How RUBY WAX regained her sparkle: The comedian on training her brain to beat depression
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2332818/How-RUBY-WAX-trained-brain-beat-depression.html
Brain science is still comparatively
in its infancy. For most of the previous century it was assumed that
after early childhood, the brain structure remained more or less
unchanged. Now scientists have shown that the brain is constantly
adapting because of changes in behaviour or environment. What’s more, it
is an effect that we can achieve deliberately. Focus on your worries
and you’ll develop neural structures of anxiety; but engaging in
relaxing activities can rewire your brain for calm.
‘It’s
about working-out the brain like a muscle,’ explains Ruby. ‘You’re not
stuck with what you were born with. Gloria Gaynor is going to have to
change those lyrics, because I’m not who I am. But what rhymes with
neuroplasticity?’ she cackles.
Medication has helped, but not cured her.
And she had so much therapy that she
says she grew sick of her own story. But eventually her researches into
mental health led her to discover mindfulness. This ancient meditation
practice has its roots in Buddhism and, put simply, requires you to
spend time paying attention to your thoughts, feelings and sensations –
such as, for instance, that whirring noise we heard earlier. ‘You have
to train your attention. Once you train that, you can regulate your
focus and you won’t stay up all night listening to the voices in your
head,’ explains Ruby.
Since she started practising MBCT, she
has not had a full-blown attack of depression. ‘You still have a disease
but you can hear it coming before it takes over and take precautions –
such as cancel every dinner party, go somewhere quiet, not make so many
phone calls. This means it won’t be as intense.
Everyone who has killed themselves probably had depression.
I suspect she won’t have
time. She has a new stage show to write based on this book, and having
set up a website, blackdogtribe.com, for people with mental health
issues, she hopes to establish a British network of drop-in centres,
along the lines of AA. ‘The trouble is, everyone’s too ashamed to admit
to having mental illness, and if they come out, their job is affected,’
she says.
What is mindfulness?
The founder of modern-day mindfulness is Jon Kabat-Zinn, who developed
the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programme at the
University of Massachusetts Medical School in the late 1970s, to help
with conditions as diverse as chronic pain, high blood pressure, cancer
and cardiovascular disease.
Mindfulness-based
cognitive therapy — which Ruby studied — was adapted from MBSR in the
1990s by clinical psychologist Mark Williams and colleagues to aid
patients with recurrent depression by helping them to relate differently
to their distress.
MBCT has been shown to be as effective as antidepressants in preventing a
relapse
into depression and the National Institute for Health and Clinical
Excellence (NICE) has recommended it for people who have experienced
three or more episodes.
Now MBSR and MBCT are also used to help anyone with normal everyday anxiety and low mood.
Regular
mindfulness meditation has been shown to develop thicker layers of
neurons in the attention-focused parts of the brain, and to boost the
activation of the left prefrontal cortex which suppresses negative
emotions.
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