Ruby Wax's Blog

In How To Be Human, I try to answer the big questions, and to celebrate my baby being published in paperback I answered some of your big questions. Thank you everyone who dropped me a line on twitter.  

@kittykat_x   asked:
“I'm feeling overwhelmed with empathy with things happening to people I know and things that are happening in the world. I can't seem to stop feeling overwhelmed. Can you suggest some way of switching my brain to calm down and off?”
 
You have to pick who or what really matters, just the way you pick your battles, otherwise: welcome to compassion fatigue. You can’t just tell your brain to calm down; if you could, it would be calm now. If you want your brain to do what you want it to do, read my book and find the section on compassion. You can’t get a six pack with one sit up; same with building compassion, you need to exercise it.

 
@BubNap asked:
“Am I inhumane for caring more about the survival of wild animal species and their habitats over the needs and survival of humankind?”
 
You’re humane enough for just being able to care about something. Most people don’t know how to do it, so the fact you can look beyond the cocoon of self-absorption that most of us live in is already a 21st century miracle.
 
 
@hamsco asked:
“Love your book. I meditate daily as it helps me calm and control anxiety, which at the age of 40 I now realise I have always had. Do you think mindfulness should be taught in high schools?”
 
It should be compulsory. All this hot-housing for academic success could be why so many kids’ brains are fried.  The jobs they’ll eventually get don’t even exist now so why not train them for what will probably be the hot commodity in the future: compassion. When most every job will be done by computers, it will be the one thing only humans can create. No amount of titanium can reproduce it. I’ll put money on it, that those who have hearts will become the new masters of the universe.
 
 
@Jamesfan2 asked:
“This book sounds fascinating… especially sounds good for me to read as I'm a constant worrier! Will reading the book help me realise how to stop worrying?”
 
Yes.
 
 
@AutistAspieLee asked
“Hi Ruby, can the brain process mindfulness in a subconscious way if you practise it enough? E.g. Brain: Oh the Cortisol is rising let's focus on your breathing, etc. Or does it require constant practise, use it or lose it?
 
Anything you consciously practice becomes a habit or skill that you eventually don’t have to think about:  Walking, brushing your teeth, tennis, lap-dancing…
With enough practice, your mind will know how to automatically lower the cortisol to bring you back to that open-sky, clear-thinking space. You can teach an old dog new tricks.
  
 
@2Shelley09 asked
“Have you any tips on controlling impulses? For example, I want to improve my health and fitness, but how do I quieten the voice that says "just relax this evening and forget about exercise" or "you want that slice of cake"?”
 
If you bring out the whip and get mad at yourself, the impulse just gets stronger and the thoughts get louder. With mindfulness you still hear the thoughts, but in a more detached way so you can choose to listen or not.  You learn to be kind to yourself and when you’re kind those thoughts lose their sting. When you feel un-nagged is the time you’ll decide to put down the fork and get on the bike.
 
  
@CSR_Tom  asked
“I have one. What’s the best advice for someone in your life who desperately wants/needs positive change but feels too trapped or paralysed with life now? We can’t make change FOR them, but how can we help them take the first steps?”
 
Be an example; if you walk to the talk or talk the walk, they’ll think, “What’s she got going there?”  And they just might make a move to change.
 
 
  @Don_LB asked
“In these currently volatile times, why are most referring to black/white arguments? And is the female brain different to male - again thinking about current climate? Thanks”
 
When we feel under threat, we automatically switch to our primitive, kill-it-before-it-kills-you brain left over from the Stone Age. When we’re in that fight or flight state, the human part of us leaves town and the savage gets in the driver’s seat.
The male and female brain look the same – it’s the hormones that influence particular behaviour and obviously make you do the insane things you do.

__
How To Be Human: The Manual is out in paperback now, and is available from all good bookshops. If you would like to read a chapter of the book for free, just tell Ruby where to send it.  

Ruby is on tour with How To Be Human: The Show - tickets are now on sale.

I wrote How to be Human: The Manual to find out why we are the way we are.  Really, no one’s figured that out - until me.

