JCIP #350 - Dr James Nuzzo

In episode 350 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with academic Dr James Nuzzo. 

James is an Exercise Scientist and Men's Health Researcher. 

He also runs his own SubStack called 'The Nuzzo Letter'.

In this episode we discuss his academic journey and how he got to where he is today, his academic cancellation from Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Australia, how it impacted his mental health and how he rebuilt his career after that point.

We also discuss why there is a life expectancy gap between men and women globally, across the West and the factors behind it.

We then discuss the research bias he argues that exists against men and boys in academia.

For James’s mental health journey, we discuss his move from America to Australia, the impact on his mental health, and self-development.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can find out more about James's work here: https://www.jameslnuzzo.com/.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:13

Hi Venters, welcome back to another episode of the Just Checking In Podcast. I'm your host, Freddie Cocker, and this podcast is brought to you by Vent, a place where everyone, but especially men and boys, can open up about their mental health issues, break down stigmas, and start conversations. In each episode, I check in with a special guest. We have a natter and a chat about all things mental health, as well as anything and everything else they are passionate about. If it helps that person with their mental health, we discuss it. My special guest for this episode is Dr. James Nuzzo. James is a dual citizen of the United States and Australia. Born and raised in rural Pennsylvania, James moved to Sydney, Australia in 2013 to pursue a PhD in exercise physiology. He currently resides in Perth in Western Australia, and through his substack, The Nuzo Letter, and in other writings, he focuses on academic topics including muscle strength, muscle fatigue, and how exercise impacts the way that the brain and nerves communicate with muscles. He also covers sex differences in strength and fitness in children and adults and exercise science history. However, the reason I came across James was his interview with friend of the pod George from the Tin Men and his research on men's health and the biases that he argues exist within health research against men and boys. In this episode, we discussed his academic journey and how he got to where he is today. We talk about his academic cancellation from Edith Cowan University in Australia, how it impacted his mental health, and how he rebuilt his career after that point. We also discuss why there is a life expectancy gap between men and women globally and across the West, and the factors behind this, and the research bias he argues that exists against men and boys. For James's mental health journey, we discuss his move from America to Australia and the lifestyle changes and impact on his mental health in starting a new life and career, and finally, we talk about self-development. So this is how my conversation with Dr. James Nuzo went. James, welcome to the Just Checking In Pod. Thank you so much for letting me check in with you all the way from Australia. When I came across you through your great interview with our mutual friend George from the Tin Men, I was of course very keen and happy to have you on. How are you, mate, on this? Well, it's Saturday morning here. It's probably Saturday evening where you are, just coming into it.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, that's right. 5 p.m. on a Saturday. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

We have got loads to talk about, James, and your area of expertise on men's health research is something I know fairly little about actually. So this pod will be as much of a school lesson for me as it will be hopefully a great interview for you. So without further ado, are you ready to start the show and talk all about your amazing journey? Let's do it. We're going to start your pod by talking about your academic journey, mate. So take me back to the beginning. How did you take your first steps on this journey when you did a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science at the excellently named Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania? And why did you decide to stay in academia to make it a career?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah, so I started in exercise science for a bachelor's degree, also for a master's degree. And what happened is toward the end of my bachelor's is when I got introduced to research and running research studies. And then when I did my master's, that was a very heavy research component to it. And I was able to publish academic papers as a master's student, which I thought was quite fascinating. And then after that, I did some lecturing and a little bit of research on the side. And that was it. I was sort of hooked, and I've been doing it in different ways ever since, but I just really like studying human nature and trying to learn more about human health and physical performance and psychology and all the other related aspects.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

You then moved from the US to Australia in 2013 and completed your PhD in physiology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. And your thesis was on the effects of strength training on the human corticospinal pathway at a spinal level. How did that opportunity come about and why did you take the leap as well to move?

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Uh that came about because I was proactive in finding a PhD program that I thought would suit my interests and what I wanted. I had earlier applied to some programs in the United States, but I was not convinced of the one or two that maybe accepted me, I wasn't convinced that that was really what I wanted to do. During my master's degree, one of my supervisors had done research here in Australia. So I was familiar with the concept of kind of maybe moving to Australia to do research. And I looked into it a little bit more. And what I realized is that all the topics that I was most interested in, which at this time was what happens to the nervous system during exercise, particularly like strength training, is that most of the interesting stuff was not happening in the United States. It was either happening in Australia or it was happening in like some of the Scandinavian countries. So I applied to, I believe, three different universities here in Australia, got accepted into two of them, and they both were willing to give me a full ride, a full scholarship to pay for everything. And then I ended up going to the one that I think you mentioned, the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

At this point, you are getting to be an expert in exercise science because of all the degrees you've done, and you're finding your feet in the world of academia. So how and why did you start becoming more interested in the path of men's health and the research element of it too? And what did you uncover as you went?

