Series 3 Episode 3 - MEN-opause with James Davis

In this episode of Hear Me Roar, the conversation centers around the concept of MEN-opause, exploring the challenges men face during midlife, particularly focusing on andropause. James Davis shares his journey from psychology to becoming a men's health advocate, discussing the importance of understanding and addressing the symptoms of andropause. The episode delves into lifestyle changes, the role of NLP in mentoring, and the significance of communication in relationships. Listeners are encouraged to take proactive steps towards better health and to foster open discussions about men's health issues.

James Davis is an Associate Member of the International Society For Coaching Psychologists, author of The Midlife Male Handbook, men’s health advocate and public speaker. With his wife Claire he hosts the podcast, The Midlife Mentors, which is in the top 1.5% of global podcast charts, aiming to redefine midlife from a ‘crisis’ into an opportunity. James mentors clients using his experience in psychology, NLP, stress management, personal training, nutrition and life/business coaching.  His own midlife challenges impacted on his physical and mental health, so through championing the andropause he’s giving men over 40 the tools they need to make meaningful change to their lives.

jamespdavis.com

themidlifementors.com

F: facebook.com/themidlifementors
TT: tiktok.com/@themidlifementors

I: instagram.com/midlifementors 

YT: youtube.com/c/themidlifementors

(Neuro-Linguistic Programming - NLP

 An approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy that focuses on the connection between neurological processes, language, and behavioural patterns learned through experience.)

Takeaways

Andropause is a real issue that many men face.

Men often struggle with their identity and social connections in midlife.

Lifestyle changes can significantly impact testosterone levels.

Resistance training is crucial for maintaining hormone health.

Communication about health issues is essential for men and women.

Men's health awareness is increasing, but there's still work to do.

The Midlife Male Handbook provides practical tools for men.

Support systems and friendships are vital for mental health.

Understanding andropause can improve relationships.

Taking small steps towards health can lead to significant changes.

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Transcript

Hear Me Roar (00:00)

Hello, hello and welcome to Hear Me Roar Today we are talking MEN-opause. That's going to be interesting. Strap in ladies. I know. Well, not ladies, men, because we have we've just interviewed James. So we're recording this just minutes after we've finished interviewing. Now.

I will admit that I went into this interview with a slight degree of scepticism. Oh me too. Thinking, James is going to talk to us about andropause and midlife for men. Basically the male menopause. Yeah, yeah.

And I tried really hard. I was going, I'm going to keep an open mind. But beforehand, I was thinking to myself, really? Yeah, me too. Are they just nicking our menopause? Nicking hands off our menopause. Yeah. And so I was thinking, please convince me that this is something real.

Yes. Yeah. OK, so you're going to listen to this and you are going to know that it is real. He absolutely convinced us. Yeah, Completely. Absolutely brilliant episode this week. Fantastic guy to listen to. Yeah. And it's the kind of the everything he says. I just want to take my husband and make him and put earphones on him. Yeah. Make him listen. Sit there and listen. So that was absolutely brilliant. Yeah. Yeah.

because because you have to go into something open minded and being prepared to listen and learn. And boy, did we learn and boy, did we listen. Yeah. But the bit where he talked about your willy dropping off. came as a shock. (laughter)

Just joking, anybody listening. You've now put all the men off from listening. Oh my gosh. But yeah, but for men, I think this is a really good one because James has got some absolutely fantastic tips. So James is an associate member of the International Society, put my teeth back in, for coaching psychologists.

author of the midlife male handbook, men's health advocate and public speaker. That's what he does. So with his wife, Claire, he hosts the podcast, the Midlife Mentors, which is in the top one and a half percent of global podcasts charts, aiming to redefine midlife from a crisis into an opportunity. That's a good one. James mentors clients using his experience in psychology.

NLP, that's Neuro Linguistic Programming for people like me that can't talk properly. Because I seem to be tripping over my words. You do. Stress management, personal training, nutrition and life business coaching. His own midlife challenges impacted on his physical and mental health. So through championing the andropause.

He's giving men over 40 the tools they need to make meaningful change to their lives. So this is James Davis. Let's go meet him.

Hear Me Roar (03:03)

Hi James.

James Davis (03:04)

Great to be here, thanks for having me on.

