HOW to WIN Against Depression in 12 Steps!

Good morning, Believe Nation. Today we're going to talk about how to beat your depression.

See, some people might fear girls not liking them back. Some people might fear sharks. Some people might fear death. But for me, for a large part of my life, I feared myself. I feared my truth, I feared my honesty, I feared my vulnerability, and that fear made me feel like I was forced into a corner. I was forced into a corner, and there was only one way out. And so I thought about that way every single day. I thought about it every single day, and if I'm being totally honest standing here, I've thought about it again since, because that's the sickness. That's the struggle, that's depression, and depression isn't chickenpox. You don't beat it once and it's gone forever. It's something you live with. It's something you live in. Roommate you can't kick out, it's the voice you can't ignore, it's the feelings you can't seem to escape. And the scariest part is— the scariest part is that after a while, you become numb to it. It becomes normal for you, and what you really fear the most isn't the suffering inside of you, it's the stigma inside of others, it's the shame, it's the embarrassment, it's the disapproving look on a friend's face, it's the— It's the whispers in the hallway that you're weak, it's the comments that you're crazy. That's what keeps you from getting help, that's what makes you hold it in and hide it. It's the stigma, so you hold it in and you hide it, and you hold it in and you hide it. And even though it's keeping you in bed every day and it's making your life feel empty no matter how much you try and fill it, you hide it because the stigma in our society around depression is very real. It's very real, and if you think that it isn't, ask yourself this: Would you rather make your next Facebook status say you're having a tough time getting out of bed because you hurt your back, or you're having a tough time getting out of bed every morning because you're depressed? That's the stigma. Because unfortunately, we live in a world where if you break your arm, everyone runs over to sign your cast. But if you tell people you're depressed, everyone runs the other way. That's the stigma. We are so, so, so accepting of any body part breaking down. Other than our brains, and that's ignorance. That's pure ignorance, and that ignorance has created a world that doesn't understand depression, that doesn't understand mental health. And that's ironic to me, because depression is one of the best-documented problems we have in the world, yet it's one of the least discussed. We just push it aside and put it in a corner and pretend it's not there and hope it'll fix itself. Well, it won't. It hasn't, and it's not going to, because that's wishful thinking. Wishful thinking isn't a game plan, it's procrastination. We can't procrastinate on something this important. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. Well, we haven't done that. So we can't really expect to find an answer when we're still afraid of the question. And I— I don't know what the solution is. I wish I did, but I don't. But I think— I think it has to start here. It has to start with me, it has to start with you, it has to start with the people who are suffering, the ones who are hidden in the shadows. We need to speak up and shatter the silence. We need to be the ones who are brave for what we believe in, because if there's one thing that I've come to realize, if there's one thing that I see as the biggest problem, it's not in building a world where we eliminate the ignorance of others. It's in building a world where we teach the acceptance of ourselves, We're okay with who we are because when we get honest, we see that we all struggle and we all suffer, whether it's with this, whether it's with something else, we all know what it is to hurt. We all know what it is to have pain in our heart, and we all know how important it is to heal. But right now, depression is society's deep cut that we're content to put a Band-Aid over and pretend it's not there. Well, it is there. It is there, and you know what? It's okay. Depression is okay. If you're going through it, know that you're okay. And know that you're sick, you're not weak, and it's an issue, not an identity, because when you get past the fear and the ridicule and the judgment and the stigma of others, you can see depression for what it really is. And that's just a part of life, just a part of life. And as much as I hate, as much as I hate some of the places, some of the parts of my life depression has dragged me down to, in a lot of ways, I'm grateful for it. Because, yeah, it's put me in the valleys, but only to show me there's peaks. And, yeah, it's dragged me through the dark, but only to remind me there is light. My pain, more than anything in 19 years on this planet, has given me perspective. And my hurt— my hurt's forced me to have hope, to have hope and to have faith, faith in myself, faith in others, faith that it can get better, that we can change this, that we can speak up and speak out and fight back against ignorance. Fight back against intolerance. And more than anything, learn to love ourselves. Learn to accept ourselves for who we are, the people we are, not the people the world wants us to be. Because the world I believe in is one where embracing your light doesn't mean ignoring your dark. The world I believe in is one where we're measured by our ability to overcome adversities, not avoid them. The world I believe in is one where I can look someone in the eye and say, "I'm going through hell," and they can look back at me and go, "Me too," and that's okay. And it's okay because depression is okay. We're people. We're people, and we struggle, and we suffer, and we bleed, and we cry. And if you think that true strength means never showing any weakness, then I'm here to tell you you're wrong. You're wrong because it's the opposite. We're people, and we have problems. We're not perfect, and that's okay. So we need to stop the ignorance, stop the intolerance, stop the stigma, and stop the silence. We need to take away the taboos, take a look at the truth, and start talking. Because the only way we're going to beat a problem that people are battling alone is by standing strong together. By standing strong together. And I believe that we can.

