Please note: Good Influence is produced for audio and designed to be heard. If you are able to, please listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. This transcript was generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. You can find links to audio versions of all episodes here.

Gemma Styles [00:00:01] Hello, I'm Gemma, and welcome to another episode of Good Influence. This is the podcast where each week you and I meet a guest who will help us pay attention to something we should know about, as well as answer some of your questions. This week, we're talking about depression, looking back on ourselves before and after being diagnosed, the individual differences in how we approach treatment and how talking about mental health publicly can help all of us understand each other better. So joining me this week, is Emma Gunavardhana, perhaps better known by her online nickname Emma Guns. Emma is a beauty and lifestyle writer and brand consultant. After spending 10 years as beauty editor at OK magazine, she is currently a freelance journalist and podcast. Her podcast, Imogen's Show, features interviews with lots of different guests and has now amassed over 10 million downloads.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:00:49] I just felt like everything was a challenge. It just felt everything was like wading through treacle.

Gemma Styles [00:00:56] So ABBA, we're going to talk about depression today. Always very easy inlight, breezy topic. So it's probably a good place to start if you want to tell us a bit of your kind of mental health journey and, you know, why are we talking about depression today?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:01:14] Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for asking me, Tamara, because I appreciate it. I think it's something that we need to talk about more. All of us. Um, so my mental health journey, if you'd asked me that a little while ago, I might have said, oh, that started when I was diagnosed with depression, aged 37. But actually, it's become really clear to me through things like therapy and through actually leaning into that after the diagnosis, it's made me sort of look back and realise how evident. The signs of anxiety and depression were just so clear, even from childhood. I remember the first time I ever went to go and sit an exam. It was to join the youngest class at the school that my brother was at. And I turned up the head headmaster walked down the stairs and he was wearing one of those big scholarly, you know, like the capes that teachers were giving. Oh, my. And I just was it was the closest thing in real life I'd ever seen, I guess, to Dracula. So I just freaked out and hid behind my mom's skirt and then just didn't wasn't able to sit the exam. And it was only sort of I never thought about that until I then went into therapy and realised, well, that's a sign that you are not coping. You were having a highly reactive emotional response to a situation. And actually that's probably not the the normal in inverted commas or rational response to that scenario necessarily. So I guess and I don't know if this is your experience, too, is that you can kind of get a diagnosis or you can have someone say, yes, you're experiencing this. And then as you begin to unpick it on the journey to recovery, you realise that there were signs long before that maybe they had always been coming.

Gemma Styles [00:03:09] Yeah, I think I can relate to that to a certain extent from personally, I think I think I was definitely anxious before I was depressed. So, yeah, you can kind of I think probably at a lower level, to be fair. But yeah, I would always be there'd be certain times like, yeah, exams are probably quite a good example where when I look at it now. I was, you know, coping with different amounts of anxiety in different ways and kind of I don't know, it's a tricky one because then you think, you know, well, it's exam's like most people are probably anxious about exams, but I feel like I had to do more to cope with that level of anxiety than maybe other people around me. So I think, yeah, I agree. When you look back, there's different things that you can see. Maybe I mean, you see yourself there were a lot of kind of clear signs of anxiety and depression. Do you think other people could see those signs or really is that something that you maybe kept quite close to your chest or how do you feel about that?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:04:12] Again, that's another really interesting one because. If I'm being really brutally honest, I think I've had to navigate this on my own, so much so that my little motto that I came up with in therapy was, you're on your own kid doing what I did, the kid on the end. But I guess to soften the blow,

Gemma Styles [00:04:30] some inner child work force,

Emma Gunavardhana [00:04:34] because I think I had spent a long time thinking that something or someone would save me that something or someone would happen that would make me feel better all of a sudden. So. Actually, the most empowering thing I was able to do on my path to recovery was take ownership and be accountable and understand that I had agency and feeling better. And it's not as clear cut as saying. It's a choice to feel good. There's an element of truth to that, but not when you're dealing with a chemical imbalance in the brain. I think we have to we have to be sensitive to the fact that it's not as simple as just snap out of it. And in fact, I remember distinctly a friend saying to me, oh, for goodness sake, I think you're just a bit depressed to stop seeing everything is black and white. And it was just like I'd been slapped around the face. And I remember just feeling very wounded. And one of those conversations where you walk away and almost apologise for being a drain on that person, I'm sorry that I'm making you sorry that I'm being such a misery guts. And then you walk away and sort of look down and you're soaked in blood, metaphorically speaking, because you just feel so horribly wounded by their observation, because I don't know, I guess I was in that mental headspace or didn't want to be depressed. Yeah, I really didn't want I didn't want to be down. I didn't want to be a drain on people's good mood. And I knew I was and I had no idea how to fix it.

Gemma Styles [00:06:04] None of it makes me sad to hear you say that I'm in for so many reasons. But also when somebody is talking to you and saying, oh, for goodness sake, you're just you're a bit depressed. So like they could see that you were depressed. But the response to that is so disjointed. Like it doesn't sound like there was a lot of empathy there. It's kind of I think that is a difficult thing about people maybe talking more about mental health. It's kind of has a tendency for some people to water it down and not realise how serious it is. And you're kind of chuck the word at someone and say, oh, well, you're probably just the same without really even thinking about what impact that was obviously having on you that they weren't realising.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:06:45] Yeah, and the thing is, is everyone goes through their own issues. And I think what what I what I perceived and I will never know whether this is the truth because I haven't ever interrogated the other person about this. But I don't know what it looked like. I don't know what it looked like from the outside, because I think one of the things I discovered was that outwardly I think people that worked with me all were close to me, thought I was kind of doing OK. I'm. And actually, they might have thought that I was not particularly approachable about it, I don't know. I just think that what was being what they were seeing outwardly wasn't was so mismatched from what was going on inwardly. And I think I had I really thought not that the world is out to get me, but I was very suspicious of people and people's intentions. And that made my exterior quite brittle. And I think that's obviously if you're quite suspicious and you've got that sort of you feel terrible inside as well, you're not going to reach out to the outside world for help because you don't want to show your vulnerability. You don't want to say to people who are really upset by what was happening. And I guess because when I had done it, my experience had been either silence or I felt as though I then exhibited a weakness that then made me more vulnerable. So I guess that made my modus operandi from that point forward just to just retreat and just not tell anyone.