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah, it's a really interesting story because I was not trained in men's health. There is no course in men's health, and uh, and actually that's maybe one of the key problems right now. What happened is at the time that I finished my PhD, at the end of 2016 and early 2017, is when a lot of the DEI, the diversity, equity, inclusion stuff started to take off. And one component of that is the whole gender equity, gender equality aspect. But really, that's just code for women and women's health. And what I was noticing is an imbalance in the conversation about men's health, considering the substantial life expectancy difference where men live much shorter lives. And the more I looked into that literature, more of the public health literature, I just saw that no one was really interested in talking about that. And I found that really, really strange given all my previous work in research. How could people so blatantly miss something that like that is so obvious? And yeah, just over time I started doing papers in that space, but I was not paid to do them. I was doing them all in my spare time while still doing some of the exercise neurophysiology stuff. So that's how I dress my way into it.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

We're going to talk about male life expectancy in a second, mate, but just want to come back to men's health research generally because I know very little about it outside of male EDs, which great friend of the pod, George Mycock, has educated me on several episodes. So, what is the state of play with men's health research from your knowledge and experience? And why, in your words, is there a bias against men and boys within it?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

So, one of the things is it's not that there is a lack of research on boys and men. There's all sorts of studies in which boys and men participate in studies. The problem is we're not actually calling it men's health research. So we have this weird thing going on, and you can actually quantify this, I have, by searching for these terms in the titles and abstracts of articles, is women's health has been a catchphrase for years, for decades. Now, I know right now men's health as a phrase is catching on. You know, you've got your podcasts and the tin men and so many others, but this is a new phenomenon. This is only happening here in the past couple of years, and I think it is now going to take off. But for years, that phrase was not really used very much. So we weren't combining all the different stats we have, the life expectancy difference, the high rates of suicide, the motor vehicle accident deaths, the occupational deaths. We weren't combining that all into one story that had the tag name of men's health. And now I think that is what's changing. So I think we're now gonna start to see a little bit of movement where the research that has already existed, and there's still stuff to be answered, don't get me wrong, that we're now gonna just combine it all together and say, you know what, boys and men do sort of deserve their own space for research.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

Supplementing this issue, mate, you also told me off air that you believe that the peer review system in academia is broken. So what did you mean by that? Just unpack that for me.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Yeah, so you can think of it like this sort of one aspect of getting into men's health and publishing about it is you do have to talk about sex differences. And that is very triggering for some people. They do not like to see differences that frame, you know, women a certain way. And because when you submit an academic paper, it gets reviewed by your peers anonymously. And they're not necessarily the most friendly people in the world, and they might have opposing views to you, and they will reject your paper and they'll say, nope, we disagree, and you can't publish it in this journal. So then you have to resubmit it to another journal. It undergoes peer review again. Some different reviewers look at it, but those different reviewers could have the same bias as the people with the first journal. And so you can sometimes really struggle to get certain data published, particularly when it's more kind of male-friendly or male-concerned data, because the peer reviewers will be say something like, Oh, well, why didn't you also survey the women? They have those types of reactions. So there is many, many layers of issues to peer review right now, and that's sort of the specific one that relates to why it's sometimes difficult to get men's health stuff into the literature and framed as men's health stuff.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

I read David Mayward's brilliant book, The Relentless War on Masculinity. I agree with lots of things. I disagree with a few things, and I'm having him hopefully on the podcast very soon. And he quotes your research in the book, mate, and he states that across degree completions in Canada, Australia, and the United States, 300,000 more women are graduating from American post-secondary institutions than men each year. And going deeper for health-related degrees in the US, there are four times more women than men. So how did we get here and what implications does that have on the economy, on academia, and anything else going forward?

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Yeah, so I think kind of a rough statistic is women now are sort of earning about 60% of university bachelor's degrees, and guys are about 40%. It's the highest it's ever been. Also, when it comes to the faculty and the staff that work at universities, it's also the highest female to male ratio that it's ever been. Universities are becoming more feminized in the sense that they have the highest female to male ratios that they've ever had in history. So we're in a bit of an experiment with the universities right now, and that's why a lot of the aims and missions of the universities are changing. That's because on average, men and women are not the same. They have different priorities in their research and stuff. But one important thing here as it pertains to health, is that education levels do correlate with health. And this is one reason why it's so disappointing that so many people refuse to acknowledge this sex difference in education because it has actually linked to health. So if you run any sort of survey study and you put people that have a bachelor's degree into one category and people that have a high school degree or diploma, and then people that dropped out, you always see the same trends. So the people that have the higher education levels have the better health outcomes in almost every single outcome that you can imagine. So that's one reason why ignoring the education difference between boys and girls, for example, is so so important. Within education systems is partly where you gain your health literacy. So where you gain your knowledge about health, you would gain your knowledge about psychology and your own mental well-being, how to read the nutrition labels on the back of foods. It's where you would learn the physical activity guidelines. So how many days per week should you be exercising, things like that. That comes through educational institutions, and boys and men are behind.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

We spoke earlier about male life expectancy, right? And I want to talk more about this because there's that gap, as you said, and it's another one of your areas of expertise. So what is the gap globally between men and women? Does it differ, for example, in the West versus the East? And what are the factors behind it?

