North vs South (or City vs Town)
Does Geography Still Shape Mental Health in 2025?
Beyond the Map: How Where You Live Influences Wellbeing.
When we talk about mental health, the conversation often focuses on personal experiences, emotions, or therapy. But there’s another factor that quietly shapes how we experience, cope with, and access help for mental health: where we live and work.
Growing up in the North East, I’ve seen firsthand how geography — North vs South, city vs town, or even postcode-level differences — can influence men’s mental wellbeing. But here’s the truth: mental health itself doesn’t care where you live. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, and burnout don’t knock politely depending on your address. They affect everyone, everywhere. What geography does affect, however, is how easy it is to cope, find help, and feel understood.
Living and Working Away from Home
I spent a significant part of my life working away from home, mainly in the South. While the work brought opportunity, it also highlighted stark differences. Cities in the South often had more visible support networks, wellness initiatives, and community programs — but ironically, I often felt more isolated there. Away from familiar towns, family, and friends, it was easy to feel invisible, disconnected, and unheard.
Being physically distant from my support system underscored the importance of connection. No matter how many resources were nearby, the absence of trusted people and familiar spaces made it harder to open up, seek help, or simply feel safe to be vulnerable.
The Economic and Social Divide
The UK has long been shaped by economic divides. Housing costs, wages, job security, and local resources vary massively between regions. In many parts of the North East, opportunities can feel limited, public services stretched, and community spaces underfunded. In the South, while resources may be more abundant, the cost of living, transient populations, and pace of life can create other pressures ,particularly for men living and working away from home.
For men struggling with mental health, this isn’t just a statistic it’s tangible. Fewer local connections or strained work-life balance can make support harder to reach, even when it exists. Small barriers, repeated over time, can feel like insurmountable walls.
Community and Cultural Differences
It’s not just about money or services. Culture and community play a huge role in shaping how men experience and express mental health. In tight-knit towns in the North East, everyone knows everyone — which can be comforting but also isolating if vulnerability is still stigmatized. In bigger Southern cities, anonymity can be freeing, but forming meaningful connections is harder, especially when living away from home.
In my experience, cultural expectations around stoicism, “getting on with it,” and defining worth through work were present everywhere but being away from home amplified the isolation. Spaces like Space North East, or even local peer groups wherever you live, are essential because they provide a safe space to connect, talk, and feel seen, no matter the postcode.
Accessing Support
Even if mental health doesn’t discriminate, access does. Rural towns may have fewer therapists or men-specific initiatives, while urban centres may have more options that are expensive, intimidating, or transient. Living away from home can make access even harder — unfamiliar cities, commuting, and a lack of local connections can all be barriers.
This makes free, local, peer-to-peer support invaluable. Groups, walks, yoga sessions, or simple coffee meetups give men somewhere to start without judgment or cost. Geography may shape the ease of access, but it doesn’t determine whether men can find connection and relief.
The Bigger Picture
Mental health isn’t just an individual struggle it’s a social one. Economic inequality, cultural norms, local resources, and distance from home all intersect to create barriers or bridges. Men in different regions may experience similar struggles differently, shaped by their environment.
But geography doesn’t have to be a cage. Awareness, community, and grassroots support can level the playing field. Spaces that are free, open, and inclusive help men across towns, cities, and postcodes break through isolation. They prove that support, connection, and understanding can exist anywhere, even when work or life takes you far from home.