Hear Me Roar (03:06)

Oh, it's great. And we met at Pause Live. And I know you've met Marie before. At Pause Live. Yeah. Where we also met your lovely wife Claire as well. So but we are going to be talking to you today about the MEN-opause But and that's your area of expertise. But before we get there,

James Davis (03:09)

Mmm.

Yeah.

Hear Me Roar (03:29)

We'd like to ask you a bit about how you came into having some expertise in this area. So how did you get into all the coaching and andropause world?

James Davis (03:43)

Great question. I mean, it wasn't linear by any means. I kind of came full circle on it. So I was fascinated by human behavior, psychology. Why do we behave the way we do? Why are people so different? So I studied psychology for my first degree, then did a master's in applied psychology and actually started working as a psychologist for a short space of time. But my attention was also diverted by wanting to be a writer and particularly a journalist for

lifestyle magazines. I know that they're kind of dead in the water these days but back in, this was the early 90s, know, we had all these great titles I was on the side, I was heavily into my dance music and clubbing so I was writing bits and pieces and then Ministry of Sound

Hear Me Roar (04:12)

Yeah.

James Davis (04:27)

basically contacted me and said they had a media project, would I be interested, because they'd seen what I was doing. So I walked out of my psychology job and I was part of the team that launched Ministry of Sound's Ministry magazine. I was actually, yeah, a full-time journalist, magazine journalist. And then gradually my career shifted

Hear Me Roar (04:32)

wow.

Wow.

James Davis (04:44)

more into a corporate role. but I always kept

Hear Me Roar (04:46)

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sounds it.

James Davis (04:48)

kept my

interest in health, I was still like a regular gym goer. And then in 2011, I thought, right, okay, let's try something different. So I moved to Ibiza to set up a retreats company. And the idea at the time was to kind of turn the model on its head. So back then, retreats seemed to be very much focused on weight loss, right? They come get you in a villa, feed you rice and beans and beast you hard. And yeah, yeah, you lost weight, you know.

Hear Me Roar (04:59)

⁓

Hmm.

Yeah, starve you.

James Davis (05:15)

It wasn't fun and then when you got home you put it back on again. So I was like, okay, well let's partner with Five Star Hotels. Let's, yes, have a healthy menu, but also if you want to order burger and drink beer, that's fine too. Because we're going to talk to you about nutritional principles. We're going to talk to you about where your belief systems are getting you stuck as well as working  out and giving you lots of exercise. So that business was 38 Degrees North. It was really hard the first couple of years, but then it kind of took off.

Hear Me Roar (05:17)

So, yeah.

James Davis (05:41)

We had loads of celebrities. It was really great. And through that period, I just continually learned. I had been a gym instructor when I was at university, but then I re-qualified as a personal trainer. I got qualifications in ⁓ gut health, sports nutrition, hormone health, became a menopause practitioner. It's just been an ongoing journey. Diploma in Jungian psychology to add to my psychology. Obviously NLP qualifications.

And that grew and grew and grew until COVID obviously shut the world down. We were heading into our best ever season on paper, like 85 % booked for the season with the most dates we've ever put on. And we had to...

sadly refund everyone their deposits and that was that. So we're like, okay, my wife Claire and I were like, what do we do? And in 2019, we'd actually started a podcast called the Midlife Mentors, because it actually came from seeing a lot of our clients were kind of late thirties, forties, fifties. We were seeing lots of similar things present, but also the age we were at, a lot of our friends were kind of like, oh, we know it's just the beginning of the end. There's not really anything you can do. And we're like, oh no.

Hear Me Roar (06:26)

Nightmare.

Mm-hmm.

you

James Davis (06:47)

It doesn't have to be like that, you know, because we're engrossed in the science, reading the articles and journals. So we started a podcast with that. So when COVID came along, we're like, okay, well, let's design a coaching program that's specifically for people in midlife.

Hear Me Roar (06:50)

No.

James Davis (07:02)

So that became the Midlife Reset. And we ran that really successfully all the way through to about, I think we closed it at the end of 2024.

