Quotes from Ruby Wax

By 2030, the World Health Organization predicts more people will be affected by depression than any other health problem. It already affects more people than all physical illnesses put together.

Some behaviour is more heritable than others; you may start off with some genes loaded for depression but they don't just switch on without some environmental input. No one knows if you become 'you' because of nature or nurture: it's a combination of what you're born with and how you live your life. In

We're always surprised when something ends; everything ends, so why do we never think it's our turn?

memorizing history in school, you should picture yourself in the Battle of Hastings and pretend to lose your legs. You won't forget it then. Parietal

As far as my career or my university or my hometown went, I was on the bus out of town at the right time because I knew to walk away before I was pushed out.

Why, if we're still breathing and eating, is there such unhappiness? Dissatisfaction is part of the deal of living because simple existence is full of contradictions; we want individuality, to stand out from the crowd, yet we want be part of a tribe. We're driven and busy and yet we want peace. And worst of all, we want things to stay the same despite the fact that everything changes

The essence of neuroplasticity is that what you practise you'll cultivate. If you are cruel and spiteful, you'll become expert at getting even crueller and more spiteful. If you practise being compassionate, you'll become more compassionate. That's how our brains work; the way we think or feel determines our wiring and what chemicals are coursing through our veins. If

In some deep, dark way we all become salacious around a disaster; our mouths water slightly when there's a real emergency. Hurricanes, typhoons, wars, shootings, epidemics; we're a little aroused because now we really have something to think about rather than our monotonous lives; something to take the focus away from our to-do list.

It is in our biology, this reptilian feeling of wanting what the next guy has.

Learning to read faces should be compulsory in schools so you can decipher what people are really thinking.

Jealousy I wish we could express this emotion like kids do. If someone gets something you want, you just hit them over the head and snatch it back. That's why children are so un-neurotic. They are doing what we only dream of. The

To compensate for this undercurrent of uselessness, we pretend we're all terribly important and that we have something to bring to the world.

This triple-decker reflects our evolutionary development from the earliest model (single-celled bacteria) to the latest (George Clooney). Each

We hold those who are on the tightest of schedules in reverence; the busier you are, the higher your status as a human being.

The genes that make you shy, resilient, anxious, exuberant are shaped by maternal behaviour. If maternal behaviour changes, the genes change. Fearful baby rats were put with nurturing mother rats and were licked rather than ignored and their actual genetic expression changed, proving we're not held captive by our genes. (I

There are some lucky people who feel they experience happiness when they gaze at a cloud or walk on the beach but the rest of us only get that special tingly buzz when we've bought, won, achieved, hooked or booked something. Then our own brains give us a hit of dopamine, which makes us feel good. We don't need substances; we are our own drug dealers. The

Much of what you see out there is manufactured by your brain, painted in like computer-generated graphics in a movie; only a very small part of the inputs to your occipital lobe comes directly from the external world, the rest comes from internal memory stores and other processes.

whenever I achieve a little something and am complimented, shortly thereafter I am swiftly kicked in the ass by karma.

Gandhi said, 'There is more to life than speed'. Unfortunately he didn't tell us what, he just left us hanging while he pranced around in his nappy. To

Sometimes, I get this familiar ache in my heart and a sense of stabbing emptiness around my ribcage. I don't even know what brings it on; it's just familiar like a horrible visitor. What brings me to my knees though, is the even bigger heart-hurt when I recognize this ghastly guest is back again.

It's the effort of trying to change things from what they are that ultimately exhausts us. Mindfulness

Thoughts are not who you are, they're habitual patterns in the mind, nothing more and as soon as you see them that way, they lose their sting. I think of them as the noise of a radio in another room; I can pay attention, sing along with them if I want and also choose to ignore them.

Critical thinking is one of our highest achievements besides eating with a fork, so when we emotionally can't get what we want, we have to think our way towards the resolution and this is where we crash and burn.

You'll notice that pain isn't solid or constant but rather a series of sensations, sometimes hard, sometimes light, and even sometimes gone altogether