A conversational transcript of a YouTube video in which Dr. Don Wood argues that anxiety, depression, and addiction are adaptive signals from the brain—functions that try to protect the organism by prompting action—rather than biochemical dysfunctions to be suppressed. He explains these symptoms often reflect unresolved trauma and repeating neural ‘loops’ or error messages; treatment should reset or ‘reboot’ those loops (e.g., the speaker endorses a ‘180 method’ as simpler than typical approaches and is critical of long-term reliance on medications).
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So when I went back to do this research, I went back to get my PhD, and I kept hearing people, oh, this triggers me. That triggers me. And I said, your mind and body are not negative. They're not going to attack you. They're trying to protect you. So when somebody comes in and says, oh, I have anxiety, I have depression, whatever it is, I said, well, that's a symptom. That's not what you have. That's a symptom of a problem. Yeah. So let's figure out what's. Why would your mind get anxious, doesn't wake up one day and say, well, let's just mess up Alejandro's life and start making her anxious for no reason. Driver crazy. Yeah. She'll just keep chasing all over trying to find it out. There's a reason why I've got a very different approach, even to depression. I say, depression is a function of the brain, not a dysfunction. And people go, well, how could it be a function? I said, if your mind is trying to resolve a problem, and you don't resolve the problem, and you continue to loop and feel the pain of this trauma or whatever it is you're dealing with, and your mind can't solve the problem because the problem doesn't exist anymore. It's an old event, but your mind keeps looping through it in real time. So how does your mind protect you? It shuts down. It stops using the emotions that you've been experiencing to protect you from the pain. That's a function of the brain, not a dysfunction. So then they'll put you on a whole bunch of SSRIs, things like that. Because they're saying, oh, we got to boost your serotonin. No, that's not the problem. And so, anyway, so it's just a very different way. And I give a lot of science and education about why our minds do what they do. It always has a purpose, and it's trying to get some sort of an action. What's the action? And a lot of times, it's a glitch. It's an error message. So if you got hurt when you were younger and your mind keeps looping through that trauma, it's seeing that trauma in real time, and it's trying to get you to run or fight or do something. Yeah, but it's. But it's old data. It doesn't exist anymore. Anymore. But your mind doesn't know that.
Right. Can't just distinguish the difference. Yeah.
Nope. Hollywood has made trillions of dollars from this. They can convince us in A movie theater, that what's on the screen is real.
Yeah.
Memory is seen the same way. It looks real. So your mind is going to call for an action. So I always use the story of if you're compare your conscious mind, your subconscious mind, your conscious mind as you're sitting in a movie theater goes, oh, that's Leonardo DiCaprio and he's playing in a movie called Titanic. And your subconscious survival brain goes, jack's going to die. And it'll try to create some sort of an emotion to get you into an action to save Jack.
Yes.
Because it's not okay with it. And as long as that loop is running, creating these glitches and error messages, you're going to continue to experience the symptoms.
Right.
So all we have to do is get to that loop and reset it, reboot the system.
Reboot it.
Yep. And it is funny because when I saw that you had the 180 method, I said, that's opposed to what they do right now, which is the 360 method.
Exactly. That's exactly it.
I'm going to give you the 360 method. Oh, my gosh. I'm right back where I started. Yeah, that's it. You got it.
Which is. Yeah. Ridiculous that we just fall into that. But there you go. There's a reason behind it.
Yep. And I always say, God designed us to heal.
Yes.
What's interfering with our healing? Right. This glitch, this error message that keeps running in the background.
Right.
And all we have to do is get to it. And it's. And it's a lot simpler than people think. As soon as I saw your 180 method, I said, oh, that's really good, because you only had the go halfway rather than take them through the whole 360. It's actually simpler.
Way more simpler. Yeah, yeah. Way more simple. But people are. And I think to your point of how the brain and the glitch happens, are addicted to that drama and the conflict of it.
Well, it becomes repetitive, and then we get stuck in it. And that's why people come in and they'll say to me, oh, I'm. I'm just. My anxiety is so bad. And I'll say to them, are you taking any medication for it? Oh, yeah, I'm on like four different medications. Okay, so you're on four different medications and your anxiety's bad.
Right.
How's the medication? What's it doing? Yeah.
What does that tell you?
And you know what they'll say if I didn't Take the medication, it'd be worse.
No, no.
So the medication's obviously not helping you because the medication is just trying to block that Google search of the memory that keeps activating your nervous system. But that's not the solution to the problem. That's like going into an emergency room with a broken leg and they stick a needle and put morphine in you and then send you home and you go, oh, yeah, I'm actually okay now.
I feel so much better.
I feel so much better. And then tomorrow you're like, oh my God, I think I broke my leg again. No, it's just always been broken. They just never fixed it. They never said it.
Masked.
Yeah, yeah. And I see it all the time. So I'm not saying that medication can help in times, but it shouldn't be a lifestyle.
Right. I often say, like you, right, you don't want to camp out there and build a home. You don't build your home or your structure there permanently.
Yep. No, because then, then that's the only way that you can manage through the day. And it really doesn't manage you through the day. And I see so many people get stuck in that kind of a thing.
So that's the dealing aspect of it. And, and people think, what? Well, the, the magic pill that's going to make it all better rather than actually doing the work to. Which can be quite simple, like in four hours. And what you're saying, and with this 180 method, it also happens to very quickly, not in four hours, because there's some, some deep emotional healing that someone goes through. But it does happen a whole lot quicker than the 360 that you were in conference.