Why are we so brilliant in some areas and so backwards in others?  Why are we living in such a climate of fear (choosing maniac leaders to make things better, not realizing they may be the cause of the terror) when in the scheme of things, we’ve never had it so good. We should be having the time of our lives at this point; where every desire is a click of the finger away. We can have food delivered 24/7 straight into our mouths and order a husband at two in the morning, so why are we so dissatisfied with our lives? We humans are the master race, so why do so many of us have a  theme song of “I’m not good enough” playing in our minds?  When did we start thinking we have to be perfect? We’ve only been in this homo sapien condition for a few thousand years; we’re still a work in progress. We share 98% of our DNA with great apes, and about 23% with yeast and 19% with bananas  - so get over yourself.  
 
Evolution has a lot to answer for. What helped us survive millions of years ago is exactly what’s not making us survive today.  Things like competition kept the tribe strong. If someone was slipping behind they would have to try harder for the sake of the group’s chances of survival. Now, we’re competing on a global level, thanks to social media. With those odds you can never win and we’re left with the feeling that if we could just beat everyone we’ll be happy.  Ask any billionaire or supermodel if they have peace of mind. I’ll put money down that they don’t. I’m sure they also have that niggling feeling that there’s someone out there, richer or more beautiful. If we learn that evolution only cares about our survival and it couldn’t give a hoot about our happiness, than we won’t be so hard on ourselves knowing that ‘we are not our fault.’
 
Part of our brain is still left over from the Stone Age, and it doesn’t realize the wallpaper has changed. The problem is that we haven’t got the bandwidth to deal with the complexities of the 21st century. So when you find it hard to cope, know that it’s not your condition, it’s the human condition.  It’s the glitch that we all have.
 
“How to be Human” is a manual of how we work, why do we think the way we do and why are so many thoughts negative, why do we choose the partners we choose, why are we so addicted not just to drink and drugs but on-line shopping (me) and why are we at our wits ends thinking about how to raise our kids?
 
 With the help of a monk and a neuroscientist (the monk being an expert on how we think and the neuroscientist an expert on where everything is that makes us who we are in the brain), we suggest ways for you to harness that wild part of your mind and make it work for you. To be the driver, not the driven. The monk tells you how to develop compassion, forgiveness and all those seemingly ‘fluffy’ areas that can make our lives a happier place to live.  If we want to survive in the future, we’re going to have to learn to upgrade our minds as much as we’ve successfully upgraded our iPhones.

How To Be Human: The Manual is out in paperback now, and is available from all good bookshops. If you would like to read a chapter of the book for free, just tell Ruby where to send it.  

Ruby is on tour with How To Be Human: The Show - tickets are now on sale.

I'm bringing you a new show - based on my book of the same name. 

Unlike my previous shows, I'm bringing in a little bit of help in the second half - I will be joined on stage by the monk and neuroscientist who contributed to the book.  I plucked them from obscurity and am now throwing them into the lime light.  Since we’ve started rehearsing the show, they’ve become impossible. Both are brilliant but now it’s gone to their heads. The monk is completely out of control, he will only fly business class and is now the face of Lufthansa (I’m not kidding.)  The neuroscientist has become very vain and started using my mascara.  I found it in his dressing room.  The monk and neuroscientist keep asking why do I have more lines? Why am I out here first? I told them I’m their warm up. Don’t ever work with dogs, children, monks or neuroscientists is the lesson I’ve learnt. 

In the first half of the show I discuss what it is to be human. Many have tried to come up with the answer, but no one has - until me. Descartes attempted it with his theory, “I think therefore I am”, and everyone wore the t-shirt for a few years, but then it was found out he was wrong.  We aren’t our thoughts. Thank god because, if that was true, I’d be a shopping list: “Buy cat food, find car keys, exchange candle from White Company for a cheaper one…"  Endless, garbage ticker-taping through our minds. 