SPEAKER_00 13:41

So I don't actually know the global average off the top of my head. So the US is about, oh my gosh, what is it, five years now? Australia, I believe, is four years difference. England, I think it's roughly similar to Australia. I believe still the largest difference is in Russia. It's about 10 years difference. Wow. Oh, 10. Yeah. So I think the average life expectancy of a male in Russia does not get past 70 years. I think maybe China, Japan, or maybe in that sort of four to five-year, six-year range. So as far as what causes it, I think it's a combination of biology with social and environmental factors, plus the decisions that people make at an individual level within their biological and environmental frameworks. So I think it's just all of those, and I think that's a very kind of safe conservative position to take. There's some people that go really hard on the, oh, it's all due to biology, and you can't do anything about it. And then there's some people that go really hard on the environmental side of things. And I think it's probably an interaction between all of those things.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

You also spoke about male suicide rates. And we know we've worked in this space for a long time, that men take their own life at far higher rates than women. There's lots of factors behind that. And as we spoke about off-airmate, we also know that they are the bigger proportion from deaths of things like the opioid crisis in the US, drug addiction rates generally. So how does what I've just mentioned factor into that life expectancy gap as well as other factors from your research?

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yeah, so the way I approach men's health is I started the life expectancy difference and then I work backwards. So then I say, okay, what are the different causes of death? And then you just rattled off a couple of key ones. And one reason they're so key is because those causes take lives at much younger ages compared to cardiovascular disease, for example, right? Or cancer. So, you know, suicide or accidental deaths or drug overdose deaths, those are getting men and women when they're much younger. And so that's why it has such a disproportionate impact on the life expectancy. So if you can target some of those things, so if there's some sort of policy you can implement or some other shift in culture or something that can impact how many drugs are getting into the country or what have you, then you're most likely going to see an increase in male life expectancy. And by the way, we now have, as of January, we have evidence that that is happening in the US. So the CDC published two reports. One was on drug overdose deaths, and the other one was on the update on life expectancy. And sure enough, in 2024, there was a massive drop in drug overdose deaths. And guess what? Male and female life expectancy went up, but particularly male life expectancy. And so the gap between the two decreased. So that's an example of if there's less drugs floating around in the community because of some policy or something, that is a social and environmental factor that can impact life expectancy.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

There's a couple of other factors that we spoke about off MA. I want to talk about a bigger one first, which is war, as the vast majority of casualties in war are men. You look at the recent conflicts, Israel, Palestine, Iran right now, Ukraine, Russia, list goes on. So how does this affect the data when it comes to male life expectancy too?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Yeah, my understanding is it is calculated. It's put into the calculations. And so it will have an impact, obviously, when we do have wars, because most soldiers are going to be in their 20s or their 30s, right? And so it's going to take them at younger lives. And most soldiers are disproportionately male who get killed in these conflicts. So you're absolutely right. Thankfully, we don't have these things going on at very high volumes all the time. And so, yeah, as you just mentioned, we do currently have some of these conflicts happening, and we can expect more male than female deaths. And then it just matters what the numbers are, how much it impacts the average life expectancy.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

One more niche factor, but I think people might not think about as much when it comes to life expectancy for men, is heroic acts, right? So men dying from drowning because they try to save someone, for example. We spoke about this off air. Now, is this just due to acts of heroism from seeing someone drowning or trying to save them? Is it a tragic accident where a man's very drunk on a night out, falls into the water, he might have addiction problems, or is there something else entirely I'm also missing too here?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Yeah, so I'm most familiar with the drowning data from the US. And I think it's three times more males than females. I don't know, what is it, three to four thousand males each year die from accidental drowning. I mean, there will be some that try to make heroic acts and die as a result, but the vast majority of it. I saw a paper recently, it was a review paper, and it said something like 10 to 30% of the accidental drowning deaths are due to alcohol intoxication. And that's just alcohol. So, I mean, people could be using other substances actually, and that could lead to those deaths. But also, it happens in younger ages in the US as well. So at ages in which they're kids, so they wouldn't be consuming alcohol. So pool drownings, you know, in the in sort of the backyard pool or going for a swim in the lake. And all of those disproportionately tend to impact boys more than girls, and for whatever reason. And and the first step is just acknowledging that the difference exists, and then you can start to peel back the layers and you can say, okay, what is going on here? Is it, I don't know, that the girls end up being more protected and supervised by the parents, and the boys are more allowed to let loose and run around and jump in pools and and lakes and stuff. But that's what the data show.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

Well, you've brought me nicely onto my next topic, and it's something that I spoke about in a similar way with George in his part two, which was this problematic trend on social media that we discussed of men would rather do X than go to therapy, right? And there's this other kind of social media trend, which is about this is why men die early, and it's usually a kind of bunch of lads doing something a bit stupid, you know, something a bit goofy. So what is your opinion on this trend? And is it actually a bit dismissive of quite a sadder reality when it comes to male life expectancy too?

