for a really long time I had two
mysteries that were hanging over me I
didn't understand them and to be honest
I was quite afraid to look into them the
first mystery was I'm 40 years old and
all throughout my lifetime year after
year serious depression and anxiety have
risen in the United States in Britain
and across the Western world and I
wanted to understand why why is this
happening to us why is it that with each
year that passes more and more of us are
finding it harder to get through the day
and I wanted to understand this because
of a more personal mystery when I was a
teenager I remember going to my doctor
and explaining that I had this feeling
like pain was leaking out of me I
couldn't control it I didn't understand
why it was happening I felt quite
ashamed of it and my doctor told me a
story I now realised was
well-intentioned but quite
oversimplified not totally wrong my
doctor said well we know why people get
like this some people just naturally get
a chemical imbalance in their heads
you're clearly one of them all we need
to do is give you some drugs it'll get
your chemical balance back to normal so
I started taking a drug called paxil or
Ciroc site it's the same thing with
different names in different countries
and I felt much better I got a real
boost but not very long afterwards this
feeling of pain started to come back so
I was given higher and higher doses
until the 13 years I was taking the
maximum possible those that you're
legally allowed to take and for a lot of
those 13 years and pretty much all the
time by the end I was still in a lot of
pain and I started asking myself well
what's going on here because you're
doing everything you're told to do by
the story that's dominating the culture
why do you still feel like this so to
get to the bottom of these two mysteries
for a book that I've written I ended up
going on a big journey all over the
world I traveled over 40,000 miles I
wanted to sit with the leading experts
in the world about what caused
depression and anxiety and crucially
what solves them and people who've come
through depression and anxiety and out
the other side in all sorts of ways and
I learned a huge amount from the amazing
people I got to know along the way but I
think at the heart of what I learned is
so far we have scientific evidence for
nine different causes of depression and
anxiety
two of them are indeed in our biology
your genes can make you more sensitive
to these problems though they don't
write your destiny and there are real
brain changes that can happen when you
become depressed that can make it harder
to get out but most of the factors that
have been proven to cause depression and
anxiety are not in our biology they're
factors in the way we live and once you
understand them it opens up a very
different set of solutions that should
be offered to people alongside the
option of chemical antidepressants for
example if you're lonely you're more
likely to become depressed if when you
go to work you don't have any control
over your job you've just got to do what
you're told you're more likely to become
depressed if you very rarely get out
into the natural world you're more
likely to become depressed and one thing
unites a lot of the causes of depression
and anxiety that I learned about not all
of them but a lot of them everyone here
knows you've all got natural physical
needs right
obviously you need food you need water
you need shelter you know clean air if I
took those things away from you you'd
all be in real trouble real fast but at
the same time every human being has
natural psychological needs you need to
feel you belong you need to feel your
life has meaning and purpose you need to
feel that people see you and value you
useful you've got a future that makes
sense and this culture we built is good
at lots of things many things are better
than in the past I'm glad to be alive
today
but we've been getting less and less
good at meeting these deep underlying
psychological needs and it's not the
only thing that's going on but I think
it's the key reason why this crisis
keeps rising and rising but I found this
really hard to absorb a really wrestle
with the idea of
shifting from thinking of my depression
as you know just a problem in my brain
to one with many causes including many
in the way we're living and it only
really began to fall into place for me
when one day I went to interview a South
African psychiatrist named dr. Derrick
summer field he's a great guy and not
just Sommerfeld happened to be in
Cambodia in 2001 when they first
introduced chemical antidepressants for
people in that country and the local
doctors the Cambodians had never heard
of these drugs so they were like what
are they and he explained and they said
to him oh we don't need that we've
already got antidepressants and he was
like what do you mean he thought they
were going to talk about some kind of
herbal remedy like I don't know since
john's wort
ginkgo biloba something like that
instead they told him a story there was
a farmer in their community who worked
in the rice fields and one day he stood
on a landmine left over from the war
with the United States and he got his
leg blown off so they gave him an
artificial leg and after a while he went
back to work in the rice fields but
apparently it's super painful to work
underwater when you've got an artificial
limb and I'm guessing it was pretty
traumatic to go back and work in the
field where he got blown up the guy
started to cry all day he refused to get
out bed he developed all the symptoms of
classic depression the Cambodian doctors
said this is when we gave him an
antidepressant and dr. Sommerfeld said
what was it they explained that they
went and sat with him they listened to
him they realized that his pain made
sense it was hard for him to see it in
the throes of his depression but
actually it had perfectly understandable
causes in his life one of the doctors
talking to the people in the community
figured you know if we bought this guy a
cow he could become a dairy farmer he
wouldn't be in this position that was
screwing him up so much he wouldn't have
to go and work in the rice fields so
they bought him a cow within a couple of
weeks his crying stopped within a month
his depression was gone they said to dr.
