---
title: Episode 6 Depression, Anxiety & Stress
episode_number: 6
era: early
source_file: Episode 6 Depression, Anxiety & Stress.mp3
audio_size_mb: 55.4
duration_sec: 1816.7
duration_min: 30.3
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.999
transcribed_at: 2026-05-28T06:53:58Z---

# Episode 6 Depression, Anxiety & Stress

**Speaker 0:** Tom Torero podcast number six from wet, windy, and dark Moscow. Winter has come unannounced. The Indian summer is over. Tom has a croaky voice still, but I'm enjoying this melancholic autumnal mood, the season of mellow fruitfulness, an English poet once said. And it fits with today's topic, which sounds a bit heavy, doesn't it? Depression, anxiety, and stress. But we shall try and keep it human. We shall try and keep it practical and not life coach y, self developmental y, woolly ish. I'll talk about how I've experienced all three, depression, anxiety, stress, What I've done to manage it, what I'm doing rather to manage it because it's continuous. And how it links to daygame and flow and life beyond talking to girls during the day. But first, as ever, every podcast needs a cheesy upsell at the beginning. And mine is for my first book, daygame, which is available as a paperback from the link below. It's sold hundreds of copies all across the world. And even though it's a bit rough and ready, underground, with a few typos, I'm really proud of it because it documents my journey from a very nervous, shy, bullied, introverted boy who went to Oxford and became even more introverted, shy, bullied to where I am now. So it's my daygame journey and of course, it's got the lay reports. But guys interestingly email me and say that what they most enjoyed about the book was the first couple of chapters, which is, you know, the woe stories, the backstory, where I talk about why I was bullied and when I first experienced anxiety, panic attacks, clinical depression, stress from becoming a school teacher, and what I did to deal with it. So I'm gonna take those two chapters if you like and unpack them today and hopefully give you some insight into the real me, not just a YouTube face, but the real me. Guys like that vulnerability, I think, and this is not, a ploy to seem more human. This is a reaching out to all the people who email me, and I had an email today from a guy who wanted to know about depression and anxiety. And as I've said many times, daygame is a seduction of the self. We are we are doing this ultimately to quote unquote be happy. So we have every right to take a step back and think about, well, what is this happiness? What is this mythical nirvana? Which direction are we going in? Why are we doing all of this? And any nuggets we pick up along the way, we have to share. So I don't want it to come across as overly sentimental or too reflective, this podcast. I don't want it to be sickly sweet or as I've said many times, I don't like self development. I don't like life coaching. I don't like that American kind of glossy road to happiness, road to riches, which is which is just so un British if you like, and it's certainly so un me. So we'll talk about if if we really are looking for happiness or if we're looking for something else. That was a long episode, wasn't it? I'm kind of still talking about the book because the first two chapters describe the journey. But if you wanna know the rest of the story, click on the link. So let's get back to the three black dogs, as Churchill called them. Or you can see them all as the same thing because they really are, and that's depression, anxiety and stress. And obviously, humans have mood swings and we all feel low from time to time. But some people feel moderately low and then severely low, which is what we call clinical depression or anxiety or stress, where you go and see your doctor and they suggest you need some help. And that might be medication as a stop gap, which is very good if you really are deep down into not being able to cope or you logically know how to solve these things as we all do because the answers are pretty obvious but you just can't take action. You can't move yourself. Often physically out of bed, you feel sleepy, you feel like you've lost the meaning of things, nothing seems fun anymore, then going to the doctor is the first thing you have to do. Your family doctor, somebody you know or anybody who's trained in this, a psychologist. And first of all, just by talking about it, you'll feel a massive weight lifting off your shoulders even if it's just temporarily. And then they are qualified to talk to you about medication or talking therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy or books you can read or groups you can go to, things you can do. So I'm not trying to be your doctor. This podcast should not replace professional help and daygame certainly should not replace professional help. Because if you use daygame wrongly, it could make these things worse. So if you're sitting there and you feel like you've got any of those things severely, then please go and see your doctor. Email me, of course, if you want any further help or you just wanna tell me your story, let it out a bit, that often helps. But talking to somebody face to face, not via email or social media, that's a very primal, primitive, wonderful