates about what I was going through and the things I was worried about. I was stunned by their empathy. Next, I started writing about this sort of stuff. A couple of articles in the newspaper about my own little struggles: the drinking, the anxiety, the childhood stuff I’d never quite shaken off. I’d been writing for years but never with much honesty about myself. I like making people laugh and found it was easy to use humour as a means of distracting from self-reflection. But when he reached his thirties, work, relationships and fatherhood started to take their toll. Like so many blokes who seemed to be totally fine, he often felt like a complete failure whose life was out of control; anxiety and depression had secretly plagued him for years. Turning to drink and drugs only made things worse. Sam knew he needed help - the problem was that he thought self-help was for hippies, sobriety was for weirdos and therapy was for neurotics.

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Regular physical activity has been proven to have a positive effect on your mental health and wellbeing. This doesn't mean you have to run a marathon; there are lots of other things you can do to keep active! Eventually, there was a collapse. There always is. Since then, I have rebuilt my life in a simpler way that is easier to manage. What else did people do to sort their heads out when numbing the senses with drugs and alcohol were off the table? Meditation? Yoga? These things work a treat for millions but, to be honest, I just wasn’t into it at that stage of my life. I was frantic, strung out. I couldn’t sleep. I felt pretty lost and alone at times. Keeping it all inside was what nearly dragged Sam under. Then he began to open up and share his story with others. Soon his life started to get better and better. Now, he's written this book to help you do the same. The beauty of Penninghame isthat it isn’t just about the week’s experience. You’re given practical tools to take into everyday life that will help you live more honestly, creatively and authentically. In the weeks following, I noticed my life shift. My home life became more harmonious, I had far more clarity about my work, I found a visionfor my future that felt exciting and possible and my bouts of depression seem to have been booted into touch.