The good news is that we humans are way, way more than our thoughts.  Our thoughts aren’t even the tip of the iceberg because our brain is busy all the time, keeping us alive.  It deals with around 11 million bits of information every second. In our lifetimes, we grow about 5 and a half miles of hair, 6 miles of toenails, make 463 tons of urine and every other day, we replace about a trillion cells, which, if you lined them all up in single file, would be able to go back and forth to Jupiter 17 times. I may not be exact with these figures. But my point is that if you had to think about all these jobs, you’d never get out of the house.

If we are not our thoughts and we are not our emotions, what are we? I will, of course, explain it all to you in the show, but I don’t want to give it away now, otherwise why would you come and see us? 

I will share, however, that the main lesson of the show is that we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves. Where did we get the idea that we’re supposed to be perfect? The internet is the culprit for jacking up our envy and making us feel like losers compared to the rest of the world who are lying about how gorgeous and happy they are. Everyone, everywhere is flawed - it’s the human condition and we should rejoice in our fuck ups because we’re still a work in progress.  Just remember that we share 98% of our DNA with great apes, we share 27 % of our DNA with yeast, and 17% with a banana.  Get over yourself.

Something else that will make you feel better about being human is to embrace the fact that part of our brain is a leftover from the stone age.  That part doesn’t realize the wallpaper of the world has changed and time has moved on.  It remains dirt primitive so when we don’t get what we want, we go straight back to the old killer instincts. Basically, we’re part savage, part superior, and the sooner we accept that, the happier we’ll be.  We need to learn to forgive ourselves; to hug our inner ape.

When we make peace with ourselves than we can make peace in the world. If we change, the world changes.

Tickets for the new show are now on sale - book quick.  The book, How To Be Human: The Manual, is available online and from all good bookshops. 

If you want to join my community and be the first to know more about my research into the brain and mental health, as well as exclusive news, special offers and other things that might be useful to you, just tell me where to get in touch.

​I spent this week recording my show for Audible, “No Brainer.”  (It comes out in the fall).  There are twelve topics and last week we worked on pain.
 
I found myself at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford for an MRI brain scan.  Most people hate lying down in the tight-fitting, coffin-shaped thing that slowly glides into the scanner, but I love it. This is my happy place. Even the ear shattering honking noises don’t bother me; anything is an improvement on my mother’s shouting when I was in the womb. I bathed in the peace as my brain was photographed, slice by slice. They were looking for the areas which activate with pain. They put some gel on my leg (a liquid form of chili pepper) and told me to grade the pain from one to ten, ten being unbearable. At first, I felt nothing, smirking to myself how butch I was.  The smirk was wiped off my face when a minute later, I was at ten. I kept schtum because for some insane reason I didn’t want them to think I was a loser which is insane. There I was sweating, biting my lip and pretending I was perfectly fine. I’d be an excellent role model in Guantanamo Bay. You can’t hide your feelings when your brain’s being filmed because everyone can see your pain. Finally, I admitted I was about to faint so they removed the gel.  They then had me imagine the pain to see if just thinking about it activated the same area.  I’ll find out the results in two weeks, fingers crossed they don’t make me do it again. 
 
We then talked about the phenomenon of pain. The neurologist told me that it’s not the actual wound that hurts, it’s how the brain perceives it. She also told me that emotional and physical pain are found in the same brain region as each other. You can turn up and down the sensation of both depending on your beliefs. In general, they found that religious people feel less pain than the faithless.  This is the only time I have ever wished that I believed in Jesus.
 
Later in the day, I met with Vidyamaia Bursh who created a mindfulness technique for pain called Breathworks.  At sixteen she cracked her spine and had to have her discs welded together. Then at twenty-three she had a car accident and was bedridden for the next thirty years, paralyzed from the waist down which ended in a total breakdown.  One night the pain was so excruciating, she decided to kill herself in the morning. Then she had an epiphany and realised that she didn’t have to make it to the morning, she just had to deal with the pain for this moment, and then the next moment, and so on.
 
She came to see me in a wheelchair, still paralysed but now living in the moment, and says she focuses on the electrical shooting pain in her legs, so severe that her toes cramp. She said when she used to feel the agony, she’d try to suppress the feeling, holding her breath which made her mind and body rigid. Now, she’s learnt that if she breathes into the exact location and submits to the pain, she feels her body ‘soften’ and is able to live with it. It was astounding, there she was paralyzed from waist down but her eyes shone and her face glowed. Pain is pain but suffering is optional and she’s the living proof.
 