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Yeah, I think it'll be a mix. I mean, I think, you know, like I've seen some of those videos too, and I think they used to have some what do they call it, the Darwin awards for stupidity or something like that. And I think it's important to recognize if that's what's happening, that's what's happening. Because otherwise, if you don't recognize reality, you're not going to be able to correct it and make it better. At the same time, like you mentioned, there are all these other scenarios that don't get talked about. So men are more likely to be the victims of homicide. We don't really ever talk about it like that, because usually the only time we talk about homicide is sort of like more intimate partner violence and homicide, but we don't actually talk about just pure homicide. So I think there's a part of the narrative that is missing. I think another part is just the mental pain or the deaths of despair that a lot of men have, you know, the suicide deaths and a lot of the alcohol and drug intoxication deaths will be related to that as well. It's not just guys who are going out in a boat and drink too much and then drown. There'll be some guys that they got in a drunk driving accident because they were drinking so heavily because they were so depressed about something, or there was something that was really bothering them. So um I think there's Yeah, a few different layers when it comes to male life expectancy.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

I want to come back to men's health research because you wrote a very good article, very spicy article in your Substack entitled Women Are Not Understudied or Underrepresented in Medical Research. So why did you make that claim and what evidence do you have to support it?

SPEAKER_00 22:20

So this is a very common claim, and it's been going on for about 30 or 40 years, okay? That women have been underrepresented as participants in clinical research trials, and as a consequence, we don't know anything about women's health. We don't care about women. Okay, this claim is what led to the creation of the Office of Research on Women's Health within the U.S., which is housed within the National Institutes of Health, or the NIH. This claim was made in the early 1990s. It turns out that after they passed the legislation that created that office, which still exists today, they actually went back and did the proper research and they found out, ooh, actually the women weren't all that underrepresented in the research in the 80s and the 70s. But they've continued on with this narrative for quite a while. And it is definitely not true anymore because the NIH actually quantifies, so all the NIH funded studies, the researchers that run those studies have to report how many male and female participants enroll in the studies. And we have the data, and I've published them on my Substack. And it shows that every single year, except for one year, like in 2016, there have been more female than male participants in NIH funded clinical trials. So it's just not true. It really wasn't ever all that true. And on top of that, men die earlier. And men die earlier of a lot of very serious causes. So even if there were disproportionately more male research participants, maybe that should actually be the case if you're trying to help them live longer lives. So I've really been going after that narrative quite hard because I think it really distracts from talking about the life expectancy difference and it distracts from just being able to talk honestly about men's health. We've never had an office for research on men's health. So there's been no one ever to really advocate for men at a very kind of high public health level. I will say that as of last week, the U.S. Congress is now considering a bill was submitted, bipartisan bill, to finally create an office of men's health within the Department of Health and Human Services. So things are changing. They've tried to create that office in the past and it's not gone through. But there's a sense that if it's going to happen now is actually the time that it will happen.

SPEAKER_03 24:53

You may have read the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perezme, and she argues that there are biases against women in research studies on a whole range of different issues. I can't quote them off the top of my head because I read it quite a long time ago now. If you have read that book, what are the flaws in her arguments in your view?

SPEAKER_00 25:11

I've actually never read that book, but I would guess that so usually one of the key ones that women's health advocates go to is cardiovascular disease and doctors not taking women's symptoms seriously in thinking that the symptoms they're expressing might be related to a heart attack or cardiovascular disease. I think that's quite a common narrative.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

She quotes uh seatbelts as well, sorry, for memory as well as a gap. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah, yeah. Well, of course, I've seen similar related arguments to cars and how cars are designed. They're designed for the male body and not the female body. But of course, in that instance, men do the vast majority of driving. And that's why cars would have been designed more for male bodies. So what happens within the women's health space is they'll find kind of niche areas where there might be some justification of saying, oh, something's a bit off or biased. But then those same people just absolutely refuse to advocate for men's health. So they won't recognize the male life expectancy difference in any of their writing. They won't talk about suicidality among males. So it's a very, very biased presentation when they write these things. And I will also just quickly mention that had women been more frequent participants in the earliest of clinical trials, there is this assumption that it would have been very, very desirable to be a participant in research trials in the 40s or the 50s or the 60s. Okay, research trials are experimental, right? And there were a lot of men, and I've written about this in a piece called Men the Martyrs of Medicine. There were a lot of men who died as a result of self-experimentation. They were trying to learn more about vaccines and different things at that time, and they were putting their lives on the line for the greater good of everyone, including women. Those men get very little credit by these individuals today. And people today don't understand that back then research participation would have been riskier. We didn't know as much. And so, in some ways, to the extent that females were quote unquote underrepresented in earlier generations of research, it was sort of a protective mechanism. They didn't have to go through the research. The men were sort of lining up to do some of the studies. And then we've progressed over time to have female participation. So they make a big stink out of it. And I don't think they need to. I think they should actually be quite appreciative of all the men and all the women who participated in those earlier decades of riskier research.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

That's a really interesting perspective. I want to take a more left turn now because in March 2025, you were working at a university called Edith Cowan, and you were cancelled from your job there. So I want to ask you to go into all the details. You wrote an amazing Substack article which goes into every single thing in depth. But just take me back to the beginning if you can, the events that transpired and the impact you had on your career and mental health, mate.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

