Ruby Wax

Hope Springs with Annabel Heseltine

Ruby Wax is better known as a comedian and broadcaster with a reputation for interviewing celebrities and deviant politicians but her life changed in 2008 when she found herself in a psychiatric hospital. Today she's a mental health campaigner with a master's in “Mindfulness based cognitive therapy” from Oxford University, an OBE for her work campaigning for mental health awareness and an online sharing circle; called Frazzled café for people who are “stressed about being stressed”.

Whether its worrying news about the climate, super-charged social media messages or managing our mental health crisis Ruby advocates meditation practice as a tool for navigating 21^st century life and is on a mission to destigmatise one of the last taboo subjects. The author of five books with titles like I am not as well as I thought I was and How to be human both of which she turned into sell-out tours, the former with a monk and a neuroscientist, Ruby knows that by talking about her own experiences she opens the door for others to do the same, bringing the black dog out of the shadows. But still, she says she isn’t a mental health campaigner.

This podcast is bought to you by The Resurgence Trust.