Antidepressants get treated like a moral failing. Painkillers, inhalers, and insulin don't. This chapter is about why that double standard needs to die. I used to hate the meme for pill shaming where the picture is split in half the top is picture of a pile of pills with a cross through it and underneath is beautiful picture of a path going through a forest with messages akin to "The only anti-depressant you need" I remember commenting "Bullshit!" underneath and this guy started arguing with me online as if his kids had made the meme and then died. If going for a walk surrounded by trees stopped the unstoppable pain that gnaws you away to a small nub then that would be great and mental health wouldn't exist. If you developed asthma, no one would bat an eye at you carrying an inhaler. If you had diabetes, no one would shame you for using insulin. And if you had a headache, people wouldn't say, "Have you tried just going for a walk instead of taking paracetamol?" But say you take antidepressants, and suddenly the room gets quiet. Eyes roll. People shift uncomfortably. Someone suggests a smoothie or a yoga class instead. This reaction, subtle or loud, is what's known as pill shaming. And it needs to stop. Mental illness is illness. The brain is an organ. If your body is allowed support, why not your mind? The truth is no one chooses depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or OCD. You don't "fail" your way into them, and you don't "cheerful outlook" your way out. And yet, people who take medication to help manage these conditions are often made to feel weak, broken, or somehow morally inferior. Let's be clear: that's nonsense. The Facts, Not the Fear There's a myth floating around that antidepressants turn you into a zombie. That they numb all emotion or strip away your personality. But that's not what the science says. Before any psychiatric medication reaches your pharmacy shelf, it undergoes years of development, testing, and review. The average time it takes to bring a new drug to market is 10 to 15 years, at a cost of around $1 billion USD or more. It must pass multiple stages of clinical trials, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, and be approved by regulatory bodies like the MHRA (UK) or FDA (US). This isn't guesswork. It's rigorous, disciplined science. And no, antidepressants don't work for everyone. No medication does. But for many people, they're life-changing, even lifesaving. According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, about 50–65% of people with moderate to severe depression experience significant improvement when treated with antidepressants.¹ That's not a placebo. That's not a forest walk. That's medicine.

"Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live." — Jim Rohn (Jim Rohn was an American entrepreneur and author whose work on personal development influenced a generation of writers and coaches, including Tony Robbins. He died in 2009.) I've read two key books on nutrition: The Magic Pill by Johann Hari and Ultra-Processed People by Dr Chris van Tulleken. Both are must-reads, and both say a similar thing: the obesity epidemic we're experiencing in the west is due to processed food in our diets. There's significant scientific evidence that exercise does little compared to a healthy diet for losing weight. This hit home for me, so I decided to try it. For a month I ate only steak and eggs, and the weight flew off me. The more I investigated it, it wasn't due to the carnivore diet, it was due to the lack of processed food. I want to be clear: I don't recommend the carnivore diet. Carbohydrates are the body's primary fuel source and cutting them out entirely isn't sustainable or necessary. What made the difference was removing processed food, not removing carbs. This changed my outlook completely. Now I aim for 80% of my diet to be made up of one-ingredient foods. There are days when you must have that Indian takeaway, or the alluring smell of Gregg's steak bake draws you into a shop, but overall, aim for 80% single ingredients: meat, fish, butter, cream, cheese, eggs, vegetables, and fruit. Don't be drawn in by the myth that fats are unhealthy. The corporate demonisation of fat is one of the most successful marketing campaigns in modern history. When flawed research in the 1970s suggested saturated fat caused heart disease, the food industry didn't just capitalise on the fear, they amplified it. Cereal giants like Kellogg's led the charge to reframe breakfast from eggs and bacon to bowls of processed grains. They funded studies that conveniently favoured their high-carb products whilst positioning themselves as the healthy alternative. These companies poured millions into marketing campaigns that painted fat as the dietary villain, plastering "heart-healthy" and "low-fat" across packets of sugar-laden flakes and loops. The result? A multi-billion-pound industry built on convincing generations that processed corn with added vitamins was somehow healthier than the eggs humans had eaten for millennia.