Gemma Styles [00:08:21] Yeah, it does sound kind of like. The classic defence mechanism sort of thing is and you didn't want to show you Assad. But it's kind of I guess at times it can be easier to show. Anger that there is some kind of strength of emotion rather than. Acting like everything's normal because you obviously weren't feeling normal at all.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:08:45] Mhm. Yeah, I think normal. That's an interesting word. And I think I just felt like everything was a challenge. It just felt everything was like wading through treacle just like the daily stuff.

Gemma Styles [00:08:56] Yeah. It's hard to think of, like you kind of don't really know what normal is at that point I suppose de. So when you say you can kind of look back and see signs of this kind of thing from quite a young age, but then you mentioned you weren't diagnosed with, was it depression and anxiety, you said? Yeah. So you weren't diagnosed until you were 37, which, you know, that's quite a gap in between what what were you kind of like in all that time, in between what was going on, what happened? So that you finally then went and got a diagnosis?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:09:31] I think. Just for the majority of my life, I was just always. I don't know. Always worried that the sword of Damocles is hanging over my head or that I know this this is kind of off, but I was reading demimonde autobiography recently and she said something in it that made me really kind of stop and go, wow, I don't think I've actually ever thought that, but that's bang on. And she said that she would in any situation she would think is OK that I'm here. And that's absolutely on the money. How I felt.

Gemma Styles [00:10:07] Yeah. Everywhere. Yeah, I got this. That is good. Yeah. And I mean, you were in a lot of quite like glamorous places through your work and stuff as well. So that must have been. Must have been so odd to kind of navigate at the same time as an inside feeling like you didn't know if you should be there.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:10:26] Yeah, but that's OK. So that's interesting because I think essentially what I did is I had this feeling of it, OK, that I'm here. I don't feel like I'm good enough to be here. What would make me good enough to be here? A job title like that? Because that's in front of me. I'm I'm somebody from somewhere. And therefore, you have to welcome me in and I have to be treated a certain way. And that was actually quite a damaging. When I look at it now, actually, it's kind of almost like that wasn't I can understand why I thought to do that, but it wasn't the most helpful thing. Yeah, because I wasn't solving the ultimate problem. I was trying to put on a suit of armour. And if you're trying to sort of put this facade on something that's quite weak and quite fragile and it's not necessarily going to work. But I used I mean, I think about the films I watched growing up and a lot of the female protagonist were journalists, all at very glamorous. They seemed to have great lives and they'd meet celebrities. And I thought, well, that's what I'm going to do then, because they seem to be important. Their lives are together. By the end of the film, they've got their promotion, the the boyfriend and the bag of swag. So great. What do you want to be when you grow up that's so rich, which is so lame. And so I'm almost embarrassed to say that it's true.

Gemma Styles [00:11:49] I mean, where do any of us get our ideas about what we want to be when we grow up from. I think I mean, to be fair, I have and I think, oh, you had an idea about what you wanted to be and you actually went and did it. So it's quite impressive to me because there's not many people who end up in that kind of job.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:12:03] Yeah, I guess. I mean, that is true. And I do sometimes think I really don't know how you did it, but it was it it was good in many ways. And I'm really pleased for lots of reasons. But yeah, there is a part of me that realised that for a long time I wore my job title as the thing that stood between me and the world. So I used it as a shield. It was like I didn't think that people would accept me for me, but I thought they had to accept me because I was a beauty editor and a best selling magazine. And so it kind of it felt easier, but actually it was more complicated.

Gemma Styles [00:12:42] So when did things change enough that you ended up. Yeah. Going to get your. Diagnosis, I suppose, was it the first time that you'd spoken to someone about it that you've got diagnosed, did you have to kind of. Did you struggle at all to get a kind of diagnosis?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:13:01] No, no, I had probably from my teens I had been a moaner. And this is relevant to the diagnosis because I think, you know, I'd go to school and then I would moan as I was being horrible to me, I'd known somebody else. Or when I was in work, I would moan because I didn't know how to ask for help. And I certainly didn't want to be diagnosed with a mental health issue because I thought then that was a big black mark against my name and it would be horrifying and embarrassing. And so I would just moaned for a very, very long time. And I got sick and tired of myself. And essentially what happened is I went freelance so I didn't have that shield anymore. And as you would expect, the world didn't feel the same and it was quite overwhelming and. I also had said I have some really negative patterns in terms of how I form friendships, I tend to. I tend to get beguiled, and I am also I'm complicit in the dynamic, but I just got into some dynamics where I was giving, giving, giving and not really getting a heck of a lot in return. Not that it is about reciprocation in that way, but just it just led to a pattern of having felt let down a lot by people that I had trusted and loved and given a lot of myself to. And I guess all of those things culminated in just. Whereas I I think for 20 or more years, I've been sort of bumbling along, just sort of navigating just above the line of it being a problem. So I dip down every now and again, but I'd be able to pull myself out and then I dip down again. So there was always sort of running on this course of slipping in and out of low mood. Mm hmm. All of these things combined into it just really hitting rock bottom and. I remember calling my friend Marsha, who I'd worked with on the magazine, and she and I left at around the same time and I was essentially hysterical and just said, I can't remember what it was like. I don't know what it was like when we used to do. I know I used to walk into the office and I know I used to sort of say, oh, where am I proofs? What's the why is this happening? And I run a department. I noticed that. I can't remember what it was like. Like if you said to me, if we went back in time, I don't have the muscles anymore. I can't remember what it was like to feel like that. But I know it happened. And she just very calmly said to me urgently, need to take some time off and you need to get some help. And I don't know whether I would have done. And then I also another friend of mine, I was crying about something and a friend said, I've never known anyone who just can't navigate life in the way that you can't. Everything is such a big deal. You have no emotional tool kit. And I just thought, I mean, this can't keep going on like this, I'm sick and tired of being told by my friends that I'm a burden, not Marzia, obviously. Like Sister was obviously very she was like, you need help now. But I think I just wound people up and I just annoyed them because I was just a Debbie Downer, but it was because there was some stuff going on.

