Ruby Wax: Can Mindfulness Really Change Your Brain? | #077 Mastering Change

Can we really train our brains to respond differently to our thoughts? 

Ccomedian, author and mental health campaigner Ruby Wax joins Emma and Araminta for a characteristically funny and candid conversation about mindfulness, depression and the science of changing our minds. 

Drawing on her own experience or recurring depression alongside her studies in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy at Oxford, Ruby explores what mindfulness actually looks like in practice and why understanding it intellectually is very different from doing it. 

For Ruby, mindfulness is training. Our attention wanders, we notice it and bring it back. Then we do it again. Or, as she puts it: "Just like you get a six-pack if you keep going to the gym." 

From neuroplasticity and attention to loneliness, compassion and recurring depression, the conversation explores what happens when we stop expecting our minds to behave perfectly and start learning how to work with them. 

We explore: 

• Why Ruby's experience of depression led her from comedy to studying the mind at Oxford 
• What she has learned about recognising another depressive episode and why she no longer tries to fight it 
• Why a wandering mind doesn't mean you're bad at mindfulness 
• What neuroplasticity tells us about our capacity to change deeply ingrained patterns 
• Why understanding mindfulness intellectually isn't enough, even with a master's degree in it 
• What Ruby has learned about loneliness, compassion and our need for genuine human connection. 

Moment of Care: This episode discusses sensitive topics related to trauma, mental health and distressing experiences. If you feel triggered at any point, please take a moment to check in with yourself and seek support. 

Ruby Wax will be joining us at Transform Trauma Oxford this September for two sessions exploring mindfulness, trauma and the power of lived experience.

Get tickets here: https://mastersevents.com/oxford-2026/?utm_source=Podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=RubyWax%2FMindfulness%2FAugust2026

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/masteringchangepodcast

Follow us on instagram: www.instagram.com/masterseventsltd

Visit mastersevents.com/oxford-2026 for more details.