In Australia, suicide is the biggest killer of Australian men aged 15 to 44, eclipsing road death, cancer and heart disease. Three times as many men compared to women take their own lives.
Globally, 510,000 men die from suicide each year -- that's one every minute. And yet, it's hidden in the shadows and shrouded in stigma.
There's no denying that mental health problems affect men and women of all ages. Research tells us that women suffer higher rates of anxiety and depression. However, mental health outcomes are weighted against men because most blokes don't handle mental illness well.
Women are more likely to talk about what's going on and seek help for mental health problems, whereas we men are great at bottling things up and toughing it out -- even if we're in a pretty bad place.
We can't afford to stay silent. We need to talk about the tough stuff and we need to act.