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Speaker 1: Jersey and Amanda gam Nation.

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Speaker 2: Our next guest knows all about mental health. His TED

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Speaker 2: talks on depression and anxiety have been viewed by more

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Speaker 2: than ninety three or not I was gonna say ninety

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Speaker 2: three million people, more than ninety three million times. His

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Speaker 2: book Stolen Focus, which explains why we have a declining

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Speaker 2: attention span, had everyone talking last year and now all

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Speaker 2: his insights and knowledge will be coming to Australia for

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Speaker 2: a health and wellness festival called Viva Festival. Johann Hari,

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Speaker 2: Hi here he is.

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Speaker 1: I'm so happy to be with you guys again. Thanks

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Speaker 1: so much.

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Speaker 2: When we spoke to was it last year year before

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Speaker 2: about Stolen Focus? We had so much feedback on that,

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Speaker 2: and I know so many people have responded to that.

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Speaker 2: What was it that you tapped into that? People went, yes,

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Speaker 2: That's what I'm going through.

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Speaker 1: You know, we are living in such a huge crisis

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Speaker 1: of attention and focus and I could feel it happening

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Speaker 1: to me. Every year that passed, I could just feel

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Speaker 1: in my ability to pay attention deeply was getting worse

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Speaker 1: and worse. And you know this is happening to huge

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Speaker 1: numbers of people. The average office worker now focuses on

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Speaker 1: any one task for less than sixty seconds. What I

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Speaker 1: did for the book is I spent three years interviewing

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Speaker 1: the leading experts all over the world, from Melbourne to

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Speaker 1: Moscow about why this is happening and most importantly, what

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Speaker 1: we can do about it right, And I think the

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Speaker 1: most important thing that kind of broke through to people

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Speaker 1: is explain to people, you know, at the moment when

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Speaker 1: that's happening, like it was happening to me, we're all

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Speaker 1: blaming ourselves all we're getting angry with our kids. And

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Speaker 1: what I learned is, you know, your attention didn't collapse.

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Speaker 1: Your kids' attention didn't collapse. Our attention has been stolen

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Speaker 1: from us by some very big and powerful forces. But

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Speaker 1: once we understand what those forces are, we can begin

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Speaker 1: to defend ourselves and our kids and take our attention back.

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Speaker 1: And those forces in social media actually, you know some

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Speaker 1: things that really surprised me Jones. So I thought when

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Speaker 1: I started working on this that it were most be

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Speaker 1: a book about social media and our phones. So obviously

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Speaker 1: that is a huge part of what's going on. But

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Speaker 1: actually what I learned is there's twelve factors that can

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Speaker 1: make your attention better or can make it worse that

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Speaker 1: have been scientifically demonstrated, and social media and the Internet,

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Speaker 1: some aspects of the Internet. It's not all of it,

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Speaker 1: I just one of them. There's so many things going

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Speaker 1: on that are affecting our attention. The way we eat

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Speaker 1: is really negatively affecting our ability to focus, the way

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Speaker 1: our offices are designed, the way our kids schools are designed.

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Speaker 1: There's a really broad range of factors going on here.

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Speaker 1: So absolutely there's a lot to do with social media,

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Speaker 1: although it's a little bit more complicated than just all

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Speaker 1: the existence of social media. But actually there's just loads

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Speaker 1: of things going on here.

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Speaker 2: I thought it was interesting too. One of the main

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Speaker 2: causes of depression and anxiety you talk about in Lost

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Speaker 2: Connections is our disconnection from meaningful work. I really like

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Speaker 2: this notion because we're all told, are you working too hard?

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Speaker 2: You need to find more work life balance, but we

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Speaker 2: do need meaningful work to feel.

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Speaker 1: Oh, totally, you're so right. You know. One of the

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Speaker 1: big factors. There's nine big factors that are causing depression

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Speaker 1: and anxiety, and one of them is is if you

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Speaker 1: don't have control over your work. A lack of control

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Speaker 1: on what you do hour by hour is a massive factor.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's funny, A real moment for me when

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Speaker 1: thinking about depression. I'll never forget this. I went to

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Speaker 1: interview a South African psychiatrist called doctor Derek Summerfield, and

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Speaker 1: he happened to be in Cambodia in Southeast Asia in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and one when they first introduced the chemical

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Speaker 1: anti depressants in that country. They've never had them before,

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Speaker 1: and the local doctors the Cambodians said to him, well,

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Speaker 1: what are antidepressants because I didn't know, and he explained

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Speaker 1: to them and they said to him, we don't need antidepressants,

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Speaker 1: We've already got them. And he said, what do you mean?

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Speaker 1: And he thought they were going to talk about some

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Speaker 1: kind of like herbal remedy, like Saint John's War or something.

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Speaker 1: Instead they told him a story. There was a farmer

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Speaker 1: in their community who worked in the rice field and

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Speaker 1: one day he stepped on a land line and he

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Speaker 1: got his leg blown off. So they gave him an

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Speaker 1: artificial leg. They're good at that, and the guy went

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Speaker 1: back a few months later to work in the rice field.

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Speaker 1: But apparently it's very painful to work underwater when you've

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Speaker 1: got an artificial limb, and I'm guessing it's pretty traumatic

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Speaker 1: to go and work in the field where you got

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Speaker 1: blown up. The guy started to cry all day, He

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Speaker 1: refused to get out of bed. After a while, he

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Speaker 1: had what we would call classic depression. This is when

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Speaker 1: the Cambodians said to Dr Summerfield, well, that's when we

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Speaker 1: gave him an antidepressant. And he said what was it?

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Speaker 1: And they said, well, we went and sat with him,

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Speaker 1: We listened to him. We realized that his pain made sense.

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Speaker 1: You only had to speak to this guy for five

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Speaker 1: minutes to see why he was so distressed. They figured

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Speaker 1: if they bought this guy a cow, he could become

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Speaker 1: a dairy farmer. He wouldn't be in this position that

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Speaker 1: was causing him so much distress. So they bought him

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Speaker 1: a cow. Within a couple of weeks, is crying stopped.

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Speaker 1: Within a month, his depression was gone. They said to him, So,

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Speaker 1: you see, Dr Summerfield, that cow that was an antidepressant.

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Speaker 1: That's what you mean. Right, If you've been raised to

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Speaker 1: think about depression the way we have, that sounds like

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Speaker 1: a weird joke, right. I went to my doctor for

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Speaker 1: an antidepressant. She gave me a cow. Right. But what

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Speaker 1: those Cambodian doctors knew, totally intuitively, is what the leading

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Speaker 1: medical body in the whole world, the World Health Organization,

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Speaker 1: has been trying to tell us for years. If you're depressed,

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Speaker 1: if you're anxious, you're not weak, you're not crazy, You're not,

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Speaker 1: in the main a machine with broken parts. What you

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Speaker 1: are as a human being with unmet needs and you

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Speaker 1: need love and practical support to get those deeper needs met.

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Speaker 1: This could be a great thing. At the festival. You're

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Speaker 1: just handing out livestock.

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Speaker 2: You get a cow, you get a cow. This copy.

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Speaker 2: You've got an idea.

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Speaker 1: Your hand that does not deserve that laugh. Good job,

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Speaker 1: an turn.

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Speaker 2: Encourage you to buy tickets to Viva Festival. Head to

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Speaker 2: Viva Festival dot com dot au. John Harriet's always a treat.

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Speaker 1: Totally my pleasure. Cheers Cat wait to come to Australia again. Brilliant,

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much, See you, Matte