Let's go back to depressed though, because it's so much more fun. Notice she knows exactly where to go. Does she know what to do to get depressed? Yes or no? She would have you believe that happens to her when all I do is tell her to do it. She goes, okay, I know exactly what to do. Go ahead, get depressed. Get back to 9 level of depression again. Don't go to 10. You nod your head when you're back to 9. Focus on what you focus on.

Is this a Freudian thing?

What's that?

Is this a Freudian thing?

I don't know, you tell me. All I know is you keep twisting that thing real tight. You're rubbing it off now, is that what you're doing here? Get back to that depression thing. Come on, get back to that depression thing. Level 8, nod when you're there. Okay, tell me what you're focusing on right now to be depressed at level 8. What are you picturing? What do you— what are you focusing on? What are you remembering specifically to be depressed at level 8 or 9? Pardon me?

I don't know.

You're not there. What are you focused on? The men that you can't trust from your past? Now, by the way, keep staying in that state. How many noticed the pattern that's different with her head when she's hopeful than when she's depressed? Very simple pattern. Raise your hand if you've seen it. What does she do with her head continuously when she's depressed and frustrated? When she's hopeful, what was she doing with her head? How many saw that pattern? That's universal, by the way. What do you say to yourself to be depressed like this? Just say out loud what you're saying in your head when you're really depressed.

I'm so pathetic.

I'm so pathetic. Say it in the tone of voice you say it when you stay depressed, though.

You're so pathetic.

You're so pathetic. What else do you say besides you're so pathetic? To really be depressed, what do you got to say to yourself? Really depressed. 9. Say it in the tone of voice you say it when you're that depressed.

I don't want to live my life this way.

What else do you say? So pathetic. I don't want to live my life this way. Is there a tone of voice here, ladies and gentlemen? Yes or no? Loud or quiet? Uptone or down? Cry in the voice or not? What else do you say to stay depressed at level 9? You ever get depressed at 10, like where you want to kill yourself? No. I thought we had a good suicide we could deal with here.

Sorry to disappoint you.

What the fuck are you doing smiling, Anne? What are you feeling right now?

I'm gonna kick your ass.

Notice how fast can we take her from depression How fast can we take her out of depression? How fast? 2 seconds. If you fuck with her depression, she's pissed off at you. I'm sitting here being depressed, you take me out of it, I'll take you out. I'll come out of my depression when I'm ready. Everybody repeat after me. Hmm, something to think about. So we now know what she does when she's pissed, and we know what she does when she's depressed, and she seems to snap back. Let's go back to hopeful for a second. You're good. You're good.

This is why you get paid the big bucks.

That's right, honey. Now, Maros, how many recognize the physiology of hopeful when she went there? Raise your hand if you recognize it. What did she do? She started doing what? Nodding her head, shoulders came back, head came up. What else did she do? Start to smile. So can she go from depressed to hopeful instead of depressed to pissed if she chose to? Okay, let's get that. These are wimpy states. Have you ever had a state of pure ecstasy, or is that what you're pissed about?

No, that's not my problem.

That's not a problem. Look at this big smile. That's not a problem. Good. What are you feeling now? No, don't change. What are you feeling when you're smiling like that? There you go. What are you feeling right there?

Excited.

Excited. That's nice. I'd like you to think of a specific peak experience in which you experienced a peak of ecstasy. I'm talking screaming ecstasy. Can you think of— can you remember a particular moment? I'd like you to go right before the peak of that moment. I want you to remember right near the peak of that experience. Sincerely, can you actually put yourself there and remember it? As you do that, I want you to step into that image as if you were really there and breathe the way you're breathing right near the peak.

I might get thrown in jail.