Gemma Styles [00:16:19] Yeah, that's so. So, I mean, that's also harsh. I used to. Are you still friends with any of these people? How did your relationships end up going after that? Because you kind of, you know, said a couple of things were it wasn't the best. And also people were clearly saying something, but not. Really looking any deeper, did you manage to kind of fix those relationships, or was that something you had to move on from?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:16:43] Some some relationships, I suppose a famous saying in therapy isn't that you can't take everyone with you. So, yeah, some some didn't come along for the ride. And I think, you know, people's intentions. So with the friend, you said to me, you just don't have the emotional toolkit. I don't think she said it out of cruelty. I think she said it as an observation. I know her character and I know that she didn't say it to hurt me. I think she was saying it because she was saying that you need to get help because, you know, you never like you miss that day at school. It was kind of that vibe. Like you missed the day of school where you learnt about emotional talking.

Gemma Styles [00:17:24] Yeah.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:17:25] Whereas the person you said you see the person you seem a bit depressed is all black and white. Like, I was annoying her. And so that was sort of set as a way to wound. So, yeah, some people come with you and some people don't.

Gemma Styles [00:17:39] Yeah, yeah. I think that makes sense. So when you had gone to the doctor by that point, if you don't mind me asking, where did you kind of go from there? Because it sounds like it for you. It was a complete because it had been so long, it must have been to go from there to where you maybe are now. Must have been such an overhaul of your kind of every day. Where did you even start?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:18:07] Well, I've been going to the GP for about I would say probably knocking on for about nine months, nine, 10 months. So every couple of months, like, I'm not feeling great. I'm putting on a lot of weight, I feel. Rubbish. And. I have I had an autoimmune disorder as a teen, I have PCOS growing up, and I developed it quite early, so I had some quite severe symptoms and it felt as though they were coming back. So things like weight gain and like my hair was thinning and my skin wasn't responding very well to things. And that's just a classic kind of symptoms. So that's where I started. I went back originally and I had an ultrasound and they were like, yep, no cysts on those ovaries. So. So that was one. Oh, gosh, it must be something else. So I kept going back and I remember the GP saying to me, I think it must have been like the fifth or sixth time. And he said, if you come back again, I will put you on anti-depressants. And I have no problem with that. I just want to say I actually think anti-depressants are amazing, but I felt this very strong feeling that my issues had nothing to do with correcting a chemical imbalance. I knew that it had to do with not having any self-esteem and not having that emotional toolkit and just making really terrible decisions constantly. And it sort of felt like a spiral staircase down. And I thought, well, if I can undo those self sabotaging behaviours, I can work my way back up that spiral staircase. And so I was like, OK, and what are the other options? And he said about talking therapy. So I said, OK, well I'll go and do that. And I made a call to my health insurance company, and they were the ones who actually gave me the the test that and let's let's do this questionnaire and let's get you on the phone with one of our mental health professionals, the classic questionnaire. Yeah. And we'll do the. Are you. So, yeah, I think it came back with severe depression, severe anxiety and mild OCD. And I thought and I don't know how you felt when you finally had someone say those words to you, but they were the words I've been dreading, like absolutely dreading because I thought black mark against my name failure. I had just attached such a negative vocabulary to what that actually meant. And in actual fact, it was as though the dark fog that had been surrounding me forever lifted. And I looked up and there was a giant red arrow above my head and it was like the you are here on the map. Yeah. And now it's like, oh, now I can get my bearings and now I can get to where I want to be. And it was so freeing and it was so liberating and it was so helpful, which is why I'm really keen to share that, because I think people can worry about what a diagnosis like that means. And for me, honestly, it was just it was like a weight was lifted and as though dark skies suddenly cleared. It really, really was.

Gemma Styles [00:21:15] I find it really interesting to hear just how other people kind of respond to similar situations, because I feel like I was kind of the opposite in terms of what I was looking for in terms of treatment, like it had taken me quite a long time before I did any sort of treatment, really. But yeah, I was like for the longest time, I was way, way more resistant to doing talking therapy than I was to going on antidepressants, like it took me a lot longer to start therapy than it did. Medication, which I think and I mean it kind of I think it goes to show in one respect that there's not really a right or wrong way to do it is you can. Get an instinct for these things sometimes, and it doesn't mean that you have to do things a certain way and also it's nice to, you know, hit it. You were able to speak to your doctor about it and say that doesn't feel right for me. Can I try this? And I mean. Yeah, and then there are more more options in the tank, I suppose, aren't the. I'm interested to know about how you kind of went from that point of thinking, I'm worried it'll be, you know, a black mark against my name. I don't want I don't want the diagnosis. I don't want anyone to know. And now mental health and kind of depression is of is something that you have talked about a lot more publicly. Did that take a long time for you to get to that place or did you feel it was sort of a shift quite quickly?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:22:50] That's interesting. I don't know. I guess I did start talking about it relatively quickly, but probably in quite a Hindu way to begin with, as if I've got some insight, but I'm not going to tell you exactly why. And then as I sort of grew in confidence. Yeah, I was just a bit more direct about it on the podcast and also was with friends, and I think it's that thing, isn't it? I mean, I think you've got the measure of some of my friends. And I was like, oh, I got diagnosed with depression. They were like, duh.

Gemma Styles [00:23:27] Right.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:23:29] That's helpful. Um, so. I think demystifying it, realising it's not an enemy and also, again, it's like depression is something you can work on, anxiety is something you can work on and. There are really positive changes that you can make, and it's not a status, and this is something that I definitely see and I sort of think I when I do there, I think, oh, that's such a shame, because having depression is not an identity and having anxiety is not an identity. So there are times, for example, couple of years ago I went to a party, a work party, lots of glamorous people there. As soon as I walked in the front door, it was like hackles up, didn't enjoy it was just couldn't concentrate on the person talking to me because I my my eyes were scanning because I was just I couldn't I couldn't get comfortable and I had to leave. And it wasn't necessarily an anxiety attack. It was just overstimulation. Yeah. Whereas in the past I would have done is found somebody who would have listened to me moan about the part, who would have commiserated with me about how awful it was like to to misery guts in the corner and had a sour look on my face. Whereas what I did this time, which shows you the progress that you made to go, actually this is massive overstimulation for me. This is just too much. This is not a room that I should be in. Yeah. So get a taxi and go.