thing. And we'll come on to human contact later. But don't underestimate the power of just talking about what's going on in your head. Because for me, someone who's had depression and anxiety since the age of about 15, which was a result of that school bullying and just sticking my head in the sand with academia like an ostrich. So going to Oxford made it worse. And then developing stress where I had to have time off teaching because of stress. That was when I was about 25. For me, I feel these things coming and going like Churchill's black dog. It never really goes away. You're never really cured. There's no magic solution forever. It's part of the human psyche, isn't it, to feel happiness and joy and love at certain times in your life. And at other times in your life, to sit there and feel confused and alone and worried and scared. It's often healthy because they serve as little warnings or little kicks in the ass to change what you're doing. They're little red flags. But obviously, they can spiral out of control. And I feel the depression certainly is a fog or when I describe it to people, I've said it's like a a bell jar where everything sounds like I'm underwater and I can see what's going on but I'm not participating in it. And I had that feeling since I was a child that I'm watching life go by but I'm not in life. And it's very frustrating because once again, logically, I know how to get out but I can't pull myself out. So that triggers the lethargy, the feeling of hopelessness where you just wanna curl up in bed. I often just wanna sleep because that's the time when it goes away. And you learn over time as I've got older, not to try and eliminate it from your life, but to to to recognize it and to cope with it and to minimize it. But an introverted nature, a retrospective nature, a self reflective nature has positives, has upsides in that I'm I produce things when I'm alone. I get my energy from being alone. I like the quietness of being an introvert. That's when I do my work, when I work on my projects. I'm quite happy to travel alone a lot of the time. That just is my personality. And millions, billions of other people have the same personality. So it's nothing to feel guilty about. That's, I guess, why I don't like the life coaching self development stuff because they're suggesting you need to be need to change, you need to be positive all the time, you need to be happy, you need to be rich, you need to be successful. And if you're not, then something's wrong with your life. You're not living the Disney movie. But certainly in Europe and certainly in Britain, we have this self deprecating, dry, dark humor, which some people say is due to our climate, due to our genetic makeup. But we don't want everything to be all smiles and Ronald McDonald happiness. We like the the melancholic autumnal nature of our minds. So it's not something that I wanna eliminate because I don't think I can. But when it gets to being serious and affecting negatively other areas of your life where you can't do things, you need to get help. So I've already said about going to the doctor, getting medication or trying cognitive behavioral therapy, both of which I did, along with reading about solutions. And the solutions, quote unquote solutions are obvious because we all instinctively know them. When the doctor will say things to you like, do more exercise because that triggers endorphins. Eat clean, eat healthy. You are what you eat. We all know that instinctively. We know we need more sleep. We know we need to minimize our stress levels by being reflective, being in the moment, all that stuff. Going outside, being outdoors, traveling temporarily perhaps to change location, get a new perspective. Be grateful, forgive people, let go. Spend time with your friends, spend time with your family. Get human contact away from the internet and social media. Or simply immerse yourself in an activity. Happiness is immersion. I've often said that's that's flow. Look at my lecture on YouTube at the twenty one convention on flow, where we're looking at happiness not as an end goal, but as something we can cultivate through immersing ourselves in an activity, whether that's formula one racing or stamp collecting or talking to hot girls during the day. If like me, you accept that life has no official meaning, that there's no summit, there's no end point, that it's more like the tale of Sisyphus who had to endlessly push a rock up a hill. When he got to the summit, the rock rolled down again and he had to go back to the beginning and start again. The happiness is temporal and it's based on project completion or immersion or focus. So again, enjoying the process, enjoying the journey rather than the destination. These are famous life coaching quotes, but they all point to the same thing. In that, we shouldn't look for universal happiness, but we should enjoy where we are right now. And recognize that we have control. Sisyphus is pushing that rock. We control the weather in our own head or at least we can to a degree. We can recognize what's going on. That's the first stage, recognition. And the second step would be cultivation. So changing things as best we can to change that weather. A big thing for me was realizing that the prison