So essentially, I was canceled because of the things I was saying related to men's health, sex differences, and questioning sort of feminist ideology and the sort of gender equity movement. And by the way, as I point out in that extensive article that you mentioned, these are things within my scope of research. I have more knowledge about than the people that canceled me. So it's quite an unbelievable story. And how I documented it all and I found out about it officially is I used a freedom of information request to ask for university emails that were related to discussions about me and my appointment at the university. And so I have it all documented in the emails. And you can just see all the things they're saying about me, all the false claims. And they were just triggered about things that I was saying in professional outlets. So magazines or blogs that I was asked to write for, professional outlets, like in England, you've got John Berry, Decenter for Male Psychology. One of the things I was canceled for is a written interview that I did for John about a wide range of topics. And they didn't like that. So what happened was they did not approve my appointment there when it was up for renewal. And I had a suspicion it was due to sort of social political reasons based off of stories I've heard. And then I submitted the Freedom of Information request, got the emails, and I proved it all.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

You may or may have not read another book, mate, by Greg Lukianoff and Ricky Slot, who wrote an excellent book called The Cancellation of the American Mind, a seminal piece of work on the history of cancel culture taking place across universities in the West in the last two decades. And as they say in the book, many people will hear about the very famous ones, Professor Brett Weinstein at Evergreen University in 2017, Nicholas and Erica Christarkis at Yale University in 2016. The list goes on and on. But less people hear about academics like yourself. How do you think that impacts the wider conversation when it comes to just people believing it happens in the first place, really?

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Yeah, well, one reason I wanted to tell my story in so much in-depth is because I think it does happen to more people, but they're not sharing their stories. They might be trying to get a new job at a different university. So they don't want to put themselves out there, right? And have that sort of reputational risk. And you hear stories all the time within academia of people being like canceled in different ways, but not officially removed from the university. But there's all sorts of little maneuverings that happen. But I thought that my case, and I think it's quite unique because I use the freedom of information request. And I presented that at a conference in Sydney toward the end of last year, the story, and there was a lawyer who was in the audience, and he said that he has never seen so much blatant evidence of a cancellation as what I presented in those emails. And I now can tell you that at the university I was at, the other faculty, the colleagues, like my friends, the people that know me, they've been frustrated with that work environment for years. And they have gained a little bit more confidence, I think, as a result of me publishing my piece because it's so bad, it's so blatant. And they know that they always have that in their back pocket moving forward in terms of arguing of the interpersonal issues that exist in that workplace. They now have it because I put it out there. And so that's another reason why I did it, is just, you know, for other people.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

Now you've got some distance from it. How do you reflect on it now? And what did you learn about yourself coming out of that period, and maybe in a sadder way about society too?

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah, I don't have any regrets at all about doing it. Well, I mean, it's created challenges in the sense that it's kind of impacted my career and just trying to figure out where things are going at the moment, but it has brought me closer to people that I have true shared values with. So I don't have much in common, anything in common with the people that canceled me and that toxic workplace. And I don't want to be there. It's not the future. It's a very stale environment, it's very toxic. And although the future for me is more uncertain, it's also a bit more exciting. There's more exciting conversations happening. There's people that are appreciative of my content and grateful and making donations. And I never received any appreciation like that when I was doing human neurophysiology at the university, right? So it's exciting. It's a little bit scary, but it's also a little bit exciting at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 33:11

Let's reflect on your academic journey so far, mate. So, first of all, what's been your proudest achievement on it so far?

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Oh boy, that's a tricky one. Um Well, I do my best to stick to the facts, to try not to be biased, to be as objective as possible, to try to put information out there that I feel like people are missing. So a lot of my recent research has been these big meta-analyses on childhood sex differences and muscle strength. And this has a lot of implications right now for the transgender sports debate and all this stuff. And so I think I'm just kind of happy that I'm able to see where the holes are in the literature and take advantage of that and be like, you guys have been missing this for years. This is sort of easy stuff to do. You're doing all this other research that has very little impact. It's very niche. And all these other data have been sitting there for years, including the men's health data, and you're not compiling them in a way that, you know, consumers find interest in. So I think that's not a very specific moment as sort of an accomplishment, but just kind of staying true to that thinking sort of over time seems to have worked for me.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

You've got this amazing Substack and you've still got your academic career intact. You're putting yourself out there more. Obviously, interviews with George from the Tin Men help, maybe a little bit with me as well. But what wider goals and ambitions do you have for the future as well, mate, going forward?

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Yeah, that's a tricky one. The main goal right now is to continue to build the Substack and get the data out there, get more subscribers coming. I'm also very active on X as well and just continuing to build that following. And then just sort of, you know, let whatever happens happen. So let people come to me. And that puts you in a really good position because you know that they're really interested in you. If they're going out of their way to come to you to say, hey, I've got a new project I want to do, you know, I might be able to pay you to conduct this research. So that's really what I'm focused on right now. The universities are a bit of a disaster area right now. And they also have the challenge of dealing with AI. It creates a lot of issues for them, and a lot of the quality of the research is poor. We talked about academic peer reviews, a bit of a disaster. The funding mechanisms in academic research, you know, the funding usually comes from the government. That system is very biased and also slow and broken. And I'm just able to work so much more quickly and get so much more information out via Substack. So I'm gonna keep plugging along with that and see where I end up.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

And as a final question before we move on, mate, what has this journey also taught you about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Uh I don't know. I've always been the same, like ever since I was a kid, really. I just keep plugging along, just keep working hard, just keep trying to plow through challenges and you know, different adversities. So I don't know. I expect weird things to happen, bad things to happen, good things to happen, and you just deal with them when they come and you just keep pushing forward to whatever your desires are, whatever your values are, whatever your goals are. Just keep pushing.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

We talked about your academic journey. Let's go deeper and talk about your own mental health journey, James. So I ask all my special guests on this topic this question first. Timmy back to early life in Pennsylvania in America, teenage years. And looking back, were there any early mental health experiences? If any, who's the James we meet here?