Gemma Styles [00:24:56] Yeah. Take yourself out of it. Yeah. I wonder. So when I'm listening to you talk about it and the way that you talk about yourself at that time and kind of the way that you talk about how other people must have seen you, you've kind of keep calling saying you were kind of, you know, like moody or a misery guts or maybe do you feel like that? Was you expecting other people's judgement of you and it was that part of you? Do you think that when you got your diagnosis, wanted to talk about it more publicly to kind of show that there was a reason and that you hadn't just been like, I don't know, like that for no reason? I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't hear that and think, oh, what? Like, what's what's wrong with her? Was she like that? I feel like there's maybe a judgement still from yourself on that. Like, did you want to kind of explain some of it away? In a way?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:25:51] Yeah, I guess so. That's a really good observation. When I probably hadn't I hadn't don't think I pop those two jigsaw pieces together and as flashily as you just have. So thank you. That's actually that's actually really helpful. But yeah, I think there was a part of me that wants to talk about it because I wanted to justify because I'm not necessarily proud of having been a reactive person. I'm not necessarily proud of having some of the behaving the way that I have done in the past. And like I said, I didn't get diagnosed till I was thirty seven. So there's a lot of memories of I think. Oh. I wouldn't do that the same way now, and I know I know that regrets are kind of pointless and it's about learning from them. And I got a pretty decent back catalogue to learn from, but which is empowering in and of itself. But, yeah, there is a part of me that I think wanted to talk about it because a. To explain to those who might be interested, but also I think it's when I have certain podcast guests on and we talk about this about how it's sometimes not about the person listening who might be experiencing a mental health issue. Sometimes it's about the person who's listening, who loves someone or know someone who is and then can maybe hear how we talk about it and say, oh, I think that I think that's my friend's behaviour. Like, my friend is like you have a you know, that group of friends where they say, oh, so-and-so is coming, but they're a bit of a drain. Yeah, that person might need a bit of compassion. A bit of kindness.

Gemma Styles [00:27:26] Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's yeah, it's a good point. I mean, I think, yeah, we've we've kind of already already talked about this a little bit before, but yeah, on the reasons why it's important to still have these conversations is kind of for everybody involved. It's a benefit to the people who might be struggling. It's a benefit to the people who try and understand them. And Khan is a benefit to the people who've got no connexion whatsoever to the issue and just don't even realise it's a thing. I mean, that was kind of part of the point of what I always want to do with the podcast is just give people an opportunity to, like, hear about different things that maybe they don't know as much about as they want to. Do you feel like there's particular things that you've learnt from having a lot of conversations about mental health on your podcast now?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:28:19] Oh, gosh, yeah. And I think. I tend to come from a place of tough love, I think that's like the household, the household I grew up in a little bit is like I remember I'm sure my dad right, mind me saying this, but like, if ever I wanted to cry, he would say, don't cry. It was a bit of a sort of a you know, don't have an emotion, sort of. But I have a lot I have all of them.

Gemma Styles [00:28:45] I have so many emotions

Emma Gunavardhana [00:28:47] that so I kind of was always sort of putting the lid on them. And so I guess I guess that kind of created a sort of toxic soup in my heart, soul, mind. But and so I think actually getting them out and leaning into them is has been really useful. I mean, look, you know, I'm sure, you know, this it can be really confronting to sit in a therapy session and say something out loud without even really realising. Realising it before you say it and then it comes out and it's so confronting. That you are forever changed because of it, because you've suddenly put two and two together about something. Yeah, and it will be different for everybody. But for example, when women came on the podcast, one of the reasons I wanted to have him on the show is because he's known for, you know, swimming in icy lakes and cold therapy and extreme breathing and things like that. But actually, the thing about him that really resonates for me is that if you want to get to a good place and a good feeling, you have to embrace the pain of it. Like if I don't know if you've ever had a cold shower, like an intense cold shower,

Gemma Styles [00:30:02] not by choice.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:30:04] OK, well, just to know, ease your way into an end of every shower, turn that tactical idea every day. And the thing that you learn from that is that initial feeling where you want to recoil and you immediately go and you almost want to scream. That's horrible. And then you have to stay under the water and it's really just like try and bear it for as long as you can. First 10 seconds and 20 seconds and 30 seconds and what you way up. But then it's afterwards that you feel incredible. And that to me is what mental health journeys are a little bit like, is that you have to acknowledge that there's pain, but that from the pain on the other side of it. It's amazing and pain maybe is probably might not be necessarily the right thing, but just the discomfort of it and having to having to accept discomfort and not immediately recoil from it and go and get under your duvet and shiver and put the TV on is the kind of things like discomfort, you know, the saying nothing good happens inside of your comfort zone that you have to push the boundaries of it. So I think that's something that has really stuck with me. And I think a lot of people have come on my show and talked about their mental health journeys have set the same like it's dark, it's painful, it's horrible. But there is light. There is release at the other end of it. But it is work

Gemma Styles [00:31:24] is definitely work. Yeah, I think that's the maybe one of the things that is still slightly more misunderstood is that it is hard work and it's ongoing work. I think in my experience at least. And I think for a lot of people it's not something that you necessarily instantly get better from and then never have to work on ever again, which I think at the beginning of a treatment journey, if you like, is quite a scary thought to think, you know, there's no one way I can probably just knock this on my head. I mean, I don't want to speak for absolutely everybody because, you know, there are situations and people you know, some people will find themselves in a more kind of situational depression. And there are very practical things that they can then do, change the situation. They might never have to feel like that again, which is brilliant. But there are then other people who suffer from more clinical depression, maybe. And it's it's quite daunting to think of it as something that you're going to have to work on for a long time. But I agree. I think once you settle into it and kind of not be defined by it, but take ownership of it and stop, stop fighting it so much, because I did that for a very long time and kind of was so resentful of the fact that I had to work on it, that I would kind of throw my toys out the problem and not do it. And the only person who thought it was harmful to was me. And it took me a while to get over that. But yeah, it's I think once you start, it's easier essentially.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:33:04] Yeah. And it is once you have that good day or not even a good day. Once you have that day when you wake up and things don't feel as bleak, you really cling to that feeling and feeling imprints. And so when you realise that you have to do some more work, when you wake up and you think I've taken a couple of steps back here. You know that I don't know about you, but I have I do have a toolkit in place now, so even a couple of weeks ago, I started to feel like my solar plexus was vibrating, like in my heart, around my heart. I just felt like this sort of, you know, trapped bird in my chest a lot through. And I'd wake up and I think, what's this? And I do my exercise. What's this? It's not going anywhere. And I was just operating on this sort of weird. Obviously, something was bubbling up and I was like, right, well, what's going on? Nothing's especially going on, what do I need to do? And for me, what really helps is just slowing down. Hmm. And like, I do really enjoy werewolf's breath work and I really like exercising. I'm a big enjoyer of sweat, not because of the weather, but if I'm if I'm working out, I think it's great if I like, you know, sweat on the floor always feels really good