Summerfield so you see doctor that cow
that was an antidepressant that's what
you mean right
if you've been raised to think about
depression the way I was and most of the
people here were that sounds like a bad
joke right I went to my doctor for an
antidepressant she gave me a cow but but
what those Cambodian doctors knew
intuitively based on this individual
unscientific anecdote is what the
leading medical body in the world the
World Health Organization has been
trying to tell us for years based on the
best scientific evidence if you're
depressed if you're anxious you're not
weak you're not crazy you're not in the
main a machine with broken parts you're
a human being with unmet needs and it's
just as important to think here about
what those Cambodian doctors and the
World Health Organization are not saying
they did not say to this farmer hey
buddy you need to pull yourself together
it's your job to figure out and fix this
problem on your own on the contrary what
they said is we're here as a group to
pull together with you so together we
can figure out and fix this problem this
is what every depressed person needs and
it's what every depressed person
deserves this is why one of the leading
doctors at the United Nations in their
official statement the World Health Day
a couple of years back in 2017 said we
need to talk less about chemical
imbalances and more about the imbalances
in the way we live drugs give real
relief to some people they gave relief
to me for a while but precisely because
this problem goes deeper than their
biology the solutions need to go much
deeper too but when I first learned that
remember thinking okay I could see all
the scientific evidence already huge
number of studies interviewed a huge
number of the experts who were
explaining this
I kept thinking all right but how can we
possibly do that right the things that
are making us depressed or in most cases
more complex than what was going on with
this Cambodian farmer where do we even
begin with that insight but then in the
long journey for Moberg all over the
world I kept meeting people who were
doing exactly that from Sydney to San
Fran
go to Sao Paulo I kept meeting people
who were understanding the deeper causes
of depression and anxiety and as groups
fixing them so obviously I can't tell
you about what the amazing people that I
got to know and write about all or all
of the nine causes of depression and
anxiety that I learned about and because
they won't let me give a ten hour TED
talk you can complain about them
and but I want to focus on two of the
causes and two of the solutions that
emerge from them if that's all right
here's the first we are the loneliest
Society in human history there was a
recent study that asked Americans do you
feel like you'll no longer close to
anyone and 39% of people said that
described them no longer close to anyone
in the international measurements of
loneliness Britain and the rest of
Europe were just behind the US in case
anyone here is feeling smug and I spent
a lot of time discussing this with the
leading expert in the world on
loneliness an incredible man named
Professor John Cacioppo who was at
Chicago and I thought a lot about one
question his work poses to us so
professor Cacioppo asked why do we exist
why are we here why are we alive one key
reason is that our ancestors on the
savannahs of Africa were really good at
one thing they weren't bigger than the
animals they took down a lot of the time
they weren't faster than the animals
they took down a lot of the time but
they were much better at banding
together into groups and cooperating
this was our superpowers of species we
band together just like bees evolved to
live in a hive humans evolved to live in
a tribe and we are the first humans ever
to disband our tribes and it is making
us feel awful but it doesn't have to be
this way one of the heroes in my book
and in fact in my life is a doctor named
Sam Arrington he's a general
practitioner in a poor part of East
London where I lived for many years and
Sam was really uncomfortable because he
had loads of patients coming to him with
terrible depression and anxiety and like
me he's not opposed to chemical
antidepressants he thinks they give some
relief to some people but he could see
two things firstly his patients were
depressed and anxious a lot of the time
for totally understandable reasons like
loneliness
and secondly although the drugs were
giving some relief to some people for
many people they didn't solve the
problem the underlying problem so one
day sound decided to pioneer a different
approach a woman came to his Center his
medical center called Lisa Cunningham I
got to know Lisa later and Lisa had been
shut away in her home with crippling
depression and anxiety for seven years
and when she came to Sam Center she was
told don't worry or carry on giving you
these drugs but we're also going to
prescribe something else we're going to
prescribe for you to come here to this
Center twice a week to meet with a group
of other depressed and anxious people
not to talk about how miserable you are
but to figure out something meaningful
you can all do together so you won't be
lonely and you won't feel like life is
pointless the first time this group met
Lisa literally started vomiting with
anxiety it was so overwhelming for her
but people rubbed her back the group
started talking they were like what
could we do these are inner-city East
London people like me they didn't know
anything about gardening they were like
why don't we learn gardening there was
an area behind the doctors offices that
was just like scrubland they're like why
don't we make this into a garden so they
started to take books out the library
they started to watch YouTube clips they
started to get their fingers in the soil
they started to learn the rhythms of the
seasons there's a lot of evidence that
exposure to the natural world is a
really powerful antidepressant but they
started to do something even more
important they started to form a tribe
they started to form a group they
started to care about each other if one
of them didn't show up the others would
go looking for them so hey you okay out
them figure out what was troubling them
that day the way Lisa put it to me as
the garden began to bloom we began to
bloom this approach is called social
prescribing it's spreading all over
Europe and there's a small but growing
body of evidence suggesting it can
produce real and meaningful falls into
pression and anxiety and one day I
remember standing in the garden that
Lisa and her once depressed friends have
built it's a really beautiful garden and
honey this thought it's kind of missed
it's very much inspired by a guy called
Professor humic I in Australia I was
thinking you know so often when people
feel down
in this culture what we say to them I'm
sure everyone here said it I have is we
