.jpg?20260218')
The Prince of Wales has said there is a need for more “male role models” to talk about and normalise understanding of men’s mental health.
Prince William appeared on an episode of BBC Radio 1’s Life Hacks and opened up about how he takes a “long time” to understand his emotions during a panel discussion about mental health and suicide prevention.
Hosted by radio presenter Greg James, the Prince of Wales was joined by an “extraordinary” panel, which included rapper Professor Green and grime artist Guvna B, as well as Allan Brownrigg, director of clinical services at James’ Place charity and a young carer named Nathan who shared his personal experiences on the subject.
He said: “Part of feeling comfortable talking about mental health is understanding it and if you’ve got guys who have really gone about trying to really learn about what feelings are, why we feel like we do, what can we do about it, that’s part of the conversation, too.
“We need more male role models out there talking about it and normalising it so that it becomes something that is second nature to all of us.
“Not one person in this world has all the tools for every eventuality or mental state that is going to come across.
“I like to go around looking for new tools to put in my toolbox when I might need it and if we look at it like that, it does normalise the idea that the brain just needs sometimes a little bit of help. But we can’t expect to have all the answers ourselves.
“It’s OK to ask for support, ask a mate, reach out. That becomes just the normalisation process of what’s going on inside your head.”
Over the course of the hour-long episode he also opened up about his own mental health and the importance of learning to love who you are as well as taking time to understand how you feel.
He added: “Be kind to yourself. It is really important and to learn to love yourself and understand yourself.
“I take a long time trying to understand my emotions and why I feel like I do. And I think that’s a really important process to just do every now and again to check in with yourself and work out why you’re feeling like you do. Sometimes there’s an obvious explanation, sometimes there isn’t.
“I think that idea that mental health crisis is temporary, like you can have a really strong mental health crisis moment, but it will pass.
“If we talk about that more and educate people more, then hopefully the idea of suicide gets keeps being pushed further and further away because you know that tomorrow actually you might wake up and you might feel very different.”
William also recalled a time where he noticed his mental health was “deteriorating” after working as a pilot for the air ambulance service between March 2015 and July 2017, and the importance of taking “stock” of how you are feeling.
He said: “If you listen to the body and have time to process your thoughts and your feelings, it will present itself to you.
“It’s really important you have those moments where you take stock.
“The biggest example for me was when I was doing work with the air ambulance and I was a pilot flying with them.
“We had busy jobs and you had people in sadly very difficult situations that you were having to help them with.
“Over time I noticed my mental health really deteriorating and I hadn’t really clocked onto it because, in that community, you try and make light of some of the moments just to keep sane and keep going.
“It wasn’t until I stepped away from it on a sort of longer break that I looked at myself and went, ‘My god, I’m carrying everyone’s emotional baggage’.
“It was really weighing me down.”
The Prince of Wales continued to explain how the nature of emergency service jobs can take its toll on people due to how emotionally and physically demanding the work can be.
He said: “It’s not until you step away from it, either that you retire or you have a break, which many of them don’t get long enough breaks, are you able to process what kind of attritional, mental, emotional experiences you’re having each time.
“You can’t have time to deal with that. It’s coming at you so fast and if you’re carrying a bit of emotional baggage from each scene, from someone else’s experience, it just weighs you down.
“So for me coming away from the situation is really important for us to be able to take stock of just what we’ve been through and what our brain is processing.”
He later added: “I’m quite emotionally available, I like that about who I am, and I find some of the places I go to, people I meet, are having a really tricky time.
“That helps me put my own life into perspective but also I carry with me their burden sometimes and that’s the bit I find very difficult is I feel other people’s pain and that overwhelms me sometimes and I have to deal with that because I just care when I meet people who are in trouble or having a bad day and you want to help.
“You want to fix it but you can’t necessarily fix some of the stuff and emotionally I find that very challenging.”
Speaking later about the panel discussion, James said he hopes the conversation will enlighten and comfort people and help get the conversation going.
&uuid=(email))