feeling that I sometimes have in my head about being locked, being trapped in a situation, that is constructed by me. Reality is constructed by me. So therefore, the prison door is locked from the inside in that at any point, all I need to do is unlock the door and walk out of the prison. I need to give myself permission to do that. But we sit there, don't we? And we almost like our prison because it's comforting in that we've trapped ourselves and we say, well, I just feel shit. Life is just shit. My job is just shit. I can't do anything. I don't have any friends, therefore, woe is me when the realization that all we need to do is give ourselves the permission to walk out of that prison. That sounds so simple but has such massive implications. Nobody can do it for you, not even the doctor. The medication can give you a glimpse of what to do and the talking, the cognitive behavioral therapy is basically what I'm describing. It's taking this third person view and recognizing that there's triggers and causes and effects. But just knowing that is in itself liberating. Obviously what comes next is the gold, the money and that is taking action. As uncle Tom said a billion times, if you just sit around waiting for things to happen, they're not gonna happen. So by taking action, I massively changed my symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. And the big taking action in Oxford was becoming more sociable, joining clubs, finding a girlfriend and then leaving Oxford to go traveling with her. And then when I moved to London, the biggest action was that beginning of daygame as I talk about in my book, where daygame became my therapy. Because I was outside, breathing in air. There was sun on my face. I was exploring a beautiful city. But more importantly, and I've identified what was the secret of this therapy. It was me talking to random people, let's say 10 conversations a day, most of which in the beginning obviously lead nowhere. I was doing it indirectly on the steps of Trafalgar Square. But just by talking to other human beings, not via Skype or email or Facebook or Instagram but actually looking into their eyes and feeling this ancient primal human connection. Very quickly, would say within two to three months, I felt human. I felt like I was no longer just watching life but I was in life. And what a revelation that was. So really it had nothing to do with the sex or wild stories of lay reports and all that. It was just a simple process of sitting next to a pretty girl on a bench in Leicester Square talking to her, her smiling, looking at me in the eyes. Yeah, she might have given me an email or a Facebook back then, whatever. But just having those conversations, not being on my own in a room thinking about being sad or reading a book on being sad or even worse, doing nothing, know, wallowing in self pity. So leaving my prison literally, so by taking action, things inside changed. A big takeaway message from this podcast, if you're listening and you're in the situation perhaps I was in a few years ago where I felt unable to do anything, a big takeaway message is just changing a very small thing can have a snowball effect over time. And it's not gonna take you as long as you think. So even if you said, okay, I'm gonna have an indirect conversation with a pretty girl once a day, even if that's asking for directions or making chitchat in the coffee shop, just that one little act can snowball into a massive life change. So rather than mental masturbation of watching endless videos on depression or anxiety or reading about it, worrying about it, being alone and thinking about it, Just do one little thing, and you're gonna be shocked how other things follow. Once again, repeat, if it's serious, go and see your doctor. If you wanna email me and tell me a story, do that. If you wanna go out to Starbucks now and just talk to the male cashier even or the middle aged lady who's making you coffee or sit down next to the man on the train and have a chat about your city. And then just observe how you feel. Observe how differently you feel. Another simple exercise which I've just done here in Moscow is Skype my mother. And it's been a few weeks since I spoke to my mom. I chatted to her and after the ten minute conversation, just catching up. Again, what you're actually talking about doesn't really matter. Just that human catch up, could be with a friend, family member, you immediately feel better. Do not underestimate the power of human contact. We're not designed to be in these little cubicles in our rooms, locked onto our phones or our laptops or our tablets, watching endless series on the internet alone. This is completely against what our evolutionary biology has brought us up to be unconsciously, which is to be in tribes, it's to be social, it's to tell stories, it's to listen, it's to share, It's to touch. It's to look each other in the eye. Read that book that I talk about in Balas Buddha called love two point zero by Barbara Friedrichsen. I'll put the title below. It's subtitled, finding happiness and health in moments of connection. And that talks about this ancient need to look somebody in the eye, to be physically close to them, and share these moments. And when you do daygame, whether or not you get the