For several years now, you may have been seeing your brothers and other male friends flaunting their moustaches all over their social media timelines, or walls as they were known back then. Curiously, this only happened towards the latter half of the year, November to be precise.

Well, for several years, men all over Australia and New Zealand have been using the month of November to engage in a noble cause; raising awareness about three key illnesses and conditions that have been afflicting men . These are prostate and testicular cancer, as well as mental health and suicide prevention. 

Mental health and suicide are the leading cause of death, not only for Australians, but various other countries in the world. Most of those affected are between the ages of 15 and 44. In Australia alone, death by suicide is three times more likely to happen in men in comparison to women. 

These are grim statistics, no matter the angle you look at them from. The statistics grow even more stark when you consider that the rate is double among people of the First Nations and Torres Strait islanders where the average is 5.2 percent, in comparison to 1.8 percent for other Australians.

The movement started when four Aussie blokes decided to challenge themselves and their friends into bringing back the moustache as a statement of manhood. Over the years, they decided to turn it into a charity event geared towards supporting prostate cancer charity organisations. 

In its second year, it raised a whopping $40,000. As they themselves state, that was the largest check that the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia had ever received up to that point. Since then, the movement began to gain momentum outside of Australia; first to New Zealand, then on to the US, the UK, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, South Africa and many more.

The organisation and the events that are associated with the Movember Movement have collectively managed to raise upwards of USD 800 million thus far, and they’re still going strong. Aside for just raising money for the official cancer foundations in the participating countries, they also heled raise funds for a cancer genome mapping project.

This being the month of the moustache, you can as well appreciate the efforts of the men in your lives by contributing towards these noble causes. If you have the potential to let out a health moustache, join other men around the world as they let theirs grow   

In the Brisbane are, you can check out the EUS EQ Movember fundraiser event at the University of Queensland. It will be held on the 29th November. The aim is to raise funds towards mental health, prostate and testicular cancer.

Here at Wade The Massage Guy we do our part in the fight against mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Various forms of massage such as deep tissue massage, aromatherapy and reflexology among others have been shown to aid reduce instances of anxiety and depression.

 

References.

 

https://www.lifeline.org.au/about-lifeline/lifeline-information/statistics-on-suicide-in-australia

https://nccih.nih.gov/health/massage/massageintroduction.htm#hed3