The “raw chaos” of experience

Watch the video here

Perception, action, and intention don’t just passively receive reality; they impose structure on it:

• Perception filters incoming stimuli into recognizable patterns.
• Action gives a sense of agency and continuity (“I did this, now this happened”).
• Intention projects us into the future, linking present choices to imagined outcomes.

All of this creates the experience of a coherent, mostly ordered world.

What happens if the structuring is “bad” or “random”?

If instead of organizing experience with useful, reality-tracking concepts (e.g., cause–effect, self–other), one imposes maladaptive or chaotic concepts (e.g., catastrophizing, self-blame, constant threat perception), the whole “narrative” of life gets distorted.

For example:

• Anxiety primes the nervous system to scan for danger.
• This changes how stimuli are perceived (ambiguous cues seem threatening).
• Time can feel compressed (“always on edge”) or fragmented (“I can’
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Three Daily Practices That Help You Break Free from Anxiety and Depression

If you live with anxiety or depression it can feel as if life is happening to you rather than with you. Thoughts, feelings and behaviours appear on autopilot, leaving you exhausted, worried or flat. Yet there is a way to begin shifting these patterns from the inside out. In my work I call this approach Awakening, Growth and Control – three simple practices that together create a foundation for better mental health.

1. Awakening: Noticing the autopilot

The first practice is Awakening. This means deliberately noticing your inner world: your thoughts, emotions, and body sensations in real time. Anxiety and depression thrive in automatic loops – anxious predictions, self-critical thoughts, ruminating about the past. By practising small moments of awareness you begin to interrupt those loops.

Practical tip: Pause three times today and silently say, “I am here now.” Notice what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling...

Self-confidence is a critically important element in a successful life. Without it life is much harder and with it life is much easier. From many years experience in helping people to become more self- confident I have collected the fundamental rules that govern how self-confident you are. 

This video explains everything you need to know to be more self-confident.

I recently visited Venice and it's just impossible to be there and not absorb the remarkable history and uniqueness of the place. All art is about creating something from nothing, from your imagination. Sure you can start with something you see in external reality but this is not essential. Art is creativity in action. The Art of Anxiety is also a story about creating something from nothing. But with The Art of Anxiety, you are not using your creativity for good, you are using it for ill. This does not help you in any way but it is also pointless. Follow me as I take you a bit deeper into Venice and explain how to become a master at The Art of Anxiety. If you want to become a master at not being anxious, then this link will show you how to do everything you need to do to use your creativity for the good of you and those you love.

Everyone I have ever spoken to about anxiety seems to think it has legitimate reasons to exist. I don't!. Anxiety is the experience of fear without a threat. Your brain can imagine a threat and this can make you feel anxious. But, the question you need to ask is this:- do I actually have a threat NOW that warrants my fear response NOW? Or, am I imagining something might happen in the future that would be horrible but has not actually happened! Do you recognize the fundamental difference? One will take you down the route of constant anxiety and the other will free you from it.

I have made a video that explains this in a great deal more depth.

Watch the video here.

It can be oh so easy to become engulfed in negative unpleasant symptoms of depression and anxiety. And it can be oh so easy to look for a quick and easy solution. So I looked into the science of how long it takes to recover from anxiety and depression and I show you what the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have to say. NICE is the definitive opinion on matters of health and wellbeing so it is worth taking their assessment of the science seriously.

Please take a look at this video and consider that in your own life everything worthwhile took some time and effort to achieve.

It is not a huge amount of time, really, especially given how long you might suffer and just 'suck it up'. It is just a bit of time and commitment over a few months. That's all and that will do it.

The Anxiety Wizard Active Self Help Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) Program will do it for you. 

Best wishes

Dr David Purves

Anxiety is created by your brain and can only be solved by your brain, but here is the problem. Anxiety is a mistake made by your brain. So unless you do something different it is quite possible that nothing can change.

The first mistake creates others and you get trapped in a loop of mistakes that feed on each other. To be free of anxiety you must learn what these mistakes are and then teach your brain to stop making them.

The first mistake your brain makes is that it creates the experience of fear without an actual threat! Think about it, the next time you are anxious as yourself...do I need to be anxious? 

The second mistake your brain makes builds on the first. Your brain assumes that you are anxious because something in your external world must be threatening. The leads you to start avoiding things that are actually safe. The result is that you start organizing your life around anxiety instead of teaching your brain not to be anxious.

The third mistake is the result of the pr...

There are few thing more unhelpful than a self destructive mindset. I am sure we can all agree about that. But, what might a self destructive mindset look like. Well, it looks like self limiting beliefs in action. In this video I talk about how self limiting beliefs are formed, how to recognize them and then how to transform them.

This is powerful stuff that can release you from a self imposed prison of unhappiness.

Our lives are mostly run on autopilot. And thank goodness, because the simplest of human tasks is often far beyond the most complex robot so far constructed. Also, a huge benefit of having things run on autopilot is that we don't have to spend any of our precious consciousness to manage it. Consciousness can be left to manage more complex problems such as where to park the car or what to eat for dinner. But Zombie programs can also cause serious problems. And without some awareness of this fact, they can smoothly and effortless lead you into depression and anxiety. Using your consciousness, which is your only remedy, will not even be an option because it will not even by alerted that there is a problem going on. This subtle slide into mental health problems, driven by Zombie systems probably accounts for the majority of cases of anxiety and depression in the world today. This video explains how this happens and what you can do about it.

Of all the novel things you can do on holiday, surely taking a flying lesson has to be one of the strangest. Yet doing anything different is a great way to challenge and ultimately eradicate depression. Your brain is always looking for change, difference and novelty. You don't have to go flying to lessen depression simply change your routine and get out of the rut. In this video I take you over the 1000 islands in Canada but I also talk about really small ways you can take back control from depression.