Peter

aubrey allen ltd chairman. liveryman and assistant @wcb worshipful company of butchers love golf travel play bridge more than passionate about great food fan

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

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.

[Peter @peterallenh]

@jamiejousiffe @Coventry_City Zxx

[Peter @peterallenh]

@Mr_Husky1 @loootex K

[Lisa @aquitainexox]

This is the quality and calibre of speeches & intellect that is now so sadly lacking in Westminster. I could happily listen to the deep timbers of @Geoffrey_Cox voice all day. It’s positively Shakespearean & I’ve no doubt Winston Churchill would be smiling down at this 🇬🇧♥️🇬🇧

[Editor @Editor32645329]

@francesbarber13 Lammy is laughing mostly because he does not understand the values & profound wisdom inherent in British justice procedures: he actually believes his approach is progressive & smart. Lammy is not very bright, he has no business being in parliament.

[Cronuz Cosmoz @Spike_Dash]

@francesbarber13 Sign of what's to come. Appoint lefty judges as final arbiters and just like in America, you can ensure corrupt practices are never challenged or brought to justice and most importantly, past corruption remain hidden

[GrahamH @grahamh941]

@francesbarber13 We've had jury trials since 1215. It's not perfect but I can't think of a better system

[frances Barber @francesbarber13]

This is a brilliant speech. Why is Lammy laughing?

[Andrew Fox @Mr_Andrew_Fox]

HMS Dragon will be delayed in setting sail for Cyprus, so the government has found a temporary solution.

[Peter @peterallenh]

@Mr_Husky1 So sad

[Peter @peterallenh]

@atensnut Just perfect

[Peter @peterallenh]

@atensnut Wonderful

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Rishi Sunak was a largely forgettable Prime Minister, but he was absolutely spot on regarding his prediction of what would happen if Keir Starmer became Prime Minister.

[Esther McVey @EstherMcVey1]

Bought my poppy as I do every year (& always more than one as I invariably lose my paper ones!)
However, horrified to discover The Royal British Legion (RBL) has a Head of Diversity & Inclusion at a wage of about £65k - that’s a lot of poppies to sell just for that non-job wage!
All the money should be going to veterans not on politically correct non-jobs.

[Peter @peterallenh]

@DomChapman Sheer class Dominic

[Peter @peterallenh]

@ClareBurden4 @hjb1309 @AubreyAllen Wonderful Clare xx

[Benonwine @benonwine]

Listen to Jim Davidson’s Margaret Thatcher story on the @AndrewGold_ok podcast it’s absolutely brilliant. 👏👍

It’s definitely gone right up there as one of my favourite Thatcher stories. ❤️👌

[Godfreys.co @GodfreysCo]

Whizz Bang - Trick or Treat? now Live! https://t.co/gUAY7JvWwL

[Margaret Thatcher @realmrsthatcher]

It is our philosophy that what were once the privileges of the few should become the daily experience of the many.

Conservatives want you to have what you want. Labour wants you to have what they want. They want to turn workers against owners. We are turning workers into owners.