Gemma Styles [00:34:17] because everything is there. Yeah.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:34:19] Yeah. He's like, I want to see I want to see the visible evidence of how much hard work I put in and. Yeah. And I just but I thought no, the moment something's going on. So it's going to be yoga, it's going to be long walks and it's not going to be long walks. I normally walk and listen to an audiobook. I love listening to autobiographies on long walks. So it's like, no, you're going to go for a walk, you're not going to worry about how fast you're walking. I do love the metrics on a on a fitness device. You are going to walk and you your focus is going to be listening to the birds. Yeah, and just just actually not being too plugged in, and that is the kind that's kind of the the toolkit that really helps me is just slowing down. And actually, I was a great now I'll do it now. That's OK. I can take that on. I can do more. I'll take that on. Yeah, I'll say yes to that. I can't say no because if I say no, they'll hate me or they'll never work with me again. And one of the greatest things I've done in the last five years is say no to things and not say no, because I'm like I can't say no because I know you're more trouble than you're worth. And saying no to you is a yes to me. Yeah. So I'm going to say it politely, but it is a hard no.

Gemma Styles [00:35:36] I'm saying it politely, but I definitely mean it. So, I mean talking about the things that you do and kind of coping mechanisms. So you have. It's not a separate podcast to your podcast, but it's like a subsection of your podcast, I would kind of describe as called feel good habits. How did you is that sort of would you say, a strictly mental health kind of platform for you now and other things that tend to come up a lot that people find helpful?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:36:06] Yeah, that one was really interesting. So that one actually started, I think, in the first week of the U.K. lockdown. So around like March, end of March 2020. And I was in the middle of one of my sweaty exercise sessions. And I just thought, I like I like you love my listeners. And I just had this really nagging feeling that I wasn't doing right by them, given everything that was happening in the world. And I thought, what do they need? Like, what do I need, what might help them right now? And so it just came to me in the middle, in the middle of a squat, just came to me with feel good habits. And I thought, actually, if you get people on to share the five things they do and I sort of culture in very light, effervescent terms of it's to stop a bad morning turning into a bad day or but it's really about like, how do you keep yourself above that line? I was talking to I constantly dipped below

Gemma Styles [00:36:57] the toolkit that you mentioned, I guess.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:36:59] Yeah. And it started out I was really funny. I started out like March, April, May. It was like hot baths of yoga, cooking, and by the end of 2020, it was like therapy, medication, just like people were just really leaning into what helped because we were obviously going through something really significant. And it has been really lovely. And it is one of those things where you hope that in a half an hour, a conversation where people are saying, look, do you know what if I'm in a crappy mood and I feel as though I'm about to sort of I'm bumbling along in that place is about to become unsafe mentally. If I clean up my sock drawer, that gives me so much clarity. If there's one person that listens to that, I was having a rubbish day and that person goes and they organise their sock drawer and it lifts them out of that funk. Oh, that does. And I've had messages that would suggest that is those little things that have got people through dark times and that just makes my heart swell and makes that fluttery feeling in my chest go away.

Gemma Styles [00:38:07] Yeah. It's so important as well and such. I mean such a great thing to do. And I think it would probably be quite easy to listen to something like that and think of it as kind of. Trivial because like a piece of organising versus mental illness, you know, but the thing is with it, when you're in the thick of it, there's no. One big thing that you can do to solve it in an hour. Like it is pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and some of them will be small pieces, some of them will be, you know, bigger chunks of the jigsaw, if you like. But, yeah, I just feel like however you cope and whatever you find works for you is so valuable. So I think those are those are pretty good things to share. So thanks for that.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:38:54] And you're very welcome. Yeah, it is. It's like you said earlier as well. I had never had any of those feel good habits, which is why when I did fall down and properly, like had a breakdown and just I would say by that, by breakdown, I meant I just I couldn't do anything else. Getting up, that was difficult, getting on the phone was difficult. I couldn't even walk out like I remember. I like working out and I remember thinking, I'm putting on weight, so I'm going to go to the gym and I'm going to go and lift heavy weights because I've been running, but I'm going to go in really, really heavy weights and that's going to be amazing. And that, I think, was the thing that tipped me over the edge. And I think there might have been a spot of adrenal fatigue going on there, because around that time I was doing the heavy weights. I spoke to my friend Marsia. It all just got too much. And I went to the doctor, got the diagnosis, and then my next exercise that I attempted was walking around the block. And I think it took me half an hour to walk two kilometres and I had to build my fitness back up from there. I remember coming home after that first walk and being saturated like I had taken everything out of me. So I'd obviously been pushing and pushing and pushing for a long time, not asking for help, thinking I was a burden like really negative, negative thinking. And then it was building back up slowly and as you say, as this small, tiny bits of a bigger puzzle. But the walking really helped. So did the cold showers, like all of them slotted into place and form this bigger picture, which is like putting it back together every week.

Gemma Styles [00:40:36] My guests and I will be answering your questions on the first one comes in from Neya who asks, I would love to know how to speak more openly about depression and how to work towards destigmatizing topics such as mental health. For the past year, I've been dealing with depression and I've often felt embarrassed to talk about it people and didn't like that feeling. Hmm.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:40:56] Interesting is interesting for a couple of reasons, but I would say talk to you about it first. Meaning. I had a lot of expectations on other people to confirm what I was going through by me, speak to them and them saying yes, no, and actually that isn't necessarily helpful if if there's wanting to be understood. That's definitely one thing. But I sometimes I, I worry about like I think I wanted to say to people, I'm feeling like this and I wanted them to just confirm it for me to say, yep, you're you're right. You're right. Yeah. So but if that if you pull your heart and soul out, once you do and you talk about your mental health, it certainly feels like that then if it feels like that to you. But it feels very exposed. Yeah. If you're met with. Yeah. But that can be really just really take the wind out of your sails. So the reason why my first response is think about how you're going to get it in your head like the only person who's going to be harmed or not do well out of your honesty is used to be really, really honest with yourself. And I think that's why I sometimes like, goddammit, you were such a jerk, because sometimes you have to be honest with yourself and say, yeah, you were joke, but you're not going to be a jerk again. So I think honesty and accountability is really important in that. And I think if you're wanting people to understand how you're feeling. Everyone is going to see it through their own lens or hear it through their own lens, so I think it's really difficult for parents, for example, to hear that their child is struggling with mental health because they don't want that to be the case. Yeah, so they are instinctively going to minimise it. Not because they're trying to minimise you, but because they don't want it to be true, because I think if you say to a parent, I've been diagnosed with depression. Their first, second or simultaneous thoughts will be. Is it my fault? Did I do that somehow? So I so everyone has their own lens. So if I'm understanding the question correctly, was it how do I. I'd like to speak more openly.