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah, that's an interesting question. So I grew up in a broken home, so my parents were divorced when I was very young. So that created a lot of challenges. And those also created challenges for my two older brothers as well. So that is not an ideal start. So you have to work through that adversity. Ultimately, it's quite interesting when it comes to some of these issues we were talking about, about getting through the challenges of academia and stuff, kind of building up that resilience and diversity has helped. It's also helped me to understand, you know, because my parents being divorced, the importance of a healthy relationship, understanding the differences between men and women, what they want out of relationships, how can you make relationships work and last and communicate and all that? So you can take all those previous experiences and you can make them turn out to be bad for you, but you can also take them and try to learn from them and grow from them. So that's how I've tried to frame it.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

We spoke about it from a professional perspective, but let's talk about it from a mental health perspective. Because you move to Australia, obviously, you get full scholarship, which is amazing, but it's still a massive thing to do, massive step out of your comfort zone, going across the world, whole different culture, whole different climate. Obviously, you've got the same language, but it's still a massive challenge. Tell me about the decision-making process and what have been the benefits and the challenges of it too.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Yeah, so that decision to move to Sydney was probably the single most important decision I've ever made. It was a challenging decision in some sense, but also quite easy in another sense. And the reason for that is because I had a pretty awful job in Tampa, Florida before I moved. I was working in a as a research assistant in a laboratory, and it was just such a bad work environment there. And I was doing the work because everyone else in the lab had quit because they didn't want to work for the lab leader anymore. And I was trying to make the project work and go all the way through because the project itself was interesting. And I hung in there and I hung in there, but it was very stressful. I had to move away to Tampa where I didn't have any friends or family, so I was quite isolated while going through this difficult job. And that kind of increased the temperature for me or got me closer to my decision threshold, let's say. It made it easier for me to say, you know what, this isn't working. And also, you know, I lived in Pennsylvania, I lived in North Carolina. Each of those places had their limitations where I didn't really feel connected there. And you know what? Let's go for it. Let's just give it a go, see what happens. I had no intention in staying in Australia. I thought I was gonna go do my PhD, get done, and move back to the US. That's not at all what happened. I'm obviously still here.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

You moved to a country which is, in their words, hot as shit. So you move to Perth from Sydney. Was there any big differences in that period as well that you found?

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Yeah, so that was an interesting sort of mental health experience as well. Because what happened there was I had been in Sydney for six years. So I did my PhD and then I worked as a postdoc researcher at the same lab where I did my PhD. And my PhD supervisor ended up taking a job over here at Edith Cohen University. So she moved over here, and I stayed in Sydney and kept doing our research from Sydney. And then there was an opportunity to move to Perth to work with her here, where I now am in Perth. And I had to make a really tough decision. Do I stay in Sydney a bit longer and just see what happens? Or do I move to Perth? I decided to stay in Sydney, and that was a mistake. And I realized it shortly afterwards. It had a huge impact on my mental health because I think my sort of subconscious knew that I needed to leave. And I didn't have the guts. I didn't have the courage to do it because it was going to be moving to a new place, even further away from the United States. So if I ever needed to go home, it's even further. Thankfully, I also knew that there could be a possibility for me to move there about a year later to work with her. And that opportunity did come up, and I did take that, and I moved to Perth, and I love Perth. Perth is a much better fit for me than Sydney. Immediately upon getting here, I actually got quite overweight when I was in Sydney, which is a bit weird because I'm a very sporty kind of fitness-y guy. But that's part of it. That was part of it. The way I put it is my subconscious so unhappy that I was so stressed. I was probably overeating, not exercising well, and who the heck else knows what was else going on there. And the only thing that resolved it was moving here immediately felt better. So that was another key decision.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

We're seeing so many more people move from England and other parts of Europe to Australia. Obviously, the flow of immigration from Australian backpackers and young people to England and the UK has always been the case, but we've seeing it much more the other way now. So A, is it all they make it out to be? You know, all the English people moving to Australia and they're putting on their social media and how amazing it is. Are there challenges they're not being as honest about? And for anyone who's about to make the move to Australia or who is thinking about it, what advice would you give them from your experience, having done it mate, made a success of it?