So now we have Midlife Mentors. I'd say Claire and I are kind of less codependent, more interdependent now. I tend to work mainly with men in midlife, Claire mainly with women, but then we do come together and do a lot of workshops and talks together as well,

In the last six months, corporate work's become really big for us. Going in, delivering workshops, running programs for executives, leadership, performance programs, that kind of thing.

Hear Me Roar (07:36)

Yeah. So you, you mentioned that your, you had some struggles with your, when, you hit midlife and that it impacted on your physical and your mental health. Can you tell us about that a bit?

James Davis (07:47)

Mmm.

Yeah, so I actually had two, I guess, keystone moments. And the first was in Ibiza in 2014. So I'd moved to Ibiza and set up the business with my first wife. And then just out of the blue, she suddenly turned around and said one day and said, I just don't want to do this anymore. I want a divorce. And that was that. And it was completely unexpected to me. So I was effectively left in Ibiza trying to run the business.

Hear Me Roar (08:06)

Wow.

Uh huh

James Davis (08:18)

confidence was on the floor, I was in my 40s already, so I was kind of like, wow, we've been together I think 16 or 17 years, so I'm like, wow, where do I go from here? So that was a real battle and a journey to pull myself back, and what I learned from that was like, I had a lot of the tools myself, but I was so emotionally clouded it was difficult to actually see to use them.

Hear Me Roar (08:19)

Mm-hmm.

Gosh.

James Davis (08:44)

I learned to lean into support and help and get support and then I could start to use the tools myself and pull myself out and round and transform and start thinking about, okay, who do I want to be and where do I go forward from here? That was actually turning into something really empowering. And then I met Claire because we both come out of divorces.

and we were later in life and we just clicked. We're like, okay, let's just go for it. So we got married and continued running the business. as I was approaching 50, so like three years ago now, Claire actually noticed it. She was like, yeah, you just seem to have lost your mojo a bit. You're like, you're isolating, you don't really want to do it. The business was really successful. We were successful on paper. We were doing really well, like loads of clients.

It wasn't really sparking me up. I just had no get up and go. And I was like, what do I want to do? What do I want to do next? And I kind of got stuck in this stasis. And I thought, well, this is really interesting. At the time, I was delivering a whole program for a big city bank, a global bank, all around men's health. And I thought, this is so fascinating. I'm talking about all this stuff. And I'm actually going through it myself now. And then.

Hear Me Roar (09:47)

Yeah.

James Davis (09:47)

One of the guys on it, you we got to end of the program, he's like, this has been incredible, there's been so much information, but where is all this info? Is there a book you can recommend? And I was like, ⁓ I'd been toying with the idea, but I thought, okay, this is a sign, I'm going through it myself, this guy's asking, there are no books out there really on what's happening to men at midlife. So that was, I toyed around with the idea before, but that was really the spur to get in and get writing.

And then of course that becomes a long process of writing, drafting, sending out proposals, finding a publisher. And I was lucky enough to actually, you know, to find a great publisher that believed in it and supported it. And yeah, it came out March this year.

Hear Me Roar (10:22)

Fantastic. No, go on, you go. I was just going to ask what topics does your book cover?

James Davis (10:28)

So we talk about the andropause, so age-related testosterone decline and the impact that can have on men. But I wanted this to be broader than that because I think, yes, testosterone can play a role for some men at midlife, but also I think we can reflect it becomes a time when we naturally take stock, we look back and certainly for lot of the men I coach, they're high performers, but they may be like, wow, I just think I've given too much away.

I'm not sure that what I've got was worth what I've lost or they're like, I just feel so unfulfilled. I've got everything I thought I wanted, but I feel really unfulfilled. I wanted to cover this whole thing of like, where do we look at our values? Where are our social connections? Because there's lots of, I did tons of research for this book. All the data says men have smaller social networks than women to start with, and they get smaller and smaller as they age. They isolate more and more. Men tend.

Hear Me Roar (11:17)

My husband,

you know, you're just making me think completely of him when you're saying that. But he's like, he's never needed a lot of friends, a large group of friends, but he's pretty much sticks to the same few now. I think. I think women in general are more and that's a sweeping generalisation, obviously, about women are generally more sociable. I mean,

James Davis (11:25)

Yeah.

Yeah. It's great he's got some.

