It can be oh so easy to become engulfed in negative unpleasant symptoms of depression and anxiety. And it can be oh so easy to look for a quick and easy solution. So I looked into the science of how long it takes to recover from anxiety and depression and I show you what the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have to say. NICE is the definitive opinion on matters of health and wellbeing so it is worth taking their assessment of the science seriously.

Please take a look at this video and consider that in your own life everything worthwhile took some time and effort to achieve.

It is not a huge amount of time, really, especially given how long you might suffer and just 'suck it up'. It is just a bit of time and commitment over a few months. That's all and that will do it.

The Anxiety Wizard Active Self Help Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) Program will do it for you. 

Best wishes

Dr David Purves

Anxiety is created by your brain and can only be solved by your brain, but here is the problem. Anxiety is a mistake made by your brain. So unless you do something different it is quite possible that nothing can change.

The first mistake creates others and you get trapped in a loop of mistakes that feed on each other. To be free of anxiety you must learn what these mistakes are and then teach your brain to stop making them.

The first mistake your brain makes is that it creates the experience of fear without an actual threat! Think about it, the next time you are anxious as yourself...do I need to be anxious? 

The second mistake your brain makes builds on the first. Your brain assumes that you are anxious because something in your external world must be threatening. The leads you to start avoiding things that are actually safe. The result is that you start organizing your life around anxiety instead of teaching your brain not to be anxious.

The third...

There are few thing more unhelpful than a self destructive mindset. I am sure we can all agree about that. But, what might a self destructive mindset look like. Well, it looks like self limiting beliefs in action. In this video I talk about how self limiting beliefs are formed, how to recognize them and then how to transform them.

This is powerful stuff that can release you from a self imposed prison of unhappiness.

Our lives are mostly run on autopilot. And thank goodness, because the simplest of human tasks is often far beyond the most complex robot so far constructed. Also, a huge benefit of having things run on autopilot is that we don't have to spend any of our precious consciousness to manage it. Consciousness can be left to manage more complex problems such as where to park the car or what to eat for dinner. But Zombie programs can also cause serious problems. And without some awareness of this fact, they can smoothly and effortless lead you into depression and anxiety. Using your consciousness, which is your only remedy, will not even be an option because it will not even by alerted that there is a problem going on. This subtle slide into mental health problems, driven by Zombie systems probably accounts for the majority of cases of anxiety and depression in the world today. This video explains how this happens and what you can do about it.

Of all the novel things you can do on holiday, surely taking a flying lesson has to be one of the strangest. Yet doing anything different is a great way to challenge and ultimately eradicate depression. Your brain is always looking for change, difference and novelty. You don't have to go flying to lessen depression simply change your routine and get out of the rut. In this video I take you over the 1000 islands in Canada but I also talk about really small ways you can take back control from depression.

If you open my emails and watch my video's (I hope you do) then you will know that I was recently in Canada. It is such a treat to have a different area in which to film and the lovely weather doesn't hurt either. I took the opportunity to show you a bit more of where I was and share my thoughts on why anxiety is exhausting. So Watch the video and please leave comments. Also please subscribe to my You Tube channel to make sure you don't miss out of new videos. ...And...if you like the Rolling Stones I was in Hyde Park in London for the Rolling Stones Concert on 25th June. I recorded the song Sympathy for the Devil and uploaded it to You Tube. We were so close, if was fab. Check it out.

OK, anxiety is exhausting. We all know that. In this video I am going to share with you why anxiety is exhausting, why it doesn't stop being exhausting, but even more importantly what you can do to stop it tiring you out; making it hard to concentrate and function to your full capability. Also I will...

 Anxiety is no different to most things that are persistent, there is a formula or as I am calling it a recipe for anxiety. And, like every other recipe in the world, if you do this you will get that outcome. There is a straightforward correlation. Do this and that will happen. You might want to cook a nice meal and so you follow the recipe willingly, with anxiety you are unconsciously doing it but you are still following the recipe, hence the outcome of anxiety. This video explains the recipe for you. And, let's be clear the recipe is the roadmap to the outcome. Once you know the recipe you can change the outcome. This is real power over anxiety. You can become a master chef.

The Recipe of Anxiety Video is Here

Emotional power and control, the unseen force. 

I cannot emphasis too strongly the importance of understanding the role power and control plays in every aspect of your life. Particularly, if things are not quite going how you want them to. 

The basic principle is very easy to grasp but hard to believe. You have all the power and control you need to manage every life eventuality. The trouble is you don't know about power and control so you give yours away automatically then blame external circumstances for not having it anymore.

Eg. My job makes me stressed.

She/he makes me so angry.

I cannot because I am anxious.

I cannot because I might panic.

I cannot because I am depressed.

These are all simple examples, we all are prone to, of giving away our power and control and then blaming something else for not feeling in control.

Watch the video for a lot more detail.

All mental health problems arise from experiencing the wrong emotion at the wrong time. This is not to blame emotions, they are fundamental to every aspect of your life. But the wrong emotion in any circumstance is going to give you the wrong reaction. For example, laying in bed and experiencing the extreme fear reaction of panic. Having a lovely holiday with your family and experiencing sadness. Walking to work and feeling anxiety, or going for a night out and feeling shame. These are all legitimate emotions but they are wrong in the context. The emotion tells you how to feel but it is the wrong feeling for the context. If you want to rectify this and feel more of the right emotions in the right circumstances then we need to work to retrain your brain. Basically this means teaching your brain that it is getting things wrong and showing it what the right emotions is in any particular setting.

But...I show you how to change it from the outside in.

From time to time we can all get stuck in an emotion and lose perspective on that emotion. But when the emotion gets stuck and therefore the feeling persists for a long time or it is really horrible then we need to understand why this is happening. There is always a strong desire 'not feel this way' but that alone will do nothing other than deepen the horrible feeling.

It is really fundamental to recognize that you cannot change an emotion from inside of it but you can change it when you step out of it's pull and recognise the truth of your reality. 

This video explains it in more detail.