My Audible show will be available some time in 2018 - I will let you know when to keep an ear out. 

How To Be Human: The Manual is available online and from all good bookshops. I'm on tour this spring with my #Frazzled Show. Tickets are still available - book quick.

If you want to join my community and be the first to know more about my research into the brain and mental health, as well as exclusive news, special offers and other things that might be useful to you, just tell me where to get in touch.

I’m doing a show for Audible called “No Brainer” which has made me the happiest woman alive. First of all, it’s a podcast so I don’t have to look good or even get dressed if I choose not to. Usually, I’m dressed. I’ve just returned from touring the U.S. interviewing state-of-the-art scientists on longevity, stress, death (my fav so far) compassion, attention, nature/nurture, teen-agers etc. Scientists are my rock stars, I bow before their brains. I was completely in awe of Dr. Ann McKee, who first discovered why so many American footballers were dying prematurely or while still alive suddenly turning violent, becoming addicts or experiencing complete mental breakdowns. She showed me the brain of a ninety-year old with dementia alongside the brain of a thirty-year old NFL player.  The young brain was far more damaged; dotted with brown plaques throughout and dark decaying edges. 
 
Another doctor in New York, Helen S. Mayberg, was the first to use deep brain stimulation on depressed patients.  She stands next to a surgeon who drills through the skull (the patient is kept awake but doesn’t feel anything) and implants an electrical device. When they hit the correct target, she sometimes witnesses a patient’s face turn from deep, despair to bright and alert within seconds. One guy who hadn’t been able to leave his house for most of his adult life suddenly said he wanted to go out and walk his dog. It’s miraculous when it works.
 
I also met genius neurologist Dr. Allan Ropper, professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, who told me how he can tell which part of the brain is malfunctioning by observing the behavior of the patient. This guy is way cooler than “House.” But I really fell in love with him when he explained how you determine if someone is dead. There was a case where a woman was brain dead but she was still able to deliver a baby, and another where a young boy presumed dead went through puberty because his organs remained functioning.  Allan said he’s a stickler for making sure someone is well and truly dead before the transplant doctors, snatch those organs of the deceased away like vultures circling a corpse. In Victorian times, they used to put a bell in the coffin in case anyone was buried alive. Thank God for Dr. Ropper.
 
In Atlanta, I went to a breeding colony of 1800 monkeys where Dr. Mar Sanchez and her team took an aggressive, agitated baby monkey away from his equally aggressive mother and gave it to a nurturing mother. After a few weeks, the abused monkey became more pacified and this behavior was reflected in not only his genes but his off-spring’s genes. This ability to change gene expression is called epigenetics. I thought why didn’t they switch my mother with a calmer one? I’d never would have had to take the seventy tons of anti-depressants I’ve had to swallow so far.
 
I then flew to Silicon Valley and met David Eagleman (professor of neuroscience at Stanford, incredible looking and buff). He let me try on a suit called the Versatile Extra-Sensory Transducer, that he’s developed and is about to appear on the market. It has thirty-two embedded vibratory motors that send messages to the brain which are interpreted into sound so now the deaf will be able to, not so much hear in the way we do, but sense sound through their bodies. His future vision is to have data transmitted through the skin so you’ll be able to feel weather reports, stock market results and most important you’ll be able to ‘feel’ your emails rather than read them. That might kill me especially feeling spam.
 
My ultimate hero is Dan Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA medical school. His books are the reason I got hooked on the brain.  He was the first person to describe the difference between the brain and the mind. He says, the mind is the energy and information the brain creates. I found his book, “Mindsight” so clear and exciting, I changed careers because nothing, I mean nothing in the Cosmos is as fascinating as the mind. Sorry Brian Cox but it’s true.
 
My Audible show will be available some time in 2018 - I will let you know when to keep an ear out. 

How To Be Human: The Manual is available online and from all good bookshops. I'm on tour this spring with my #Frazzled Show. Tickets are still available - book quick.

