Film Writer/Director - Martial Arts exponent & Instructor - Dr of Chiropractic - Father - Current slate: Rare Blood, to follow: The Man in the Mirror, and WAKE
Winston Churchill fought his depression with bricks. He'd lay them for hours at his country home in Kent. He joined the bricklayers' union. And in 1921 he wrote about why it worked. It took psychology another 75 years to catch up.
He called his depression the "Black Dog." It followed him for decades. His method for fighting it back was as basic as it sounds: laying brick after brick, hour after hour.
Churchill spelled out his theory in a long essay for The Strand Magazine. People who think for a living, he wrote, can't fix a tired brain just by resting it. They have to use a different part of themselves. The part that moves the eyes and the hands. Woodworking, chemistry, bookbinding, bricklaying, painting. Anything that drags the body into a problem the mind can't solve by itself.
Modern psychology now calls this behavioral activation. It's one of the most-studied depression treatments out there. Depression sets a behavior trap. You feel bad, so you stop doing things, and doing less means less to feel good about. Feeling worse makes you do even less. The loop tightens until you can't breathe inside it.
Behavioral activation breaks the loop from the action side. You schedule the activity first, even when every part of you doesn't want to. Doing it produces small rewards: a wall gets straighter, a painting fills in, a messy room gets clean. Those small rewards slowly rewire the brain. Action comes first, and the feeling follows.
Researchers at the University of Washington put this to the test in 2006. They studied 241 adults with major depression and compared three treatments: behavioral activation, regular talk therapy, and antidepressants. For the people who were most severely depressed, behavioral activation matched the drugs. It beat the talk therapy. A 2014 review of more than 1,500 patients across 26 trials backed up the result.
Physical work like bricklaying does something extra on top of this. It crowds out rumination, the looping bad thoughts that grind people down during the worst stretches of depression. Bricklaying needs both hands and gives feedback brick by brick: each one is straight or crooked. After an hour you can see exactly how much wall you built. No room left for the mental chewing.
The line George Mack used in his post, "depression hates a moving target," is good poetry. The science behind it is sharper. Depression hates a brain that has somewhere else to be.
Please support my son Jordan who has won over tremendous adversity to become an Irish MMA champion. Now he needs help to get to the IMMAF European championship. Help if you can, thank you kindly. Brett https://t.co/xI7vtuv3LO
Casting call: Lead actor and actress for a short film to be filmed in Cheshire UK to support a proof of concept for a dramatic feature film set in the Republic of Ireland. Call Gillian on +44 1829 752121 or +44 7983 485836.
The time is nearly upon us. There are only 333 Jokers remaining to join the ClownTown.
Mint will open to current Joker Holders & ClownList members first from 613pm Central Oct 30th
Need a CL?
1⃣Follow @TheClownTownNFT
2⃣RT = Like!
3⃣ Tag 3 Clowns!
⌛️24hours to get CL!
#NFT#art
The more i learn about alcohol the more i want to quit
Alcohol poisons your brain, and that is why you feel drunk. It shrinks neurons, destroys your gut barrier, and leads to loads of inflammation. It depletes NAD levels, critical for longevity and ruins your sleep.
A thread:
Set in Zululand South Africa, three Zulu men must re-awaken sleeping demons when Mpiyakhe, now a successful Johannesburg businessman, returns home. They are compelled to “look in the mirror” and make life changing choices. Choices with irreversible consequences.
There are many different wood masks in the Zulu culture.
They're:
TRIBE MASKS: used to add imagery and drama to tribal festivals.
SECRET MASKS:
Used when people want to tell a secret; the person whispers the secret to the mask, masks never repeat secrets...
Part of this impressive cast is Gcina Mhlophe, anti-apartheid activist, actress, storyteller, poet, playwright, director and author. Her story is an inspiration to all those who have big dreams...
#BuyLocalNonChina
China will become the dominant economic power post Covid-19 and affected people have the buying power to stop this onslaught. If you live in the USA, United Kingdom or South Africa for example - BUY LOCAL.
Commit family, friends & colleagues not to buy Chinese.