Philip Smith, a mindfulness teacher for The Stress Project, talks to the Holloway Express about the reality of anxiety and depression and the way everyone “can step back to their lives”.
A vortex pushes you deeper and deeper and it seems that there’s no escape from that dark void. It’s like a strong chain wrapping your body and stopping you from doing ordinary things.
These are feelings common to 300,000,000 people living in the world today, according to the World Health Organization, and common to 28,900 residents of Islington.
It’s not happiness, sadness or anger but something perceivable like the humid weather of London but invisible to your eyes.
“Just seize the moment” is probably what the people around you have told you a hundred times. That moment though seems like it will never come.
“Everybody’s story is unique however if we look at large groups of people, things like these are described many times over. But there are a lot of common factors that come forward,” says Philip Smith, 63, mindfulness teacher and Stress Project therapist.
The matter is that quite often we confuse the factors that characterise the conditions and underestimate their effect on us. Usually, it’s common to detect nervousness, lack of concentration, problems sleeping in both anxiety and depression but what’s the real difference?
Although it’s very difficult to detect the real distinction from one another but it’s vital to understand which treatment can be helpful.
Depression has various forms, but the prevalent feature is the state of sadness, lack of hope for the future and pessimism that can lead to suicidal thoughts.
Anxiety represents itself in constant apprehension about the future and the events that are going to happen.
Philip Smith is a calm, peaceful man whose passion for helping people was born while he was working as a manager in the Local Government. Observing his staff, their behaviours and the way they were dealing with their job responsibilities, he came out with one explanation: his colleagues had stress-related problems and he wanted to help them.
Like any other mental health problem which affects 1 in 4 people in the UK, anxiety, and depression represent the most common ones. One in six people suffer from anxiety, depression or stress-related problems but only 1 in 8 seek help or are treated by a specialist.
The Stress Project, run by the Holloway Neighbourhood Group, is active since 1995 and provides accessible therapies like mindfulness, body psychotherapy and counselling.
The impact mental health has on our society has changed radically and it has increased since the 1990s with a peak of 9,3% in 2014 (BBC).
Mental health and more specifically anxiety and depression are common disorders that depend on “how people react in the longer term”. It “has a connection to the way they orientate themselves psychologically”.
Mindfulness is a gradual solution to cope with this or in other words what is stopping you from focusing on your life. It’s a form of meditation, “is making a choice to be in the present moment without judgement”.
The therapy is also recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and through its long and continuative process can also prevent depression.
Philip teaches his patients a way to concentrate on the present without putting themselves through an extensive process of overthinking.
“People with anxiety and depression tend to spend a lot of time going over and over things in the past,” which is called rumination and is peculiar of these conditions. The distinction between people with anxiety and people with depression can be put in this way: anxiety tends to “keep things in the future,” while people with depression tend to “keep things in the past”.
Another problem is the increase in drug prescription which endangers 1 in every 11 patients in England. The issue has to be found with its correlation with addiction because many of these drugs are difficult to come off. The NHS has in fact decided to run an investigation that includes antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications.
“If people just take pills it may give some relief but people don’t learn the skill sets. Statistically, if people take only pills at the third depression episode the probability of relapse goes to 87%”.
What if? This the usual question that makes patients’ minds busy. It’s a list of consequences about the future but only a “small percentage of that will happen in reality”.
Philip Smiths says that if we look at the skill sets of people who don’t tend to suffer from depression, we can understand better how to deal better with our problems.
The session combines mindfulness with cognitive behaviour: It helps to step back and a little reality test.
“People suffering from depression end to have a very practice ways of thinking, it occurs so incredibly quickly and it’s very difficult for the person to spot what’s happening”.
Thanks to mindfulness people can learn to observe their own thinking patterns and “instead of reacting to something it can introduce a little pause and take a step back and response”.
The first thing to analyse id the difference between a reaction and response: “In the response, there’s an element of choice and empowerment, “says Philip.
Mindfulness is different because it is built on experience and practice.
Individuals suffering from stress related problems tend to overuse the right side of the frontal cortex which controls emotions, ability to organize, behaviours and personality.
“With mindfulness, we tend to disengage this side and open the left hemisphere”.
During the mindfulness teaching, there are activities, meditation, exercises that people get involved with.
“For some things, I deliberately try not to explain because if they start to discover things from themselves is much more powerful learning,” remarks the Stress Project teacher.
Generally, if you suffer from anxiety or depression it’s possible to feel a lack of control.
The goal of the therapy tries to shift the lack of control inside the person.
On the contrary, some people think that depression is only a modern issue, “I just find depression and anxiety something that doesn’t belong to the past, I think it’s a sort of construction rather than a real thing,” says Mike Brookfield, 59, a fashion designer from New Zeland.
He remembers when he used to be in his early 20s and people didn’t really speak about it. The opinions in Holloway road about anxiety and depression are different. We asked Holloway road residents about it:
An explanation these mental issues are probably relatable to the new networks we are using to connect with each other.
“Tablets, smartphones and computers limit the face-to-face conversation and are a link to loneliness which is one of the main causes of depression”.
The most important thing for Philip is “bringing a smile to people”.
The 8-week Mindfulness course is available on Wednesday: 10.00am – 12 pm (£20) and drop-in classes are available on Thursday 4pm-5pm.
The Stress Project Therapy Centre is in 2 Shelburne Road London N7 6DL
Tel: 020 7700 3938
Contact info: stressproject@hng.org.uk
Comentarios