Hear Me Roar (11:45)

If I think about all our friends, they've all come from me standing on a schoolyard chatting to mums, waiting to pick children up and you know, all those sorts of things. That's how women make a lot of connections. And then you make friends and the friends have husbands and then you all meet up. then so that's how you get a lot of friends. And that's how men, I think, have a lot of friendship because it's come through the woman. But I think my husband has my husband has three friends.

James Davis (11:55)

Mmm.

Yeah, I think that's true.

Hear Me Roar (12:12)

They meet up, right? Once every few months they go for a pint together and that's their socialising done for the quarter. That's it, done.

James Davis (12:20)

Yeah, yeah. But this is what happens, right? You make a good point. A lot of men

define their identity in terms of their career and their, in inverted commas, friends are from their career or from their wives or partners. So the social circle shrinks at the same time they can start to struggle with, know, who am I? What is my identity now? The physicality starts to affect them, you know. ⁓ I'm losing my physical strength. I'm putting on weight. I'm not liking what I see in the mirror.

Maybe they've got issues with libido as well and these can all start to play a psychological trigger. So it can be a really tough time and that's born out by the statistics The highest suicide cohort unfortunately is midlife men 50 to 54. And the rate of suicide is almost five times that of women of all ages, which is staggering. Yeah. So I really wanted the purpose of the book was really to...

Hear Me Roar (12:51)

Yeah.

Wow.

Gosh, I didn't know that.

James Davis (13:11)

because men don't open up and talk about it was to give them a framework to understand why they might be feeling the way they're feeling and then give them practical tools for what they could do to kind of pull themselves through it.

Hear Me Roar (13:21)

Yeah, because that's in general again something else that men don't do as well as women. They don't talk about their feelings as much. You know, I mean, we'll sit over a coffee or a cocktail and we'll just, you know, blurt it all out about how we're feeling. Men don't tend to do that, do they? Because I don't know, society thinks they have to be men and, you know. But men are also fixers. And again, generalizing here, but men see a problem and go right steps A, B and C, sorted.

Walk away.

James Davis (13:51)

this is a really good point about communication styles and that's so true. It's something I hear all the time. Women will express a problem to their partner. The man is like, right, I need to figure out how to solve this. Actually, they just want you to listen, not solve. But there is a paradox here, I think, when it comes to health and self. Again, I'm gonna do sweeping generalizations, but women will get together and talk about what's going on for them with their mental, physical health.

Hear Me Roar (14:04)

Yeah.

James Davis (14:15)

what's working for them, what's not, I've tried this HRT, or, you know, I've tried this, I've tried that. Men will just have the surface level conversations. It's like, yeah, I'm all right, I'll keep quiet.

Hear Me Roar (14:15)

Mm.

Yeah, yeah. And they just sort of push it down, don't they? And that needs to come out really for their mental health. So your book's called The Midlife Male Handbook.

James Davis (14:26)

Yeah, yeah.

It does, yeah.

Hear Me Roar (14:35)

And so, right, so all good bookstores, Amazon, all the rest of it.

James Davis (14:39)

Amazon,

Waterstones, Smiths, Borders, yeah.

Hear Me Roar (14:43)

Brilliant. So you and your wife, you both work in similar fields and similar subjects. so how does that work between you? Are you sort of bouncing off each other a lot?

James Davis (14:54)

Yeah, well, I'd say it was a very steep learning curve when we got together because we got together into a relationship and we were working together. She moved to Ibiza to come into the retreats business. We were running that together. And we launched the midlife mentors together, that coaching program, we delivered it together. So it was very intensive and we had to figure out each other's working styles and strengths and weaknesses. And we've done that now. But I think we realized, you know, a couple of years ago, it actually led to a very...

Hear Me Roar (15:16)

Mm.

James Davis (15:21)

unhealthy degree of co-dependence. So work started to leak out into personal areas of life as well. So we made a conscious effort to kind of step back and work out how we can be more interdependent, interconnected. So, and that's worked really nicely now. yes.

We're in the same space, but often we're working on completely different things with different clients. And then we will come together and do stuff like we'll talk at shows and deliver corporate workshops together, but then also do our own individual stuff as well.

Hear Me Roar (15:49)

Yeah, and I suppose that when you come together, at a very basic level, it gives you things to talk about?