number or she's married or it leads anywhere, you have these wonderful, magical moments daily, which some people only experience a few times in their lives. But by chatting to somebody during the day, you can make their day, it makes your day. It's win win. I've talked about this many times and how the irrelevance of going on a date and sleeping with that person becomes clear in that when the student comes back to me and says, oh, she didn't give me the number or she was married or it didn't really go anywhere. You're underestimating the power of what you just did. A, for you, because you just faced a fear, you spoke to somebody, you practiced a skill set, you opened up, hopefully you were real. And what it did for that person? Many times girls have hugged me or said thank you. There was one girl in Munich and it was just before I went to the airport and I was feeling a bit introspective, a bit low perhaps. So I thought I'll go and do a bit of daygame, daygame for my therapy. And the sun was setting, it was a summer evening and I stopped the girl and she was living with a boyfriend. We chatted about that for a bit and then all of a sudden, she just gave me a massive bear hug. And yeah, you could say, okay, Tom. Look at look at that as a sexual moment. But I felt it as an intensely human moment where we just hugged And she said, thank you so much for just that moment that she needed and I kind of needed it. And then we went on our way and I never got her contact details. We would never see each other again in our lifetimes. But it was a magical moment. So don't underestimate the power of that. That's what I mean by daygamers therapy. Other practical things you can do. Well, let's come back to the the oft quoted list. And rather than just thinking your way out of depression, I took practical steps even at the time of university and after university. So a big practical thing I did was get rid of the acne It was a big cause of my bullying. By acne, I don't just mean like tiny irregular spots that everybody has. I had these big blistering boils often around my mouth or between my eyes, around my nose. And they weren't just there when I was 13, 14, 15. They were still there weekly when I was 20, 21. So that massively affected my self esteem. And your parents, they want the best for you and they love you but my mom and dad just kept saying, it's normal, it will go away, everybody has them. And because they're your parents, you trust them. And I just assumed as a naive teenager that they would go away when really I should have been more honest to my parents about how crippling the effect was. I should have plucked up the courage. Back then there was no internet, there were no forums or groups that I could read about or information on this. I just thought acne would go away. But this was proper acne and after going to a dermatologist in my early 20s, he immediately put me on a magical drug called Roacutane. In other parts of the world, it has a different name but you can only get this from a dermatologist, not a local doctor. And yep, you go through three months of outbreaks and dry skin and a few other side effects. It has to be monitored because it can have impacts on your blood chemistry and your liver. But after that three months, the boils vanished and I have had odd spots here and there since but nothing like I had. So immediately that was a practical example of taking action, making a change and then positive psychology. Another one was the milk bottle glasses that I had, that was another cause of bullying. And by taking action, eventually ditching the glasses, first I had contact lenses, which massively improved my self confidence and then eventually I had laser eye surgery, which was good. Same with losing weight because on the anti depression medication, I put on a lot of weight, which is very common for antidepressants and I found it difficult to lose that weight. But through changing my lifestyle, meeting that girl traveling, the weight came off as well. So these are just examples of practical things you can do. These are not tangible, these are not woolly mantras, this is not pseudoscience NLP, this is real stuff you can do. Exercise, that's obvious. Changing your diet, that's obvious. Managing your stress levels. So going to see your doctor again. Finally, I went to the doctor. After months and months of stress at school, teachers have very high stress levels. And he said, Tom, you should have come a lot sooner. It's so obvious that you're just trying to cope when in fact what you need is to recognize that you have clinical stress and he immediately signed me off for two weeks. And just those two weeks of being able to reflect, read about stress, be away from the trigger which was the classroom at the time, combined with the depression and anxiety, they helped. And changing things at work, that helped. I shifted from a year group to a better year group and whatever, I took action. People helped me. And by doing day game, my stress levels have massively come down. So doing practical things like changing your location, this is a classic one. Just by going to another place, you don't have to go to Australia. You could go to a nearby city for the weekend or you could find a cheap ride or hitchhike or couch surf, go