Your Brain Isn't Broken. Depression, Anxiety and Mental Health with Gary Johannes
Episode 3: Depression - What's Really Going On, What Keeps It Going, and What Actually Helps
Depression isn't weakness. It isn't laziness. It isn't something you can just think your way out of.
It's a serious mental health condition that affects how you feel, how you think, and how you function and most people who are living with it have no idea what's actually happening in their brain.
In this episode, Gary Johannes, solution focused hypnotherapist, founder of Inspired To Change, and MSc graduate in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health from King's College London, breaks down everything you need to understand about depression.
What it actually is. What's happening in the brain. What keeps it going. And what the evidence shows actually helps.
This isn't a self-help episode. It's an honest, grounded, neuroscience-backed conversation about one of the most common and most misunderstood mental health conditions there is.
If you're living with depression — or you love someone who is, this episode is for you.
In this episode:
- Why depression is so much more than feeling sad
- The physical, emotional and cognitive symptoms most people don't recognise
- What's actually happening in your brain when depression takes hold
- Why men experience depression differently, and why so few seek help
- The patterns that keep depression going (and how to break them)
- What solution-focused hypnotherapy does differently
- One practical thing you can do today, however bad things feel
Timestamps:
00:00 — Who is Gary Johannes
02:30 — What depression actually is
05:00 — Physical, emotional and cognitive symptoms
07:30 — Crisis support — please read this first
08:30 — What causes depression
11:00 — Genetics, brain chemistry and lifestyle
13:00 — Men and depression — why it looks different
15:30 — What's happening in the brain
18:00 — Neuroplasticity — why the brain can change
19:30 — What keeps depression going
21:00 — Withdrawal and why it feeds the cycle
23:00 — Sleep disruption and negative thinking loops
25:00 — What actually helps
27:00 — Solution-focused hypnotherapy and the preferred future
29:30 — Rebuilding sleep and the nervous system
32:00 — Small steps and how the brain actually changes
34:30 — One thing you can do today
37:00 — A message to anyone struggling right now
40:00 — Where to get help
If you're struggling right now, please reach out: Samaritans — 116 123 (free, 24 hours a day) Your GP is also a good first step. You don't have to be at the bottom before you ask for help.
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one condition, the same lens. What's going on, what keeps it going, and what actually helps.
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Episode 3