And as you're doing that, I want you to focus on what you were focusing on right near the peak. And breathe the way you were breathing. See what you were seeing. Hear what you were hearing. Were you making sounds at this point? Were you? Seriously? Make that sound now. Come on, give her a hand, ladies and gentlemen. Don't put the microphone down. Give yourself the gift. My point is really simple. Instead of getting the point intellectually, get the point in your body. Because intellectually you go, "Yeah, yeah, I know this." Do it in your body. Actually put yourself there and feel it sincerely. And make the sound. It can be playful. I don't think there's anybody here who hasn't made sounds. Make some noises of your own, ladies and gentlemen. Help her out. Okay. See what you saw. Breathe the way you were breathing near the peak. Move the way you're moving in your body. Feel like you're moving that way. Now make the sounds at the peak that you're making, some of the sounds, on the count of 3, but really sincerely do it with your voice the way it really would be. 1, 2, 3, go! That's how loud you were, huh? Make the sounds, go for it.

I'm modest.

Oh, you weren't making any sounds?

No, I was making sounds.

Were you really spiritual? Like, "Oh God, oh God," or were you more like, "Do me more"?

There we go.

So it was the "do me more" kind of thing. Now notice the head's moving faster now. What are you feeling right now? Stay in that state. What are you feeling right now? She's feeling so much she can't talk. Now go back to depression.

This is better.

No, go back to depression. Come on, you've been there for years. Go to depression. Come on, you can't put your past behind you. Keep your past right there in front of you so you can stare at it. Maybe you don't want to put your past behind you. Maybe this past you want to put right in front of you. Because if you can't put your past behind you, in this case, I think that's a very good thing. Because if this was constantly in front of you, imagine the smile that will be on your face all day. Maybe you've been selective about which past. To put in front of you or behind you.

The reason we get so down on ourselves is because we're too busy in our own inner worlds. We get so wrapped up in the muddling of the day that we forget about everyone else. If you want to change your situation, start doing stuff for others. Volunteer for others. I mean, you will never run out of things to do for other people. You'll start to realize that it's not about you. Life was never meant about you. You'll finally realize that it really isn't that bad. You'll start to realize that there's hope after all, and you'll finally realize that you can transcend whatever hard situation you're going through.

Didn't you suffer from depression?

Yes, yes. I'm on a manic high right now.

Can't you tell?

How did you get through that to this?

Well, that's another thing. You know, at the risk of like opening up the whole Tom Cruise Prozac argument, I, I, I, you know, I don't disagree in many ways. I think Prozac and things like that are, are very valuable to people for short periods of time. But I believe if you're on them for an extended period of time, you never get to the problem. You never get to see what the problem is because everything is just kind of okay. And so you don't deal, and people deal when they get desperate.

So how'd you do it?

I, I take supplements.

Vitamins?

Yes, there is a— well, it's not— well, it is vitamins, but it's also certain elements of the brain like tyrosine and hydroxytryptophan that they're treating depression with now. And, uh, and it is a natural substance that's in your brain, but instead of being a, uh, a serotonin inhibitor, which doesn't, you know, which just uses the serotonin you have in Prozac and things like that, it just uses the serotonin you have and it doesn't allow it to go back into the, uh, receptor. But it metabolizes your serotonin after a while and you have to keep taking more and more. So to feel good, and this actually creates dopamine and creates serotonin, and it's a wonderful thing and it's amazing. I'm going to talk about a lot about it in the near future.

But you know, write about it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Has coming through this made you a better performer?

I think—

do you think—

I think all experience, if you're a performer, if you're, if you're an artist, you ought to be able to take this table and make it into something. You know, you ought to be able to make something out of anything.

Exercise is good for us. How many of you— can I see a show of hands? How many of you came in here today knowing that exercise is really, really good for us? Right? Every hand goes up? Now, has it changed your behavior? For some, yes. Everybody knows that exercise is good for us. Here's the problem: many people have trouble making it happen. Happen. And you know what? A lot of people don't realize just how good exercise— I'm going to say something that may be a little bit controversial. I'm going to go ahead and say it. And I'm not speaking metaphorically. Exercise is medicine. Exercise literally is medicine. It changes the brain and the body in beneficial ways that are more powerful than any pill you can take. Yeah, I said it. More powerful than any pill you can— in fact, I'm going to say something even more controversial. If you could take the neurological and physiological effects of exercise and capture them in a pill, all the beneficial effects on neural signaling in the brain, the anti-aging effects all the way down to the level of chromosomes in every cell of your body, the mental clarity-enhancing effects, I believe— tell me if you think I'm crazy— I believe that pill would become the best-selling drug of all time. And I think people would pay any price to have it. There's a problem though. We don't exercise. We don't. CDC again tells us that 60% of all American adults get no regular physical activity. And yet, if we look at hunter-gatherer groups, they get 4 or more hours of vigorous activity every day. In fact, they look like elite athletes even when they're in middle age and beyond. Here's the thing I love though. If you ask them, they will tell you they do not exercise. They don't. They do not work out. Working out would be crazy to them. What do they do? They live.