James Davis (15:56)

Absolutely, you know, and when we were working together on the same things, we had to be really careful about setting boundaries for that. So that was something we very mindful of, like, okay, know, work switches off here and we don't talk about it. Because the temptation is, you know, when you're both in the same, doing the same thing together and that's your livelihood, it's just kind of like 24 seven. So we're really careful to start guarding that.

Hear Me Roar (16:08)

Good.

Yeah.

Yes. As someone who works closely with her husband, I totally get that. So let's just take, take you back to what we've said in, in your bio. You say that you use NLP when mentoring clients. Can you explain for our listeners what NLP means?

James Davis (16:22)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's just one of the tools I use. So NLP is neuro-linguistic programming. And it really came out of the work of hypnosis and hypnotherapy as a way to use language as a shortcut to reprogram beliefs and behaviors, essentially. And the neat thing is you can actually match it up with physical interactions as well.

So there's certain cues, you we'll have a, for example, you know, we have a very basic level, we have a style. People will be either auditory, kinesthetic, visual, yeah, kinesthetic or visual, right? So you listen to someone, they say, you know, I've heard this story, I hear this thing, listen to this. ⁓ right, you're an auditory style person, so I need to adapt my speech to be auditory. If they're going, you know, I see these things, I look at that, I look at it, you're visual. It's like, I feel these things, my emotions, it's like, you're kinesthetic.

Hear Me Roar (17:05)

Mm.

Mm.

James Davis (17:24)

So it's just things like that and you can use, what I like to use it for is, it's kind of like, one of the most powerful tools is future rehearsal. So from the word of neuroscience, so we used to think this was quite woo woo, right? When people talk about, know, visualise your future. And back in the 70s, you know, there were all these books like, oh, visualise it. it was like, ooh, actually neuroscience has proven it now. They can do brain scanning and see which areas of the brain light up. I've actually found that if we imagine vividly in our.

our brain doesn't actually know the difference between imagination and real thing. So if we mentally rehearse where we're going to be, what we want our life to look like, we're actually priming our subconscious to step into it. And if you want a practical example of this, this is why you'll see things like skiers at the top of the slope when they're racing, you'll see them like actually swaying and moving, they're running the course in their imagination first. Tennis players will play the match in their heads. It's through sport, it's massively used.

Hear Me Roar (18:16)

Wow.

James Davis (18:18)

So it's a really, really powerful tool just to keep taking people to like, okay, a year from now, tell me what you're wearing, what the smells around you, da da da da, and you can like build a picture for them. That's just one of many, many tools.

Hear Me Roar (18:30)

Wow. Yeah. Because we interviewed Michelle from Two Women Chatting and she was talking about her board. Do you remember? A visualisation board? Yes. And so she was preparing this for her year ahead and putting things on there so she could visualise next year. I might need to have a go at that. Yeah, I'm sure it was Michelle that...

James Davis (18:32)

Mmm.

vision board.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it could be a really powerful tool.

Yeah. Definitely.

Hear Me Roar (18:58)

Yeah. We need to do more of it. need to have a Yeah, I think we need to have a go at that. So one of the other terms that you use is andropause. So can you explain what the andropause is?

James Davis (19:01)

Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah, andropause, basically we could summarise it as age-related testosterone decline. Most of your listeners would probably know what menopause is, right? It's for females, when you're estrogen and progesterone, which are your two key female sex hormones, will fluctuate and then start to decline away. For men, our key sex hormone is testosterone. Now, a really important difference between menopause and andropause is, know, menopause...

Hear Me Roar (19:20)

Yeah.

James Davis (19:36)

can be lot more predictable in terms of when in the life cycle it's going to happen. And it also happens in a relatively short space of time. It might not feel like it when you're going through it, but we know you'll hit perimenopause, you'll have some symptoms, it'll fluctuate, then you'll go into menopause and you come out. And it's quite a narrow bandwidth of time. For men, what's happening is testosterone peaks typically in the early 20s and it declined one to 3 % per year.