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Oh, I guess my advice would be to come visit it first. I think usually what ends up happening is people come over when they come over from Europe, they'll come over maybe like on a short stay visa. I mean, they might come to do like a holiday, but they might also come on a sort of a short work visa, and then they just realize that they love it and they want to stay. So I've seen that quite a lot with people from different places in Europe and England. You have to make a choice in terms of what city you think well, and depending on what visa you get on, you might not have too much of a choice of where you end up working, but most of the action is on the East Coast. That's Sydney, that's Melbourne, that's Brisbane, and also Adelaide a little bit. And then you just have the West Coast, and it's just big old Western Australia with Perth. And Perth is very isolated, and that suits a lot of people, suits me, and I think people that Come here and have a certain personality. I think they really like it here. It's a good place to raise a family. If you want a bit more action and excitement, go to Sydney, go to Melbourne. But I think the best thing to do is trial it out, at least go have a look around. One of the issues, though, we have right now is housing, sort of a housing shortage. And of course, we've got in inflation as well. And I'm not really sure when the housing issue is going to get is going to get resolved. So that could also be an issue for people who are wanting to move here.

SPEAKER_03 44:35

Before we reflect, you were also keen to talk about self-development when we spoke off-air. So just tell me more about this and how it's manifested for you, mate.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Yeah, I guess in terms of my own sort of mental well-being, I think there's been a few keys. One is to read certain literature stuff that helps you learn more about psychology and your own thinking. But I would also say for men, reading some of these books that now have come out about men and masculinity, like the good ones, not the rubbish uh academic papers, but the books written by Warren Farrell, the book you mentioned by David Maywald, the books written by John Barry at the Center for Male Psychology, Roy Baumeister, who's a social psychology researcher, wrote a book called What's Good About Men. So all these books are exploring sex differences, they're exploring men's health. And I think it really helps because you get bombarded with so many messages from social media, from newspapers, and they're not correct. But these are really genuine authors who are legitimate thinkers and researchers and in some cases psychologists. And just understanding sex differences, how you differ from, you know, the woman you might be in a relationship with. I think it's all just so key to having good partnerships and also just improving sort of your own um understanding sort of what your own self-esteem level is and how you can continue to work on that if you're having problems in that area.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

Let's reflect on your mental health journey now, James. So similar question as the first topic. What has this mental health journey taught you about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Uh, I think you just gotta keep trying to, if you're struggling, whether it's intimate relationship or work relationship, keep searching for uh answers, things that help bring clarity. So in my case, a lot of that literature that I was reading, a lot of those books brought a lot of clarity to me in terms of some of the stuff I found just really confusing. So for example, why do I feel out of place here, like in this city? Why do I feel disconnected to these people here at this university? And if you find the right literature, it will explain what that is, or even the right therapist. It should be able to explain to you why those oftentimes it's a disconnect in values, right? You're just not aligned or don't have the same sense of life as the people that you're around. And to the extent you're able to, I would encourage people to get out of those environments and go to places where you feel connected around people of shared values.

SPEAKER_03 47:30

And as a final question, before we move on to our mental health chat, if you could go back and talk to the James who was considering moving to the other side of the world, the James discovering these biases in men's health research for the first time, or the James who was in the process of being canceled from his university position at that time, what would you say to him, knowing what you do now, if anything at all?

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Uh well, if I was able to give him a lot of the books that I ended up reading, a lot of the literature, if I could get that to him earlier in life, that would be really good, because it could potentially have prevented, you know, certain things from happening. But if it's um more of one of those situations uh where no matter what you give him, it's gonna continue the same pathway, then no regrets at all for me. So even you know, the decisions and things that were a bit of a struggle, huge learning experiences. So so long as you learn from them, then things will be better because you know that you're very unlikely to make that same mistake again.

SPEAKER_03 48:40

Our final topic of conversation, James, and it's one I try and have with all of my special guests, if we have time. It is a general Natter and quick fire chat about our mental health. So, firstly, how is your mental health out of 10?

SPEAKER_00 48:51

Woohoo, that's a good one. Uh I'll go seven. If you want an explanation, happy to give it. By all means, go ahead, mate. The only reason I'm quite happy and everything right now, but there is uncertainty about future in terms of career and all that. So that's why it's not a little bit higher. But overall, I live in a very beautiful uh city. I have beautiful friends, and every day I go for a run around a beautiful lake. So it's all good.

SPEAKER_03 49:23

What age were you when you became self-aware of your mental health and you realized that the feelings you were having weren't physical and they were actually in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Uh, that's gonna be in high school sometime. Let's give it a age 15 or 16, something like that.

SPEAKER_03 49:40

And was it a eureka moment or a gradual process?

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Uh, that will be gradual. I cannot identify a specific moment.

SPEAKER_03 49:51

Can you remember the first or the most important conversation you've had with someone about your mental health? So if you can remember, who was it with? What did you say, and what impact did it have? Did it feel like the stereotypical big moment and weight have been lifted off you, or something quite easy and normal to do?

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Ooh, I can't identify a single discussion, but if I can quickly just say the literature was very helpful, and I'm gonna do a quick plug for Ayn Rand and her philosophy, which just helped make sense about everything to me that I see in the world. So that discovering her literature and reading that was very, very key to a lot of things. Didn't provide all the answers in terms of decision making and all that, but it provides a certain framework for moving forward with everything.

SPEAKER_03 50:43

What things do you find in life, if any, mate, that trigger your mental health? So it could be things people say to you, a sound, a smell, a taste, a sensation, or have you not figured all of them out yet?

