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How Neuroplasticity Could Help with Depression, with Ruby Wax | Big Think

Big Think | November 11, 2025



How Neuroplasticity Could Help with Depression, with Ruby Wax
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Ruby Wax put her comedy career on hold a few years ago in order to research mental illness and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy at Oxford. It’s there that she first encountered neuroplasticity: the ability to rewire your brain just by changing the way you think. Wax, who sports a Master’s in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, now travels the world promoting mental health awareness and stigmatization. Her new book is titled “Sane New World.”
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RUBY WAX:

Ruby Wax is an American born, naturalized British comedian and author. She is a classically trained actress, well-known interviewer, and renowned mental health advocate. In battling her own depression, Wax put her career on hold to research the workings of the mind. She earned a master’s degree in mindfulness based cognitive therapy from Oxford University in 2013 and has since authored a book, Sane New World.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Ruby Wax: About eight years ago in the U.K. I was outed by a mental health charity because they asked me if they could take a photo of me to raise money in one of their little, you know, pamphlets. And I said yeah and I thought it was going to be a tiny fingernail clipping of a picture but they were huge posters all over the U.K. – gigantic. And I looked like a Lithuanian peasant and it said on it – I don’t know who wrote this – one in four people have mental illness, one if five people have dandruff. I have both. I mean, you know, mortified. So I thought you know what I’m going to do. I’m going to write a show and I’m going to make that look like it’s my publicity poster.

So I did write a show and I did it in mental institutions for the first two years. And I think they liked it. Well I couldn’t tell because they weren’t always facing me. And then I made a joke. I said the bipolars used to say I laughed, I cry. And really if you can make a psychotic laugh you’re halfway to Broadway. What happened was then we would have – I would do my show. Then we’d have a little bit of a lunch break and we used to steal food from the anorexics because they didn’t mind. And then we’d come back. We’d have a discussion, fabulous discussions – I won’t even go into their questions.

Oh, P.S., I wasn’t talking down to them because they knew I was of the tribe, okay. So you know how people go, “How’d you do that?” I was one of them. So then the show took off and I did it in all theaters. In Australia, in Capetown, in London. Everywhere I did the show and the audience would ask me the same questions and it became a kind of – even for a thousand people one guy would stand up and he’d say, you know a real butch guy – I’ve been on antidepressants for 20 years. I’ve never told my wife and she was sitting next to him. And it was like the Muppets in there like people would be beside themselves, you know, where do I go? How do I get help? And sometimes it was heavy, you know. One woman said I have cancer and depression and I said, “Well, which is worse?” And she said well with the cancer all I wanted to do was live and with the depression I just wanted to die. Other people were quite funny. So this became a walk in center. And on my days off I would use it as a walk in center and I’d bring in doctors and neuroscientists and invite people off the street and have a whole army of therapists so they could get help, bully for me. You know we needed a kind of AA, have it so organized. And this is like, you know, how did they get it together? They’re drunks.

So I made this a walk in center. And then what happened was I had a depression. It doesn’t define my life. Seven years ago I had a really bad one. I ended up on kind of a chair for a few months. Let me just say people think I’m just going sideways. That depression is about having a bad hair day or your cat left town. It isn’t sad. Nothing to do with sadness. It’s like your old personality slowly leaves town and you’re left with a block of cement which is you. I mean it’s like being in hibernation but you can’t wake up. And so I ended up in a chair. To take a shower was unimaginable. I didn’t tell anybody….

To read the transcript, please go to https://bigthink.com/videos/ruby-wax-on-neuroplasticity

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Comments

This post currently has 20 comments.

  2. @ChannelMath

    November 11, 2025 at 5:47 am

    an anecdote from a nonexpert does not a "big think" make. This is sad (no pun intended)
    "why don't people know this?" WE DO! those of us with a history of depression anyway. Those without don't NOT know it, they've just haven't had to think about it. But it's not like anyone thinks "oh, depression is totally inherited and unavoidable!"
    And she's just giving us the good news, anyway. The bad news is the longer you have it the more likely it gets permanantly burned into your brain circuits. (Of course, anything has a CHANCE of reversing. I could start a brilliant career playing classical music at 45.)

  20. @tiffanyearls9953

    November 11, 2025 at 5:47 am

    neuroplasticity is how the brain can change. when some one was once well or happy but becomes depressed is because they become custom to situations  atmosphere that make them stress or sad and because of no change in  the environment they become depressed. once the brain becomes wired that way its hard to unwire but it can be done by change and with out medication. this is a  thought I have and a theory but because of my own personal experience. my question is has this been proven in any way?

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