So it's a little bit more insidious. It will just drop down, drop down in your town. But how many of you in your 50s, it could be 30 to 50 % lower than it was in your 20s. So you're not getting these kind of like, oh, I suddenly like hit with a symptom. It's just like, oh, I'm sluggish. I've got low level anxiety. I can't, I've got no motivation. And there's two problems really. One is it can be confused with lots of other things that could be wrong with you. Normally like people will just go for stress, right?

Hear Me Roar (20:10)

Mm.

James Davis (20:24)

The other thing is because there's really low awareness of it, most men don't even know the term andropause or related to testosterone or know that they should go and get their testosterone levels checked.

Hear Me Roar (20:34)

I'm just curious. If they go and get their testosterone levels checked and they're found to be quite low, what can they do about that?

James Davis (20:44)

Yes, so there's a few options. So you can go and get a blood test and you can get one on the NHS. Your doctor might be resistant, but you can definitely kind of insist that they give it to you. I'd say if you're a man and you're over 45, they definitely should consider giving it to you if you've got these symptoms. I'm talking about these symptoms persisting for a long time, not like, oh, I just feel unusually fatigued and I've got no motivation for a week. If it's going on for three or four, five weeks or longer, go see the doctor.

Simple blood test, it will give you your testosterone levels. If you fall in normal range, all well and good, if you're low, then the doctor will discuss options with you. Now, I'm always in favor of doing the lifestyle adjustments first, right? Because we know we can increase testosterone naturally by doing stuff through our lifestyle.

Because the difference between HRT and TRT is, HRT again you'll listen to be familiar with, when you're going to menopause you introduce estrogen to the system. There is testosterone replacement therapy for men where you introduce testosterone, but the issue is this, when we introduce an exogenous hormone, like an outside hormone, we will shut down our own production. So it's not a case of, I'll go on it for a couple of years and then I'll come off again. It's a lifelong commitment from when you start taking it. So that's number one to consider.

Number two, it is contraindicated for certain men with certain health conditions, particularly things around prostate and stuff. So that's really an in-depth with your GP, I would say, before you go. And that's why I say always do the lifestyle stuff first. Because here's the thing, if you're really, really, really low, it might be that you need to go on it straight away to kind of even consider doing the lifestyle stuff. If you're just low, do the lifestyle changes first.

And I know your next question would be like, what are they? Well, just good health ones really. We wanna try and eliminate sugar from the diet. We know sugar is inflammatory to the gut, the brain, the body. It plays havoc with the hormonal system. We wanna try and eliminate as much processed food. We wanna introduce more protein into our diet, more whole foods. So to clean up our diet, limit alcohol, drink more water. But the key thing for men really is weight training, resistance training.

Hear Me Roar (22:29)

Yeah.

James Davis (22:47)

So there's so much research on this. If we can resistance train two or three times a week, and the key is here, like compound lifts, so lifts that engage multiple muscle groups, so stuff like a bench press, a squat, overhead press, and we can lift fairly heavy, then we can actually elevate our testosterone. After every workout, we'll elevate. So if we continually do it, we'll continue to elevate human growth hormone and testosterone. So if we're doing that, we're getting adequate recovery, we're sleeping.

our say eight to nine hours a night, because hormone recovery relies on sleep as well. We can supplement with things like zinc, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin C, all super, super important for testosterone. Then we can naturally increase our levels. I did this myself, so I took an NHS test and I was just under normal range, so slightly low. So I basically dialed back in my training, made sure I was getting sleep, took the supplements.

And boom, I came up to middle of normal range within a space of about six to eight weeks, I think it was. So that was just a natural increased testosterone.

Hear Me Roar (23:46)

All okay.

James Davis (23:48)

And obviously if you go that route, I know people will be going, but I don't want to go to the gym. Well, what's the cost? Do you want to be introducing artificial chemical hormones to your body for the rest of your life? Or do you want to try this first?

Hear Me Roar (24:02)

Yeah, deal with that. So I know you're a public speaker. Do you go and speak about the andropause because it's not, I don't think it's commonly known. I mean, I hadn't really heard of it and I would imagine a lot of people haven't. Are you having to go out and educate people about the andropause?

James Davis (24:12)

Mm.

Yeah, so I do go out, it's one of my most popular talks, workshops that I give. And I started banging the drum on it even before I wrote the book, like probably five years ago. And honestly, people did not wanna know. I don't even know what that is and who cares anyway was kind of sadly the response. But there's been a big, big uptick so I'm.