If you want to join my community and be the first to know more about my research into the brain and mental health, as well as exclusive news, special offers and other things that might be useful to you, just tell me where to get in touch.

 My book, “How To Be Human: The Manual” was released into the wild in Januarry. I was not going to let the baby slide out unnoticed.  I am one of the most pushy people I know and will go to almost any length, including door-to-door if required, to make a sale. I am my father’s daughter  - my father managed to make a living selling pig bladders (the outside of hot dogs) and if you can sell that, you can sell anything. For some of the book tour I did a three-way conversation with the monk, Thubten and the neuroscientist, Ash, both of whom contributed to the book.  Our first stop as a threesome was the Romanesque/Norman Ely cathedral, dating from 1081 with a sixty-six-metre-high ceiling.  It makes Notre Dame look like an outhouse. The hall was so long I needed a telescope to see the end. 
 
I thought the venue would intimidate them, I mean, performing live isn’t part of their remit - especially to 1,500 audience members. One fixes brains, the other fixes minds; show business doesn’t come into it. Anyway, they were hits, not nervous in the least: charming, smart, sometimes much funnier than me, but I forgave them because I love them and we were in a church and you can’t really hold a grudge in there.
 
When people asked how we met, I said ‘Tinder’ and Thubten said ‘Monker,’ an app to pick up monks.  I picked Thubten up the first time we met, asking him if he wanted to move into my house. My kids had just left home and I thought he would be a perfect replacement. Also his robes look fantastic with the cushions, he’s like a walking air freshener.
 
After most book events, I sign books. This time, Ash and Thubten got their own table for signing, I watched them like a proud mother watching her baby walk for the first time. They were naturals; smiling, chatting, over-excited with all the attention. For a moment, I panicked that they might turn into divas, demanding their own dressing rooms. It could happen, Thubten wanted to be an actor before he became a monk; he wasn’t born in a maroon nappy. I heard him say he only has a few robes but he might eventually expand his wardrobe. When I asked him what colours would he add? He said, “Fifty-seven shades of red.”  (He was joking – I think.) When I first met Thubten, aside from working for addicts, prisoners and kids, he did talks for Google, FaceTime, big multi-national banks, huge corporations etc. He’s not allowed to take money for himself; he takes donations to build retreats.  I asked him how much he charged the big companies? When he told me the pittance, I immediately taught him to negotiate. We’re thinking of calling our next book, “Act like a Buddha, Think Like a Jew.”
 
After Ely, I had to tour on my own. What amazed me was my book signing in Glasgow, where the men asked all the questions, usually it’s mostly women. Underneath that macho image (even though they like to wear skirts for formal occasions,) these men were incredibly honest about their vulnerability. One man sitting next to his wife said, “I came to the show because my wife brought me. I’m an extremely angry guy and have three kids.  My wife told me to try mindfulness which I thought was mumbo jumbo but it triggered something and I thought if Ruby does it… knowing your personality and I like your comedy, I’m able to admit, I’m suffering from depression and I realize that I had an anxiety attack a few years ago. I think that machismo was part of my upbringing. My dad was the type of guy who had to have his leg hanging off before he would go to a doctor. It’s difficult to admit that I can’t deal with my own issues. I’m now scheduled to speak to someone. What do you think?”
​
I told his wife how lucky she was to have such a great husband.  To be able to be that honest is the bravest man of all. 

How To Be Human: The Manual is available online and from all good bookshops. I'm on tour this spring with my #Frazzled Show. Tickets are still available - book quick.

If you want to join my community and be the first to know more about her research into mental health, as well as exclusive news, special offers and other things that might be useful to you, just tell me where to get in touch.

I thought I would tell you little of what my new book, 'How to be Human: The Manual', out today, is all about. I asked myself, why is it that we (and by we, I mean the human race and me) can keep improving our iPhones but not improving our lives? We can create a technology where we can order a husband at two o’clock in the morning or send a pizza to Mars but how to be happy remains a mystery. This could explain why, to date, there are enough self-help books to circle the equator more than 597 times.

