Football and MMA commentator Jay Glazer, who serves as an NFL Insider for FOX NFL Sunday, calls his experience with depression and anxiety “The Grey.” He describes The Gray as this overall overwhelming feeling that can make even getting up in the morning a significant challenge.
“For me, when it’s bad, I feel like the sky is falling and everyone hates me and everyone wants the worst for me,” says Glazer. “And I’m a guy of great faith: I know that God loves me. The universe doesn’t hate me, but it’s hard to understand. But I also feel it physically. When he acts, I feel it behind my rib cage. I feel it on the left side in my stomach really bad. And then it’s in my joints pretty nasty, like I just went through a 50-round fight.”
For Men’s Health Weekly Instagram Series Friday sessionsGlazer sat with psychiatrist and Men’s Health consultant Dr. Drew Ramsey to talk about his mental health journey, including dealing with The Gray and coming out the other side.
The sports commentator recently published a book titled “Unbreakablein which he speaks publicly for the first time about his experience with depression and anxiety. In the book, he describes how to deal with The Gray and move towards The Blue, which are happier, more sustainable times where mental health concerns aren’t as important. -consumer.
“I wanted to give people a chance,” Glazer told Dr. Ramsey about the book. “I wanted to give them a guide. I wanted to help guide them to The Blue because we deserve The Blue.”
Part of that guide involves Glazer sharing the coping mechanisms she has developed throughout her mental health journey. To get through The Gray, Glazer leans on his “team” of family and friends and prioritizes being of service to gain a sense of purpose.
“When you’re on duty, it’s hard for the roommates in your head to tell you how trashy you are,” he said.
During the chat, Glazer shared that during a recent bad day, he called four friends to talk about how he was struggling and asked a few to come over and help him get through the day. But then he called four other friends to see how they were doing, prioritizing the mental health of others to improve yours.
“Nobody has ever told me I’m a coward,” Glazer said of speaking out with his friends, including Micheal Strahan and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, about his mental health struggles. “No one has told me to hold on. No one has ever said to me, ‘Oh, Jay, your life is great. Stop’. No one.”
It’s that exact fear of being considered “unmanly” for being vulnerable or being a burden that makes many men speak out about their own emotional struggles. Glazer wants to see that change, pointing out that the mindset is especially ingrained in the field of sports. Although he has personally trained football players and MMA fighters not to show when they are tired or injured as a sports strategy, he is the first to say that translating that lesson into everyday life can be detrimental.
“Your pain is real,” he said during the Friday Sessions interview. “Don’t think that everyone is too busy for you because they aren’t. They want to help you.”
And while Glazer’s mental health remains a daily struggle for him, he has found ways to be “relentless” in the pursuit of life, even on his gray days.
“The more we can lift each other up, the more we can get out of this hole together,” he said, adding, “I didn’t sign up for this crap. I didn’t sign up for this. All I can do is fight it.”
Watch the full talk in the video below:
This content is imported from Instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may find more information on their website.
This content is created and maintained by a third party and is imported into this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content on piano.io