Gemma Styles [00:43:20] Yeah, I would like to speak more openly. And now we're saying sometimes she's felt embarrassed to talk about it.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:43:25] Yeah, I think. I don't know if she's in therapy, but I think that really helps you figure out what feels safe to say to another person and obviously what feels safe to say to a mental health professional versus what it feels safe to say to a colleague or a family member or friend. And so I do think it might be a little bit about resetting your boundaries with your relationships and understanding what your expectations are like, are you telling people because you want them to cut you a break because you want them to understand? Because what's the reason? And then figure out then what feels comfortable for you to share and protect yourself as a way of being vulnerable and also. Protect being protective of. Of your kind, gentle soul,

Gemma Styles [00:44:14] it's hard because I think the concept of being embarrassed by a. I think will be relatable for a lot of people because for different mental health conditions, there's still, you know, an amount of shame that people tend to feel even though they shouldn't. It's still there, but I think. I kind of like how you say that, you know, talk to yourself about it first, because I feel like. Even just running through the conversation in your head to kind of think, because if you go and tell someone and even if, you know, they respond quite well and are kind of saying, what can I do? What do you need from me? If you haven't really thought about that and hadn't really thought about what you need, is kind of making that conversation more difficult for you than it necessarily has to be. So even if the answer to that question is, I don't really know, I just needed to tell someone and I needed you to listen, if that's the honest answer and you don't really know what you need, that's fine. But if you already know what your answer to that question is going to be, because you've. Yeah. Had the conversation with yourself about it, I can see that being a bit easier.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:45:24] And I think being embarrassed about it makes me wonder whether that like if I'm talking about my mental health of the friend, I'm going to be very specific about who I choose to talk to. And I would only feel embarrassed if I felt like I'd spoken to the wrong person.

Gemma Styles [00:45:39] Yeah, that makes sense

Emma Gunavardhana [00:45:40] because of what that person might do with that information or what? Or because I think, you know what that person might think. Some people I have friends who are like, oh, he would roll their eyes if I spoke really candidly about some of the things I've been through. And so I wouldn't then have those conversations with them. Yeah, because I would be embarrassed because their filter is not a sympathetic one.

Gemma Styles [00:46:05] Yeah. And I think well I mean, it's like hearing that like I think part of that embarrassment is just you feel badly about it because they've reacted badly to it. So I think don't blame yourself for that either because yeah, that's it's not always on you. Sometimes people just make you feel that way, honestly.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:46:20] Yeah. And you've got nothing to be embarrassed about. And I think that was something I used to wear other people's emotions over my own, like a coat of many colours and yeah. Think about like you've got nothing to be embarrassed about. And so if somebody makes you feel embarrassed, you can log that and say, well, that's not on me. Yeah. And that I mean, everything is information. Like if you think about life as a poker game, if you tell somebody and you feel embarrassed because of how they respond, they have shown their hand. And, you know, you are now armed with the information not to confide in that person. Yeah.

Gemma Styles [00:46:59] Again, yeah, this is true. Next question is from Daniel, who says, My question is, how do you know if you are depressed or just feeling down? I recently lost my mom less than a month ago, and I've never experienced a loss like it. I have times when I just can't seem to make myself do anything at all. I know you just don't get over a loss like this, but what can I do to get myself going each day?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:47:23] Gosh, I'm so sorry, Daniel. That's horrible. And it makes complete sense that you are not feeling like the version of yourself that you felt for. I haven't experienced that. But I would say that there are specialists who can help you with that exact thing, so there are grief specialists and I do think, like a lot of friends of mine have gone through periods of grief counselling when they've lost someone close to them, because it is one of those things where delegating your thoughts and feelings and what they mean to somebody else can be so utterly useful and helpful and. I would say it's just as with any mental health journey with anything, it's not something that you have to go through on your own. There is help out there, and so I would encourage Danielle to see what resources are available to her locally and just to understand that her reaction is perfectly normal, perfectly within the realms of what would be completely understandable.

Gemma Styles [00:48:39] Yeah, I mean, I would add I think obviously being so like a month is is is nothing, as it were today. And I think. Yeah. Being so close to something so traumatic and such a loss. I talked about this on Emma's podcast. If anyone that wants to go and listen to that conversation and talking about how when you're in a situation and you rationalise it to yourself in your head and think, yes, I'm sad and I don't feel like I'm coping, but I'm sad for this reason. So it makes sense. And I don't need to you know, it is what it is. There's nothing I can do about it. Sort of explaining it away to yourself like that doesn't always give you what you need, even if there is a reason why you feel sad, it doesn't mean that you can't ask for help with that sadness. And I mean, I think if you try to think of, you know, that the definition of depression, if you like, and I think it's where the people will tend to say, I mean, it's a mixture of usually, I think, psychological things and physical symptoms and other things. But I think they would generally classify it as sort of a sadness and a low feeling that lasts for weeks or months and it starts affecting, you know, you don't enjoy things that you used to enjoy and it starts affecting relationships and. There's a lot of different things, I think. I'm not sure where you're where you're where you left on, but I think if you Google and go on the NHS website, which for anyone who doesn't know, is the health service in the UK, not necessarily to access, but I think they have if you Google a depression self-assessment on the NHS, I think that they have publicly that kind of mental health questionnaire that you and I were talking about earlier we referenced. And I think maybe that would help you kind of. Ed, just answering the question sometimes can make you recognise things, and I would just say, you know, even if you think, well, there's a reason why I'm depressed, it doesn't mean that you have to deal with that depression all on your own.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:50:49] Yeah. And also, just to add to that, there's a really incredible woman, Julia Samuell, who's written she's a psychotherapist, I think, and she talks a lot about grief. And she has a book called This, Too, Shall Pass. And I think one of the things that has been beneficial to me is just reading and learning about all of these things. And as soon as you start investigating that, like reading about depression or grief or have you realise that? How alone you are, not like you are experiencing something that a lot of people have and they can share the benefit of their experience with you, because there is a there is a benefit to kind of not that there's a timeline, but they can tell you or give you insight into what you're feeling. And it validates that I think sometimes if you are doing it on your own, you can think, as you said, you know, there's a reason, but you can still minimise it and think, well, I've just I've just got to go back to how it was. And actually, I think other people's experiences can make you realise can validate what you're going through.