I wrote this book with the aid of a neuroscientist and a monk so that I could clear up a few of these niggling questions.

Turns out, we weren’t created to be happy, simply to survive and replicate. “Wham bam, thank you mam.” That’s it. To me, it’s a miracle we’re here at all. No other planet that we know has pulled this off - they haven’t made a single cell of anything of interest, while we’ve already sold twelve trillion McDonald burgers. But this is beside the point.

Why are we so hard on ourselves? As Homo Sapiens we’ve only been around 200 thousand years in a universe that’s around fourteen billion years old. We share 98% of our DNA with great apes, 90% with mice and 25% with yeast so we’re no big deal, we shouldn’t push ourselves so hard. We’re partly yeast for God’s sake…. some stale bread.

We do, however, have an all new advanced brain as of about seventy-five thousand years ago, capable of insight and compassion, but this upgraded version didn’t replace the old reptile ‘kill it before it kills you’ brain. They live one on top of the other like a cerebral car crash. These opposing mindsets explains why we’re always in conflict, not just with the rest of the world, but within ourselves. We point the finger at global warming or the latest in terrorists for the reason things are terrible but the real enemy lurks within. Until we make peace between the savage and the sage there will always be war.

But this is all because evolution made us so and for a reason: ‘to survive’; so in a sense we are not our fault. Our individual condition, which makes us feel so isolated and helpless is rather the human condition. This doesn’t mean we just sit there like our ancestors did when we were algae on a rock, no, we have that superior brain, so now is the time to use it. If we continue to evolve the way we’re heading, we’ll just make better and better tools but not better humans. So now is the time, we have to take over from evolution and consciously evolve ourselves. We need to consciously upgrade our minds, which we can do because the brain is plastic; not set in stone. Research in neuroplasticity shows that an old dog (you) can learn new tricks. We have this superior brain capable of higher thinking that can tame and rein in the reptilian one but we need to learn how to do that and if we don’t our more basic side will triumph. Like any skill we need to practice (you don’t get a six pack by wishful thinking) you have to get in that gym and repeat those crunches…daily. Same with our brains, we can practice skills to develop features such as compassion and tolerance by exercising our minds and understanding that everyone in the human race we feel is ‘not like us’ is ‘just like us’.

There is hope, we just needed the manual. Here it is.


How To Be Human: The Manual is published today by Penguin, and is available online and from all good bookshops.Ruby is on tour this spring with her #Frazzled Show. Tickets are still available - book quick.

If you want to join Ruby’s community and be the first to know more about her research into mental health, as well as exclusive news, special offers and other things that might be useful to you, just tell Ruby where to get in touch.

I interviewed Donald Trump about sixteen years ago.  He invited me to go with him to judge an emergency beauty contest in Atlantic City. It was crucial because there were so many succulent women hanging off the vines in that part of the world, they needed picking and who better to pick than world expert of womanhood (Donald Trump). He allowed me to film him for my show “Ruby’s American Pie” on BBC One.
 
He wanted to do the interview on his private jet because he didn’t have a lot of time to stand still so we agreed.  After waiting for him to have his makeup done (agent orange) we sat down and at about 33,000 feet he announced his candidacy to become the next President of the United States, I laughed heartily as he told us to shut off the camera.  After some persuasion he let us turn it on again. He told me if he became president he wouldn’t have to charge the country to buy another Air Force One jet because he already had one like it.  I said, trying to stay neutral, that I thought it would be easier to find women to date once he was actually in the White House (a fair point). He seemed irked. Eventually, because of my in-depth interview style he told me he had had enough of me, got up and locked himself in the cockpit. Eventually the plane landed, primarily, I thought, to get rid of us.
 
At that point he gave me a lift in his limo and the regret of my life is I didn’t have my sound equipment switched on or a camera. In the car he got down and dirty, trying to shock me by giving me detailed accounts of what he likes to do with his many many women. The one thing I am is unshockable - I was utterly revolted though.  Roger Stone (his political consultant) was in the car and laughed like a drain at Donald’s hilarious carnal tales.
 