They live.

Here is— yeah, I know.

I know.

I like it too. Here's the dirty little secret. In the business. And I really want you, if you remember nothing else from this talk, exercise is not natural. We are designed to be physically active in the service of adaptive goals. We are not designed to exercise. When you put a lab rat on a treadmill and crank that thing up to the point where it's moving faster than it wants to move, you know what it'll do if you let it? It'll squat down on its haunches and the treadmill starts to wear the fur and the skin right off its back. Backside. So it kind of feels our pain, right? When you stare at a piece of exercise equipment, there is a piece of your brain that's screaming out, "Don't do it! You're not going anywhere on that thing." So how do we solve this conundrum? In our treatment program, we've done two things. We've made exercise natural and we've made it social. What's the most natural activity in the world? Walking. And guess what? Brisk walking, you know the kind like you're late for the bus, like you might miss your plane, that kind of walking will get your pulse up in the aerobic range and that's where it needs to be based on your age. Depending on your age, it needs to be— your pulse needs to be between about 120 and 150. That's enough to enhance signaling in your dopamine circuits, your serotonin circuits. It's been tested head-to-head against Zoloft twice. In the long term, it won. At what dose? 30 minutes, 3 times a week. That's a low dose. It can change your life.

All you have to do is change the way you think, and it goes from being a miserable experience or a tough experience or a hard experience to to one that you can do anything that you want with. And when I— my mother got our family all back together again when I was 9, almost 10 years old. And I can remember her telling me what it was like when I was just a baby, when I was just like an infant, that I was the one child that could make everybody else laugh at times when everybody else would— she said we were waiting for a bus one time when we were just real babies before I went into the orphanage. And she said a car came by, and it was in Detroit, and there was all this slush, and we all went flying down. Everybody had dirt on them and dirty snow, and we were laying on the ground, and everybody was crying. And she said you were upset and mad because our clothes were wet and so on. And she said you just stood up and said, this is great. Isn't this wonderful? Look, we don't have to do this. Just turning it into something positive. So the ability to be able to do that was something— I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't know that if I, if I really went to work on how I thought, that things just didn't have to be bad. I was the richest kid in the orphanage. I was— that's why I've talked about that many times in my lectures, that a snowstorm was a time— we, we had one, we had two snow shovels at the, at the, at the, at the home, and one of them One of them had the edges all curled up from hitting the curbs, and you couldn't make any money with that one. So the other one, when it would snow, I would go downstairs and I would take the good snow shovel and I would put it under my bed and I'd sleep with it right, right with me in the bed so that nobody else would get it. And I would get up before everybody else got up and I would go out and I would just shovel everybody else's snow, shovel their walk. And then later on, and I just go knock on the door and just tell them that I shoveled their walk. And they'd say, some would say thank you, and some would give me a dime, which doesn't sound like much, but that's about $3,000 in today's money. So, and when I found out that soda pop bottles, for example, were worth 2 cents each, that if you took them back you could get 2 cents back, that was just like one of the great awarenesses and awakenings of my life, because I would follow people around who were drinking a Coca-Cola and say, you almost done with that? They said, well, no, I'm not quite. Well, just whenever you're ready. I just followed them until And I had a whole, we had a coal bin where we lived because it was coal furnaces. And we filled that coal bin with soda pop bottles and I would take it back. It was just always easy to change. And all the other kids would be not having any money and complaining about not being able to have abundance or be able to have some level of being able to buy themselves just a little donut or a Pepsi-Cola or something. They couldn't figure it out. And it always seemed so easy to me that all you had to do is just look around and see the opportunities in anything. And it had nothing to do with whether there are opportunities there. There always are opportunities. You know, I'm 67 years old. I have never ever been unemployed or even can't even deal with the concept of unemployment. It isn't that I've had no job. I've always had more jobs than I've— and it isn't because I've been through all good economic times. There've been some pretty sour economic times over the last 50 years or so. I just have never known how to think any other way than if you change the way you think about things, you can create whatever it is you want for yourself in your life.

Thank you so much for watching. We made this video because Intimidating asked us to. So there's a topic that you want me to cover in the next edition of Believe Life, leave it below and I'll see what I can do.

Have a great day.

Continue to believe and we'll see you soon.