say oh you just you just need to be you
be yourself and I realized actually what
we should say to people is don't be you
don't be yourself be us be we be part of
a group but the solution to these
problems just not line drawing more and
more on your resources as an isolated
individual that's partly what got us
into this crisis it lies on reconnecting
with something bigger than you and and
that really connects to one of the other
causes of depression and anxiety that I
wanted to talk to you about so everyone
knows junk food has taken over our diets
and made us physically sick I don't say
that with any sense of superiority I
literally came to give this talk from
McDonald's but I saw all of you eating
that healthy Tedd breakfast I was like
there oh and but but but just like junk
food has taken over our diets and made
us physically sick a kind of junk values
have taken over our minds and made us
mentally sick the thousands of years
philosophers have said it do you think
life is about money and status and
showing off you're going to feel like
crap
right that's not an exact quote from
shopping Howard but that is the gist of
what he said right but weirdly hardly
anyone had scientifically investigated
this until a truly extraordinary person
I got to know named Professor Tim Casas
who's at Knox College in Illinois and
he's been researching this for about 30
years now and his research suggests
several really important things firstly
the more you believe you can buy and
display your way out of sadness and into
a good life the more likely you are to
become depressed and anxious and
secondly as a society we have become
much more driven by these beliefs all
throughout my lifetime under the weight
of advertising and Instagram and
everything like them and as I thought
about this I realized it's like we've
all been fed since birth a kind of KFC
for the Soul okay we've been trained to
look the happiness in all the wrong
places and just like junk food doesn't
meet your nutritional needs and actually
makes you feel terrible
junk values don't meet your
psychological needs and they take you
away from a good life but when I first
spent time with professor Castro and I
was learning all this I felt really
weird mixture of emotions because on the
one hand I found this really challenging
I could see how often in my own life
when I felt their own I tried to remedy
it with some kind of show-off a grand
external solution and I could see why
that did not work well for me I also
thought isn't this kind of obvious isn't
this almost like Bernard right if I said
to everyone here none of you are gonna
lie on your deathbed and think about all
the shoes you bought and all the
retweets you got right you're gonna
think about moments of love and meaning
and connection in your life I think that
seems almost like a cliche but I kept
talking to professor Kathryn saying you
know what why am I feeling this strange
doubleness
and he said well at some level we all
know these things but in this culture we
don't live by them we know them so well
they become clichés but we don't live by
them I kept asking well why why would
that be why would we know something so
profound but not live by it and after a
while professor cassis said to me
because we live in a machine that is
designed to get us to neglect what is
important about life I had to really
think about that because we live in a
machine that is designed to get us to
neglect what is important about life and
professor Cass I wanted to figure out if
we can disrupt that machine he's done
loads of research into this I'll tell
you about one example and I really urge
everyone here to try this with their
friends in their family so with a guy
called Nathan Duncan he got a group of
teenagers and adults to come together
for a series of sessions over a series
over a period of time to meet up and
part of the point of the group was to
get people to think about a moment in
their life they have actually found
meaning and purpose for different people
it was different things some people it
was playing music writing helping
someone I'm sure everyone here can
picture something right and part of the
point of the group was to get people to
ask okay
how could you dedicate more of your life
to pursuing these moments of meaning and
purpose and less so I don't know buying
crap you don't need putting it on social
media and trying to get people to go OMG
so jealous right
and what they found was just having
these meetings it was like a kind of
Alcoholics Anonymous for consumerism
right just getting people to have these
meetings articulate these values
determine to act on them and check in
with each other led to a marked shift in
people's values it took them away from
this hurricane of depression generating
messages training us to seek happiness
in the wrong places and towards more
meaningful and nourishing values that
lifts us out of depression but with all
the solutions that I saw and written
about and many I can't talk about here I
kept thinking you know why did it take
me so long to see these insights right
because when you explain them to people
with some of them are more complicated
but not all and when you explain those
people it's not like rocket science
right at some level we already know
these things why why do we find it so
hard to understand I think there's many
reasons but I think one reason is that
we had to change our understanding of
what depression and anxiety actually are
there are very real biological
contributions to depression and anxiety
if we allow the biology to become the
whole picture as I did for so long as I
would argue our culture has done pretty
much most of my life what we're
implicitly saying to people is and this
isn't anyone's intention but what we're
implicitly saying to people is your pain
doesn't mean anything it's just a
malfunction it's like a glitch in a
computer program it's just a a wiring
problem in your head but I was only able
to start changing my life when I
realized your depression is not a
malfunction it's a signal your
depression is a signal it's telling you
something
we feel this way for reasons and they
can be hard to see in the throes of
depression I understand that really well
from personal experience but with the
right help we can understand these
problems and we can fix these problems
together but to do that the very first
step is we have to stop insulting these
signals by saying they're a sign of
weakness or madness or purely biological
except for a tiny number of people we
need to start listening to these signals
because they're telling us something we
really need to hear it's only when we
truly listen to these signals and we
honor these signals and respect these
signals that we're going to begin to see
the liberating nourishing deeper
solutions the cows that are waiting all
around us thank you
[Applause]