 When my crew and I finally got to Atlantic City, via some of the most bizarre sights to be seen in the US (you can see this on the first half of the show), we hunted him down at the beauty contest in Atlantic City. There we watched him charm his people telling them dirty jokes. One is about someone who went to the toilet and didn’t wash his hands. I forget the punch line. I spent a lot of time with Roger Stone discussing how he gets his hair that way. 
 
Later, I met his future wife, Melania Trump super model/something and perhaps future First Lady.  She shared with me his incredible sexual mastery and when I asked if he puts his money where his mouth is, she gave me a big proud “yes” (class), try to eat your lunch again people.  The crowds also ate him up and I met some very excited women who were supporters of his future presidency. One elderly woman (has to be seen in this video because words fail me) with just a few missing teeth God bless her, somehow managed to get her hands on a million dollars to donate to Donald’s campaign. He gave her back a ring as thanks.
 
I beg you to watch this show and pass it to others to have a reality check on the potential next President of the United States. Then be scared, be very scared.  If you want to get to the Donald interview quicker, jump to around the second half of the show(about 12 minutes in); the beginning is just the introduction explaining why I was in the middle of nowhere as I had been thrown off his jet. Giving you the link to this program is all I can do now to try and save the world.  At least I can say I tried to do my patriotic duty.  If you have the right, please do your patriotic duty and vote on or before Tuesday.
 
Here is the interview in full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM831KNZN74&feature=youtu.be    Please share it as far and wide as you can.  