Gemma Styles [00:51:53] I think I'm just thinking about it now. It's such it feels like such a swinging door of how people minimise mental illness. So when we even just when we're talking about depression, which is only one form of mental illness, you'll look at people who. Outwardly don't have a reason to be depressed, and I say that in air quotes that you obviously can't see. When you look at people and think, oh, well, their life is great, why would they be depressed? Would like that. That's fine. That's not a thing. And then it completely swings the other way. And then we end up doing it to ourselves as well and thinking something really sad has happened. Of course, they're sad and kind of you minimise it in the opposite direction as well. There's really no there's no good way to be depressed. It's not it's not a good thing. It's just something that we deal with. And however you're feeling, whatever situation you're in, you're never going to be the ideal depression candidate. Nobody and everyone is never going to say exactly what you're feeling, but you're feeling it. You know you are because you're in your head. You can tell. So, yeah, you're no less deserving of help with depression no matter how you got there.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:52:57] Exactly. Just because you can't go to a textbook and take off all the boxes doesn't mean it's not real and happening.

Gemma Styles [00:53:03] Exactly. Next question is from Edwarda, who asks, Therapy is very important and valid when it comes to mental health, but we need to want to be in therapy for it to be effective. How can we help a person with mental health issues without pressing them into therapy when the person is not ready to go?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:53:24] That's an interesting question, because I think you're right. You can lead the horse to water, as they say. Hmm. I remember people used to say to me, I think you need to go and speak to someone. And what I heard was, please go away and stop bothering me.

Gemma Styles [00:53:41] Yeah, yeah. No, I can imagine, but, um.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:53:45] And so by the time I went to therapy. I had. Not going enough for me to think I have to go. I was I was quite desperate like I was it was it felt very urgent by the time I walked through the door. But I had definitely been the person who felt as though going to therapy was because my friends couldn't be bothered or because my friends had had enough of me and didn't wanna listen to me anymore. And you can't treat your friends like therapists. It's not fair. So it was completely right for me to outsource it to a professional. But yeah, if someone's not ready, I don't know. I mean, you said that. I mean, you were slightly different from me because I was running into that building going therapy with me, whereas you had a slightly different response.

Gemma Styles [00:54:32] Yeah. And I think that I mean, that's probably between us. That's probably covers this question quite well, I guess, because from my point of view of how I used to feel, the yeah, I was definitely in a situation where at least a doctor maybe had suggested more talking therapies. And I didn't want to go. I just didn't I didn't feel comfortable for a few reasons, but also just I don't think I was ready for a. And eventually I was ready for it and I went to therapy and I did find it helpful, I think there are a lot of different kinds of therapy as well. And just I think it's just good to remember that what people need is so individual. And because they don't want to go to therapy now doesn't mean they will never want to go and. Therapy also isn't the only option that's available. It can't be because not everyone can even access therapy. But I think listening to the person, you know, if they if they really don't want to go and you can tell don't try to force them, because that probably isn't going to help. And it's also not the only thing you can do. So my my example, before you know, years before I went to therapy, the main way that I coped and kind of dug myself out of the hole of it was through medication. And I don't think that there should be. A hierarchy of ways that we deal with depression because. It is so individual and just because you think. Maybe you've found therapy really helpful and it comes from such a good place when you just want someone to feel better and you know what made you feel better, that I guess it can be quite frustrating. But I think as hard as it might be, try and listen to what they want rather than suggesting what you would want.

Emma Gunavardhana [00:56:34] Yeah, it's I've spoken to people since I've been in and out of therapy, so I've been through the process and I have suggested it to other people. And the look of fear I can see in their eyes is what makes me back up a long way. Because when I went, I like I wanted to vomit everything up and just see I want I wanted to figure this out. I wanted to say as much as possible because I was so desperate to feel the way I was feeling. But I also know people who feel wretched, who the last thing they want to do is talk about it because they are terrified of what they're going to say. They're terrified that they're going to inadvertently reveal something really dark. And so they avoid therapy like the plague. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that's going to be true, obviously, but I've I've spoken to people very gently once they've said that's not for me. And I've said, do you mind me asking what stands between you and going and talking to a qualified mental health professional? Because I love science. So you show me data like I'm going to trust it more and that the the response I've had on two occasions is. I don't want to put it that's right. Which makes me think I think you're a great candidate for therapy, but I'm not going to make you feel I'm not going to make you do it. I'm not going to say, well, you must, because, as you say, the person has to get there in their own time. And I think we also have to respect someone's right to not not want to do it.

Gemma Styles [00:58:16] If you want to know about opportunities to send in questions for upcoming guests, then follow us on Instagram or Twitter at Good Influence G.S. and email me Good Influence Pod at Gmail dot com. Before you go, I've got three things I ask every guest. That's if listeners want to find out more about what we've been talking about today. Could you please recommenders something to read, something to listen to, something to watch?

Emma Gunavardhana [00:58:40] Well, something to watch is a really interesting one, because I use YouTube as a form of therapy on a daily basis. And by that I mean, I don't have necessarily a specific video for you to watch because what you need will depend on who you are and what you're going through. But most days, if I feel that afternoon lag where it would be very tempting to grab a nitro coffee and re caffeinated, I go and watch a TED talk. Or I watch a motivational speaker give a talk of between 15 minutes and half an hour and there is nothing that gets me focussed like it because it's tapping out of this sort of malaise, I got into my head of all I've got so much on stage, I'm never going to get it done. You listen to somebody who's overcome something or worked their way through something and you think I can totally get through my to do list. So I think as a resource YouTube, TED talks, anything motivational can be like a like a switch being flipped in a way that caffeine just can't do or exercised just can't do. And I encourage anyone and this is probably true for all of the things I'm going to recommend, don't necessarily go for the person or the subject that feels comfortable that there's a lot to be said for people who maybe you don't always align with because that's how you grow. That's how you expand your knowledge base by listening to someone who you know what it's like. You sort of get into that thing where you get into an echo chamber where the things that are fed to you via various platforms is all the same. Sort of people just prod outside of that a little bit and sort of search for somebody that you would never normally search for. I found a guest who eventually came on my podcast, Abipon Porous. She is former Secret Service agent, needs to look after Obama and the Clintons and the Bushes. And I was my background's ABC journalist. I would never have come across every otherwise. And yet listening to her talk about building an emotional defence mechanism was so valuable. And it was because I kind of needed a bit of a pick me up and thought, right, I'm going to find someone Secret Service agent. You say, let's see what she has to say.