Hear Me Roar (24:34)

Hmm.

James Davis (24:42)

like doing a load of work, in-person workshops all around the andropause and men's health. So it's really great to see it starting to be embraced, but there's a lot of work to do, because I think there was one study that someone did that they found 78 % of men had at least one symptom, men over 45, but 82 % had never heard of it. So, yeah.

Hear Me Roar (25:04)

Do you get a lot of pushback from women? Because women kind of like, well, why are you trying to take our menopause from us? You've got everything else, you know. Hands off, it's ours.

James Davis (25:12)

Yes. It's a great question.

Do you know what? I'd say in the last year, I've seen a real shift in attitudes to women going, actually, you know what? This is important because they're seeing men in their lives kind of start to suffer a bit. It may not be a partner, but it might be a brother. They might realize that their dad was like that. It might be, you know...

husband of a friend and they're like actually there is something going on here. When I first started to push this I got so much pushback and sadly especially from female journalists who were actually saying to me like menopause is ours don't try and take it. I'm sorry it's not about taking it, it's not a competition. And also in this strange age we live in it's just like actually said to me well

Hear Me Roar (25:47)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

James Davis (26:02)

midlife men have had it so good for so long, who cares anyway? I'm like, go look at the suicide rate and then tell me that you're not interested. We can say that and I'm not saying yes, the patriarchy has been in place for a long time and men have had it good on so many levels, but I don't think we win by then just saying, well, now you've just got to suffer in silence on your own. It's counterintuitive. And I think the other thing is,

Hear Me Roar (26:11)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You're right.

James Davis (26:27)

In a relationship, if the woman is going through menopause and the man is going through andropause, if neither of them is really understanding what's going on for them and they can't have a framework to explore it, it can be incredibly divisive. So again, it's just giving a common language and a framework to understand what's happening and hopefully make relationships better.

Hear Me Roar (26:31)

Hmm

Yeah.

Well that can only be a good thing and a positive thing can't it? Yes so do you have any advice in a nutshell for men listening?

James Davis (26:48)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. Listen, I'd say if you've got any of symptoms that we mentioned there, like you're feeling like you've got low level anxiety, motivation's going, you've lost your mojo a bit, maybe libido is something you're concerned about, you've noticed you haven't got as much energy you're putting on body fat, you've got mental fog sometimes, and it's been a longer term thing, like it's persisting, and you're over 40, 45. Go to your doctors, get a blood test, then you'll know whether it's testosterone.

or not, right? It's process of elimination. If it is low testosterone, for explaining what you can do, you've got options. If it's not, then start exploring what else it is. But I say in any case, just trying to take a few small steps to be healthier is gonna help you no matter what. But I'd say an interesting thing, and this goes for men and women, there's an awful lot of focus, I think, in our culture and society on what I call the external fixes. It's like...

do the exercise, clean up the diet, and yes, we should 100 % do that. But also, as we age and as our hormones change, our psychology changes, we become more risk averse, we see the world in a more pessimistic light. So we should be doing psychological practices as well to stay more positive, more grateful, and to go out into the world kind of in a really more positive way. So don't neglect that part of it. And a key part of that for men is build your networks.

Keep your friends. If there's a friend you've been thinking of that you haven't spoken to for a while, drop them a text now. Pick up the phone, give them a call, meet them for a beer. Have a chat about what's happening for you. It's so important.

Hear Me Roar (28:22)

Yeah.

And I hope that if men listening to this now do go to the GP, I hope they find a GP that actually is prepared to listen. Because I know even now, where we are now, some women who need HRT can still be fobbed off with an antidepressant, which isn't what they need. They need HRT. So if women are having that battle, it's slightly worrying as to the kind of battle that a man's going to have.