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Gosh, every day on X? I mean, that's pretty triggering.

SPEAKER_03 50:57

Yeah, I feel the same. I go on it now, I'm like, nope, let's stay off the otherwise I'm gonna lose my mind.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

But you know what happens when you get in the men's health spaces and you start advocating for men and you point out things is you get called a misogynist. Gosh, yesterday I got called an incel. I get called all sorts of things. And of course, I was called anti-woman by the university that canceled me in the emails, and that's not true. Even though you build up some um a shield towards some of that, some of those bullets still get through and they affect you because it's just so inaccurate. So you do get some of that on social media. Of course, it comes from anonymous uh accounts and people that are cowards. That can be a bit triggering and throw me off for a little bit, but you do kind of learn how to deal with it the more you experience it.

SPEAKER_03 51:48

Conversely, mate, what positive tools and methods do you use to improve your mental health or help you feel better? Which ones have you found that have worked for you, and maybe which ones that you've tried but haven't?

SPEAKER_00 51:58

A key one is running. So I live next to a nice lake. I've done enough trial and error now. For example, after those triggering moments on X, go for a run. Sure enough, afterwards, I tend to feel better. So that's good for me. Productive work tends to be good for me. Things that don't work, like stuff like meditation doesn't really work for me. That's just not me.

SPEAKER_03 52:26

You've answered my next question, which is about the best book. So my question after that is if there was a mantra in life that summed up your mental health, what would it be and why?

SPEAKER_00 52:37

Hmm. Well, I don't know if it fully captures it, but in the Rocky Balboa movie, so not the first one, but the the one called Rocky Balboa. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

I know the one is coming. I know it's coming.

SPEAKER_00 52:51

Do you want to say it? The one he says to his son? Do you know?

SPEAKER_02 52:54

Uh I need to get it right. It's something about it's not about how hard you hit, it's about getting hit and keep moving forward. Yeah. That's right. I butchered it a little bit, but that's basically the gist, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

Close enough. So I think that's a really good quote. I mean, I think it is important how hard you hit, too, but the idea is usually no matter what, you're gonna face certain adversities and challenges. People are gonna try to knock you around on social media, they're gonna try to knock you around over here. So you gotta be willing to take the hits and keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_03 53:28

I love that, man. I remember this is a tangent. I've said this story on a couple pods, but I can't remember what actor it was, but he was describing Stallone's being a director on it was one of the expendables, I think.

SPEAKER_02 53:41

And he said his direction was just just say the fucking line.

SPEAKER_01 53:48

Very good.

SPEAKER_03 53:49

Oh, fucking love Stallone. I've got two questions left, mate. The first one is what do you love about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 53:58

Uh, I guess then I just keep working, like I just keep trying, not giving up, and just keep going.

SPEAKER_03 54:05

Give me two character traits. I'm not gonna let you get away with it.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

Uh character traits. Um man, you're putting me on the spot. Okay, can we count hard work as a character trait?

SPEAKER_03 54:20

Can we I'll give you that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

All right. Oh gosh, I do try to be quite objective when I can. I try to be a good listener as well, and that's something that I think with age I'm also getting better with as well. Be a good friend for your friends when they just need an ear to listen to. I'm not sure that really answers your question. I'm just throwing stuff out there. So, in summary, empathetic, consistent, and a good friend. Yeah, sure. Sure, we'll go with that.

SPEAKER_03 54:52

We got there in the end, mate. I just need to give you a little bit of help. And as a final question, mate, you can answer it any way you want. What more do you think we have to do to ensure men from all backgrounds, all nationalities, all social classes, all walks of life feel comfortable and safe in opening up about their mental health issues or just their general mental health, if most importantly, they want to do it?

SPEAKER_00 55:17

Uh, okay, people need to be willing to listen, which means they have to start from a framework of being empathetic and not have any preconceived ideas that this man is this thing or this other thing, or he's privileged or advantaged. Listen to what he's saying, even if he's done something stupid or bad. What are the layers? What are the underlying layers that caused him to get drunk and do that stupid thing? Right? So you gotta be willing to listen. And we also need to get rid of some of these negative ideas going around about men. That will help as well, I think.

SPEAKER_03 56:02

James, it has been an absolute pleasure. I love all the work that you're doing. Please keep it up, mate. Thank you for the work you're doing in the men's space. And thank you for coming on the Just Checkin' In podcast and talking to me.

SPEAKER_00 56:12

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 56:18

Well, that's all we've got time for on this episode of the Just Checking In pod. A big thank you to James for being my special guest and for letting me check in with him. I'll put some links to where you can subscribe to the Nuzzo Letter and follow James on social media in the show notes. As always, thank you to all the vendors who've tuned into this episode. Remember, if you've liked what you've heard, give it a share on social media by tagging us at VentHelp UK. Tell your friends, family, or work colleagues about us. If you're feeling generous, please do write us a review and give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to support us further, go to patreon.com slash eventhelpuk or make a one-off donation to our PayPal. Both of those links are on our link tree. That's linktr.ee slash eventhelpuk. We hope to check in with you again very soon. And remember, guys, it is always okay to venture.