Gemma Styles [01:01:04] Well, that's a good recommendation to start with anyway, as a as a watchman. And then we've got read and listen to.

Emma Gunavardhana [01:01:11] So listen to. I think it's another really brilliant one because it's it's passive learning, isn't it? That's why I loved podcasts and that's what made me start a podcast, because I loved the idea that you could be driving, walking, cooking, doing and doing pretty much anything else and you could be passively learning. So again, it's quite general. But I would say finding people who like take a minute just to search your preferred podcast platform, search a topic and find people that you've never heard of before. I find that to be a really valuable tool is that you can find people that you really admire already. There's nothing wrong with that. But it's just finding more people and finding someone with a slightly different perspective on a subject that you may already have a huge interest in. Like I'm sure we all, like a lot of my friends, love true crime, but they probably have about five or six favourites. And when you ask them why, they're like, oh, I like this one because it's about they tackle it from this angle on this one, because it's funny. I like this one because it's they always have a police chief on there or something. So find lots of different perspectives about a subject that you really, really enjoy is what I would say. And I think for me, when I started my podcast, I had been listening exclusively to Tim Ferriss, Joe Rogan, Lewis Howes hadn't intended for them to be all men, but they kind of were. But I was tapping into people who liked to talk to experts in their field. And that ended up, I thought, because I love that so much and because I felt really inspired by all of those conversations, even though I might have been listening to Triple H, The Wrestler talking about how he would overcome jetlag by immediately going to the gym the second he landed anywhere, I found that unbelievably entertaining. And I now whatever I do, travel, which hasn't been for a while, I will do some form of exercise as soon as I land because a Triple H, but I would never have gone into a broadcast platform and thought, I wonder what Triple H is up to these days. So I love the fact the podcast, the podcast, essentially podcasting essentially opens up the world to you, like you get to sit next to someone on a metaphorical train and spark up a conversation. And you would never meet that person in real life. Or maybe like there's a big chance you wouldn't necessarily mean that person in real life. And so I think you can have a really intimate insight into someone's motivation or whatever it is that you're looking for via a podcast platform. So, um, yeah, that would be my recommendation to search far and wide. And it's such a rich resource. It really is for sure.

Gemma Styles [01:03:55] Why are we up to reading? Reading. Oh, of course.

Emma Gunavardhana [01:03:59] Reading. So I read a lot and I'm not a natural born reader. So growing up in my house, my brother was the bookworm and I would sit and start reading and fall asleep because I am somebody who if I sit still, I just go in, I just fall asleep. I have to always be moving. So when I start to sit down and read, what that meant was and was about to start rebuilding and go and become unconscious and dream about becoming a backing singer with Guns and Roses, which is how I spent my youth. And actually I have fallen in love with reading to the point where and it was only recently that I was able to really understand why. And so my recommendation is read as much as you possibly can. I have this incredible woman, this author on the podcast recently called Francis Edmonds, and she talks about learning is just it's just making the world bigger, everything with every single word. And that as soon as she said that to me, I thought so true. Like the places I've been, the experiences I've had, the things I've learnt through books just there many, many lifetimes of experiences and knowledge that I just wouldn't be able to get under my own single lifetime onto my own steam. So my thing is to read as much as possible. And my recommendation actually isn't necessarily a book, but it's a method. So if you're listening to this and you have a massive to be read pile, which I always do, yeah,

Gemma Styles [01:05:24] my hands up, I just realised that. But yes, I do.

Emma Gunavardhana [01:05:27] So I get really intimidated by my TBR pile, really intimidated, and then starts to bully me from the other side of the room and silently tells me that I'm a failure because I haven't picked up any of the books. And after I have this conversation with Frances, I'm like, just organise yourself. So every week, start a new book and I start a new book, which is non-fiction, which I read either on my Kindle or I have the physical copy. And every week I also download an audio book and usually that is non-fiction, usually nine times out of ten. It's an autobiography and I read two books a week in tandem. And I thought when I set that goal, I thought, that's going to be ridiculous. You're not going to have the time. And it has been so easy because. Yeah, because I stopped seeing reading as a chore and I started seeing it as exploration. As travel. Yeah. So in the past three months, since I started doing that, I've seen the world through Matthew McConaughey eyes. And that is a trip like that. I have been on a journey with a doctor who was born in Afghanistan, who is now set up one of the most pioneering I mean, probably can win a Nobel prise for like one of the most pioneering medical innovations ever. I have hiked around the world with Sarah Wilson via her book and talked about climate change. I've listened to the world, according to Corey Feldman. And that was not what I was expecting. Yeah, and so I just think I've stopped seeing books as chores and started seeing them as experiences and it has tripled the amount I'm reading and not just the amount I'm reading. It's really amplified my enjoyment of them because I don't see them as things to do. I see I see them as experiences now. And I feel a bit sad about all those years when I used to fall asleep reading because it was always there. It was always right in front of me. So and it does it makes your world a lot bigger and it makes. It will put your thoughts into context, though, I mean, we've talked about mental health on the podcast. If you're feeling or going through anything, there's a chance you can find someone who's been through something similar who will offer you help, guidance, comfort, humour, any of those things. And so, yeah, I think I know none of those have been very specific, but I just I really do see any kind of consumption of video, audio or reading as a way to basically travel around the world and around someone's consciousness, which is just lovely.

Gemma Styles [01:08:05] Thank you for listening and thank you so much for joining me. If you enjoyed this episode, you can also head over to the unforgotten show, as I've just been a guest on her podcast do I'd love you to subscribe to get influence on whichever platform you're using. And if you've got an extra minute, you can leave a rating and a review as well. Your views make a big difference and help other people find the podcast. See you next week.