The day after I lost my job, I went to a 7am Jiu-Jitsu class. I was terrible. Heavy, slow, uncoordinated. My body moved but my mind was underwater. I came home, collapsed onto the settee, and that old familiar weight settled back over me. That specific kind of darkness, not dramatic, just numbing, crept in around the edges. It was as if my two year depression had been tracking me like a bloodhound. It had found my new address and settled in. I didn't want to move. Not even to take my little dog out. I just sat there. Hours passed. Ten hours later I walked through the front door with the dog. Twenty minutes. But I had done it. How? It wasn't motivation. It wasn't some breakthrough moment. It was just a task. One small task I had set myself when I was feeling okay and saved for when I wasn't. Leave instructions for your future self. Not big ones. Nothing ambitious. Ten small things, each doable in ten minutes or less. Nothing that requires you to leave the bed if that's where you're stuck. Some days you won't shower. Won't reply to messages. Won't eat properly. But maybe you'll tap through a few French phrases. Solve a chess puzzle. Write three lines nobody will ever read. You'll have done something. There's a strange little spark that comes from finishing even the smallest thing. It doesn't fix anything. But it interrupts the slide. I never thought I'd walk the dog that day. But I did.

In 2016 I worked for someone who was unpredictable in a way that made every day feel uncertain. I never quite knew what version of him I was going to get. I started keeping a record of conversations and decisions so I would have something to refer back to if anything became disputed later. I did not want to keep a paper diary because anyone could read it and I would probably have lost it anyway, so I used an app instead. At first it was just protection. Later it became something else entirely. When I walked out of that job due to my boss being too much for too long, the journal mattered. I had a record. More importantly, I had a timeline. After that I began using it differently. I started noticing patterns in my mood. I could see what triggered difficult periods and what helped me recover from them. Off an on for 10 years and everyday for the last 3 years. It has become one of the most useful habits I have. Journaling is not complicated. It is just a place to put things when they are too noisy to keep in your head. Research supports this. Expressive writing has been linked with reductions in symptoms of anxiety and depression in multiple studies, including work published in the Journal of Affective Disorders examining structured writing exercises over several weeks. Example review evidence: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15094266/ Getting Things Out of Your Head Writing things down changes how they sit in your mind. Thoughts that feel overwhelming when they stay internal often become clearer once they are on the page. They stop looping in the same way. You can look at them instead of being inside them. It does not need to be structured. It does not need to make sense to anyone else. It just needs to be honest. Spotting Patterns Over time a journal becomes a record. You start seeing what affects your mood. Certain conversations. Certain environments. Sleep. Exercise. Stress. Isolation. Digital mood tracking research suggests that people who record emotional patterns are more likely to adjust behaviour in ways that support mental health.

In 2003, I went to my first Jujitsu class. I had been playing rugby for 15 years as a second row. My job was either to smash into people with the ball in my hands or smash people who had the ball in theirs. Not exactly a role that prioritised flexibility. At the time, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu had not reached my area yet, so I started with traditional Jujitsu. I was bigger and stronger than most of my training partners and enjoyed the physical side of sparring, but I kept losing matches because I was so stiff. My joints felt like boards. Even light submission pressure forced me to tap. It was frustrating. Then I came across a book called Real Men Do Yoga by John Capouya. If you think yoga is only for the ultra spiritual or not for men, this book makes a strong case otherwise. Through interviews with professional athletes and practical routines, it explains how yoga improves strength, flexibility, endurance, and focus. It also helps prevent injuries and manage stress. If you train in any sport, it is worth reading. I genuinely enjoyed yoga from the start. I had done stretching in rugby before, but yoga felt different. Deeper. At first I struggled because I was so stiff, but my flexibility improved faster than it ever had with traditional training. My strength improved because I could move through a better range. My recovery improved. My breathing improved. But the biggest change was mental. The Power of the Present Moment For years I dismissed mindfulness as nonsense. Learning to stay present turned out to be one of the most useful skills I have ever learned. Someone once explained meditation to me like this. Imagine you are standing beside a busy road. The cars are your thoughts. Your job is not to stop the traffic. Your job is to watch it pass. When you try to control your thoughts, it is like stepping into the road. Everything gets louder and more chaotic. Meditation is not about having no thoughts. It is about not getting pulled along by them. The same applies in everyday life. At work. In sport. During stressful moments.