AT MEN’S HEALTH, we’ve always been committed to a definition of wellness that includes your brain. Take, for example, friendship, which research has long touted for its happiness-stoking, anxiety-alleviating, and even life-extending abilities. In our very first issue, we called for a male friendship revival. At the time, male institutions like the local Elks/Masonic/Raccoon lodge did not resonate with the younger generations, and men needed new ways to connect or risk isolation. (Sound familiar?)
In that same issue, Los Angeles psychologist Herb Goldberg, Ph.D., identified the hazards of toxic masculinity before the term was even coined. And then went on to lay out a vision for “the ‘new male’