High up in a room overlooking Paddington Basin, with hot coffee and Jammie Dodgers to hand, the doors opened yesterday on my first Frazzle Café, admitting 30 or so men and women who ranged from feeling frazzled (not just stressed but thinking about stress) to experiencing mental health concerns to having someone in the family or a friend or co-worker affected by depression and anxiety and simply not knowing what to do. Until now – none of them had anywhere they could just turn up and find some anonymous peer-to-peer support.
We live in a time where to have a life crammed to the hilt is considered a success story. But with all this pressure, so many of us have no-where to go to meet and talk about it.
So yesterday, it was remarkable to watch as one after another of these people bravely come forward to share their stories. Just calmly, sitting in a circle in the café, stating their case, and feeling validated as a result. Feeling heard to me has always been half the cure. 
It was everything I had hoped for and more when I came up with the idea for Frazzle cafes five years ago. Of fulfilling my dream to start walk-ins where people have a chance to talk honestly without feeling stigmatised self-indulgent or weak.
The idea came from my Sane New World Tour, which I began after gaining a Masters’ degree in cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness from Oxford in 2011, and writing a book of the same name. The second half of the show I asked the audience if they wanted to speak and they always did.
I performed for 200 shows in theatres of 700-800 capacity - and in the second half I offered the audience the chance to speak, and fond I couldn’t shut them up. Moreover, once a week when I was in the West End, I opened the theatre to the public for free walk in sessions with great speakers and therapists which the audience could make contact with.
Honestly, the show was funny, but I think they would have come without any jokes.  They were instinctively reaching out and networking with each other, often turning up to several shows and events and meeting again.
I could feel and see a real need for some kind of space where anyone with a mental health concern could connect with this peer-to -peer support. In my head, it was looking more and more like a sort of AA to help us get through the overwhelming stresses of modern life.
This isn’t just for the one in four Britons who will suffer a mental illness at some point in their lives, or who are family to someone who does, or who work in mental healthcare. But for the ‘four in four’ - who feel they are cracking from the pressure cooker of life. Too exhausted keeping up the front of being fine – and feeling frustrated with that.
Because who isn’t in  a state of stress overload these days? Stress upon stress, and thinking about stress on top of that. So as I was also writing my mindfulness book called Frazzled, the name for the cafes was pretty self-evident. It is also so much easier to say I feel frazzled, than to say I feel depressed, or anxious, or mentally ill, all of which are still such stigmatised things.  
Ending the taboo around mental health is all important. Because right now, if you do feel your mental health isn’t great, you may worry about telling your employers or friends, especially if you are saying I need to go for therapy for an hour.  You may fear getting judged and sometimes with good reason – according to Mind on in five of those who have taken their employer into their confidence about their problems with mental health is soon fired or pushed out of their jobs.
But, trust me, if you can’t ever get to a place where you can express yourself to others, well, that way madness really does lie. Everyone – however stiff their upper lip happens to be - gets what you mean if you say I feel frazzled and I need a break.
I see the benefit of these Frazzle cafes is that whenever we’re all a little bit more open about mental health that lessens the overall prejudice.
That was true yesterday as we opened the doors at  the Frazzle café in Paddington – where the two sessions we held were a pilot scheme. Strangers who had applied via a mailing list, compiled from audiences who came to my shows, opened up about themselves quite quickly, responding to the warm, positive and safe atmosphere. This common thread of feeling isolated can be pretty powerful in uniting people. That experience of meeting face to face is important and with our mental health services stretched to breaking point and it can be hard to see a therapist on the NHS. Many people simply don’t believe they can go to talk, to get affordable help.
Meanwhile, everyone else – the frazzled at large – are often separated from family and the old connections of church, we’re emotionally blocked off and in real danger of  stress wiping us out.
My hope is that these cafes, if they take off,  will be one solution.  It’s still early days – we need to work out branding, marketing and organisation details, but Marks & Spencer has already generously offered places to host meetings. They’re suggesting quiet rooms with coffee on a trolley, by the way, not the middle of a crowded café on the shop floor, which would feel a little exposed, let’s be honest.
Each meeting will be led by a facilitator, to ignite conversation, there’ll be a loose order – a little mindfulness to start and end the meeting, a coffee break in the middle. And there’ll be someone who works in the mental health field always present for support, and lots of contact details for support groups to hand. 
I hope people to leave feeling they are part of something bigger than themselves.
Certainly yesterday’s clientele was enthusiastic, with many talking about how they wanted to wanting to help set up cafes close to their homes, in schools and at the office. At first, I imagine each group will feel fairly random in terms of what elements of health are discussed, but I can envisage more niche groups getting established, like teens taking exams, or families where depression is present.  Thirty feels the right size for now – it is possible to sit back a little in a group that size if you are worried about feeling exposed. But smaller groups might naturally emerge. I can see buddy systems developing too.
In 200 shows with 700 people in the audience each time, we’ve never had an awkward or uncomfortable incident so far. People really listened to each other because they recognised their own tribe and only want to give support.
This is my chance to give back. And yesterday’s meeting turned out just as I thought it would. When I led the mindfulness session at the end, I could feel we’d let the heat out of the pressure cooker for some. Because, while there many not be a single solution to the stress of modern life, to be able to look each other in the eye and say, yes, I know how you feel and its OK is at least a start.

First published in the Telegraph 17 May 2016

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Thank you all for your #AskRuby questions - fascinating as always.  You can ask me anything with #AskRuby over on twitter. 

Elaine Clancy @elainecclancy
@Rubywax #AskRuby which book should I start with first Sane New World or mindfulness guide for the Frazzled, in your opinion?
 
If you want to know why you’d need Mindfulness get Sane New World. If you want to learn how to do mindfulness (my much easier to use in everyday life version) go to Frazzled. I’d say get both and cut between the two continuously until you’re finished, then I’ll write you another book.
 

Jenny Horscraft @TrulyMadlyJenny
@Rubywax #askruby How do you stop yourself constantly worrying about things you can't do anything about? X
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Worrying always means you can’t do anything about something - otherwise you wouldn’t worry. If you recognize this simple truth then start to listen to the worrying as you would a familiar but irritating sound track – eventually you lose interest.


Harry Callahan @siakker
#AskRuby it's hard keeping good routines on bad days but at least I have dark cloud reminding me why needed. On good days I forget. Any tips

If you have a good day, bring out the champagne, blow up the balloons and celebrate. You’re lucky to have one day with no clouds.


Youcanrecover @Youcanrecovere
@Rubywax #AskRuby I've had depression for 5 years and im suffering with bulimia too. trying so hard to not give up. Does it get better?