James Davis (28:49)

Yeah, I mean, obviously it comes down to your GP, but the NHS do an amazing job, but the thing is the doctors are under such pressure,

Hear Me Roar (28:53)

and

James Davis (28:57)

And I get it. I get it, the doctors don't wanna be responsible for something happening down the line. But it's a sticking plaster, right?

let's just give you this to make you feel better, but it's not really addressing what the underlying issue is. And particularly if it is hormonal, then let's get to the bottom of that. And I think men will find a struggle, because again, testosterone replacement therapy is not widely available on NHS. They really resist giving it out. The level at which you'd be at to qualify for it on NHS would be so low that you would be really, really struggling in life. And if I'm cynical, I would say that's probably...

expense related, if you suddenly start to doling out testosterone to millions of men as well, you know, what's the impact on the bottom line for Wes Streeting?

Hear Me Roar (29:34)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, for costs. But as you say,

there are there are things that men can do to raise it. So that's positive on it. So simple steps that men can take. Well, that's been fantastic, James. Yeah, you've been absolutely fascinating to I could sit and listen to this. It's been really interesting and fascinating. What's next for you?

James Davis (29:47)

Mmm. Yeah, absolutely.

⁓ thank you.

That is a really great question. Claire and I working on a book together at the moment that will hopefully be out next year.

And then beyond that, I'm just, yeah, looking to work with more corporates. I'm getting more engagement all the time and yeah, just carry on as I am. And I've got another idea for another book ticking away, but I need to get the next one out of the way first.

Hear Me Roar (30:26)

One at a time. One at a time, yeah. That's brilliant. cocktail? So, yes, having mentioned that maybe you should cut back on alcohol. So, we asked you to think that if you were a cocktail or a mocktail...

James Davis (30:27)

Yeah.

cocktail.

Yes!

Hear Me Roar (30:41)

what would your name be, what would the name of a cocktail be, what would be the main ingredients and why.

James Davis (30:41)

Mm.

Well so I'm going to call this the Jimmy's Margarita. Yeah, so we're going to go for the standard margarita first of all. So we want some nice crushed ice, we want some lime juice, lots of tequila, some Cointreau.

Hear Me Roar (30:53)

Right.

I that,

lots of tequila.

James Davis (31:04)

What you doing? A dash of agave. I don't like them too sweet, so a dash of agave. Shake all that. It'll go into your nice tequila glass, but then here comes the little kicker. We're then gonna drizzle some full-bodied red wine over the top. Sounds weird, but trust me.

Hear Me Roar (31:17)

right. Yeah.

James Davis (31:20)

You just want a thin layer floating on the top.

Hear Me Roar (31:23)

So it like floats as a red line. So why have you got wine in it?

James Davis (31:25)

Yeah.

just to do something unexpected. I feel like, you know, a margarita, I was relating it to my journey, I'll tell you, the margarita is one of those smooth, easy to drink, which I hope, yeah, but then adding the red wine just gives it a kick and something unexpected.

Hear Me Roar (31:44)

⁓

very nice. Yes, well, it will do. And it was called the Jimmy's Margarita.

James Davis (31:49)

We're going to call it the

Jimmy's Margarita, yeah.

Hear Me Roar (31:51)

Why? Oh god! Marie, you're fired! Menopausal brain fog happening there. It's great, that's the good thing about menopause, you can blame everything on can blame everything on it, yes, of you can! I've lost all my things, it's definitely brain fog, not me putting them in the wrong place.

James Davis (31:52)

Well, because I'm James, so Jimmy.

Yeah.

Hear Me Roar (32:14)

So just just add in you can be found at Jamespdavis.com and themidlifementors.com and you can also be found on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. You're very busy person. All under midlifementors. Yeah, wow. Well, it's been great to meet you today, James. It's been absolutely fantastic. Yeah, and

James Davis (32:21)

Yeah.

That's correct,

Yes. Yeah. All under midlife mentors, Yeah.

It's been fantastic. Thank you ladies. It's been great being talked

to by you.

Hear Me Roar (32:43)

We've learnt a lot as well. We have learnt a lot. I'm going to be well, when we put this episode up, I'm going to be saying ladies, listen to this and then make your other halves listen to this. Yeah, absolutely. men listen to this and make your other halves listen to this. Yeah.

James Davis (32:55)

Yeah, but please

Hear Me Roar (32:56)

Yeah, definitely. thanks ever so much, James. That was being really interesting to hear and fascinating to listen to and very inspirational. Brilliant. Thanks a lot. Cheers. Bye bye.

James Davis (33:00)

Thank you.

thank you. Thank you so much. Bye.