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This week we talk to Kevin Breel about depression
Kevin Breel is a 21-year-old writer, comedian, and activist for mental health. His work has been featured by NBC, CBS, The Huffington Post, MTV, CNN, The Today Show, Mashable and The Wall Street Journal. His passionate TEDx talk entitled “Confessions of a Depressed Comic” went instantly viral online- amassing millions of viewers and being featured on more than 200+ media outlets. Mashable called it “one of the moments that brought the world together” and the Huffington Post said the talk was “simply amazing.”
As a comedian, he’s performed in venues all across the globe; including the House of Blues, Rogers Arena and the historic Colosseum. As a mental health activist, he’s a National Spokesperson for the Bell LET’S TALK Campaign and has been a guest speaker at Ivy League schools and billion dollar companies.
His first book, available now, is called Boy Meets Depression: Or Life Sucks and Then You Live
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In This Interview Kevin and I Discuss…
- Still wrestling with depression
- His viral Ted talk
- Learning to build the skill set to handle depression
- Defining our emotional landscape
- The benefits of waking up early
- The power and stabilizing force of a routine
- The importance of honest conversations with others
- Taking care of the physical body to help with depression
- Learning to recognize when were taking a turn for the worse and knowing how to respond
- Turning to our positive habits not only when things are good but when things start to go bad
- Resisting the urge to hide or isolate when things go bad
- The stigma of depression
- That in order to do well we don’t have to ignore what’s wrong
- The ridiculous expectations we put on ourselves regarding happiness
- Allowing ourselves to have a human experience
- How we are all on a spectrum of mental health
- Not basing our identity on our mental health
- How the less we talk about things the more alone we get
- Running into our pain and sharing it versus running away
Kevin Breel Links
Emily says
I LOVED this episode. I was working on getting out of a funk when I listened to it while running this last weekend. It’s going to be one I go back to on the regular.
thank you!
Eric Zimmer says
Emily….I’m so glad you enjoyed it and that it was useful to you.