to a European destination just for a few days. A change of scene does wonders. Yep. It's not a permanent solution. And some people do say that travel is escapism. So you're just running away from your problems. But don't underestimate the power of zooming out from your situation, going somewhere wild, standing by the sea or standing by a lake or standing in awesome scenery or even just getting out of the place you are right now, that can work wonders. Daily gratitude. I know that sounds a little bit life coaching when you think about how lucky you are and what you've got instead of how unlucky you are and what you haven't got. Just by that small mental shift, that has a big impact certainly on many people. I do it unconsciously. People ask me do I do things like mantras? Do I do gratitude journals? Do I do meditation? Do I do yoga? The answer is no, no, no and no. If you know me, you've lived with me or you've done sessions with me, you know how how anti life coaching I am. But I do these things naturally like any human being would. And when I walk around doing daygame, yes, I reflect on the beauty of life and how lucky I am to have this job and people that love me and the family that I have and the friends that I have and the opportunities that I have. And yes, I'm present in the moment when I'm doing daygame. That's my mindfulness, that's my meditation. Yes, when I'm on a train, I try and shut down the thoughts from my mind but I don't believe that you have to formalize this, formalize this rather or formalize it. You don't have to go and buy a yoga mat. You don't have to say, I do meditation or I do mindfulness. These are all just fads, often money making internet marketing fads. Humans have existed perfectly well for millions of years by doing things like going into nature, communicating with friends and family, traveling, immersing yourself, getting sleep, eating well. These are things that you can do automatically. You don't need to spend a penny on them. So let this podcast remind you of that as well that the prison, like I said, the prison door is locked from the inside and you right now have the key. So one of the most powerful things somebody ever said to me was, Tom, I'm giving you permission to be happy. And again, such a stupid simple sentence. Somebody saying, I give you permission to be happy. But if you only take one thing away from this podcast, it's Tom gives you permission right now in this moment without needing anything else to be happy. You are allowed. You have a right to be happy. Not Disney happiness, but a sense of being human, a sense of being content, a sense of being warm. Even if you glimpse that now for two seconds and accept that things come and go, There's no summit of happiness. You might get that same feeling back in a day's time, a week's time, a month's time. And not to panic about it, but it will come back. Time is a wonderful thing. It will come back. And it ebbs and flows and the black dog paces around. The fog might come down temporarily, but that feeling of everything is okay, everything will be okay, and I'm allowed to be happy. That will come back. That will return. And that's the most powerful thing for me, that there's no permanent nirvana. There's no Disney ending. Like I said, there's no summit. There's just a recognition that things are what they are and that everything will be okay. And as I'm saying those words, they sound very woolly. I hope I've conveyed what's going on in my head. I hope I haven't downplayed how serious or debilitating these topics these subjects can be. I'm talking about managing them long term. If it's something chronic right now, you must tell somebody about it. If it's not your parents or your friends, go to a doctor. Go to an anonymous doctor if you don't wanna talk to your family doctor or send me an email. That's fine. I'm not a doctor, but I'm happy to be a listening ear. And what have I written on my list? I've said that you should also read, apart from Love two point zero, you should read a book called Finding Flow, The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. That's a book that helped me by the flow doctor himself, Mikhail Csikszentmihaly, like I talk about in the 21 lecture on YouTube, that's free on flow states. This book is the second book. The first book is quite scientific but this second book is just practical things you can do to engage with everyday life. Happiness is immersion. That book really helped me. So I'd read that along with Love two point zero to get you going. And I'd encourage you as ever to go out and do daygame. And even if it's not for sleeping with hundreds of women, take it as daily interactions, spontaneous, cool, random, quirky things that bring you into the moment. It's like throwing yourself into the cold water. It fucking wakes you up. There you go. That was podcast number six. Perhaps a bit woolly, but somewhere in there, hope there was some practical advice that will help somebody. Next podcast will probably be from London where I'm heading back to renew my visa and see my family and see my friends and get on with some projects, but I do love Moscow. I've got lots of stories to tell you from here, but that's for another time. Anyway, take care of yourself, and speak to you soon. Ta da.