What 'Man Up' culture is really costing UK men

There's a phrase most of us heard long before we understood what it really meant: ‘Man up’ i.e. get on with it, don't make a fuss, deal with it yourself – the list goes on.

For many men in their 40s and 50s, that phrase isn't just a memory from childhood — it's still the operating manual. And the data suggests it's a manual that's quietly costing us more than we've been told.

This isn't a piece about blame. It's not aimed at anyone who's ever gone quiet rather than spoken up — most of us have, at some point. It's about what actually happens when an entire generation of men is taught that silence is strength, and what the numbers tell us once we stop avoiding them.

The gap between how men feel and what men say

Only around 32.6% of referrals to NHS Talking Therapies are for men according to the NHS’s own Talking Therapies Annual Report for 2023-24.

This isn't because men need less support.

A 2023 YouGov survey for the charity Future Men found that 51% of young men believe society expects them to “man up” when facing a challenge, and over half of UK adults said crying in front of others would make a man seem “less masculine.” Separately, Movember's research found that 38% of men don't talk to others about how they're feeling, and almost three in ten have never shown emotion or cried in front of another person.

None of this stays contained to feelings. It shows up in outcomes.

Why “toughing it out” doesn't work biologically

There's a reason none of this responds well to sheer willpower, and it isn't a character flaw — it's physiology.

Chronic, unmanaged stress doesn't just feel unpleasant. Over time it drives what researchers call allostatic load — the cumulative wear on the body's regulatory systems from staying in a state of alert for too long. This can show up as elevated blood pressure, poorer sleep, reduced insulin sensitivity, and slower recovery from everything else life throws at you. “Getting on with it” doesn't switch this process off. If anything, suppressing the signal rather than addressing the source tends to prolong it.

This is precisely why stress regulation, sleep, movement and connection all sit inside the same system in the body — not as separate lifestyle boxes to tick, but as the interacting mechanisms that determine how well a man actually copes with pressure. Ignore the emotional side long enough, and it tends to resurface as a physical one: fatigue that sleep doesn't fix, motivation that won't return, a body that feels like it's working against you.

What actually helps — and what doesn't

None of this is solved by another awareness poster in a break room, and it's definitely not solved by simply telling men to “open up” without giving them somewhere safe to do it. What the evidence does point to:

● Early, low-friction access matters more than crisis response. Deloitte's ROI analysis found universal, early-stage workplace interventions returned £6.30 for every £1 invested — nearly 50% more than reactive support offered once someone's already struggling.

● Normalising the conversation before a crisis point changes outcomes. Men can be more willing to engage with support that doesn't require them to first declare there's something “wrong” with them.

● Physical health conversations are often the way in. Many men who won't book a session called “mental health support” will engage with one framed around energy, sleep, or performance — and can end up talking about the same things anyway.

The men I work with rarely walk in wanting to discuss stress. They want their energy back, or to stop lying awake at 2am, or to understand why their motivation's disappeared. The conversation usually gets there anyway — just without anyone having to declare a crisis first.

The real definition of strength

Every man over 40 has, at some point, been strong by getting on with things alone. But there's a difference between resilience and endurance without support — and the data above suggests the second one has a much higher long-term price tag, paid quietly, often years later.

Man up culture was never really about strength. It was about silence. And the numbers make it fairly clear which one has been costing us more.

If you're a man in your 40s or 50s recognising some of this in yourself — the fatigue that won't lift, the motivation that's gone quiet, the sense of running on empty without quite knowing why — that's exactly the kind of thing coaching is built to work through, one honest conversation at a time.

Get in touch below if you'd like to know more.

Sources:

NHS Talking Therapies Annual Report - https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-talking-therapies-for-anxiety-and-depression-annual-reports/2023-24

Vita Health Group / NHS Talking Therapies referral data — https://vitahealthgroup.co.uk/health-hub/articles/mens-mental-health-month-2025/

UK Therapy Guide, mental health statistics — https://uktherapyguide.com/mental-health-statistics-uk

Future Men Survey 2023 (YouGov) — https://www.londondaily.news/half-of-uk-men-think-men-feel-pressure-anxiety/

Movember research, cited in Marie Claire UK — https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/life/men-redefining-masculinity

ONS / House of Commons Library, suicide statistics 2024 — https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7749/

Samaritans, suicide facts and figures — https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/research-policy/suicide-facts-and-figures/latest-suicide-data/

HSE, Work-related stress, depression or anxiety statistics 2024/25 — https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/overview.htm

Deloitte UK, Mental Health and Employers: The Case for Investment, 2024 — https://www.deloitte.com/uk/en/about/press-room/poor-mental-health-costs-uk-employers-51-billion-a-year-for-employees.html

McEwen, B.S. (2007). Physiology and neurobiology of stress and adaptation. Physiological Reviews.

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