Do you love TED Talks as much as we do?
There’s nothing like feeling inspired and captivated in 18 minute segments of compelling video by world-class speakers.
So we’ve sourced 26 of the best TED Talks we could find on mental health for your enjoyment.
There’s a lot of viewing here – 7.8 hours to be precise – so take your time and dive into the ones that capture your interest and learn more about mental health from these TED speakers.
In no particular order, here are the 26 best TED Talks on mental health.
1. Guy Winch: Why we all need to practice emotional first aid
In this TED Talk by Guy Winch, Guy says people see a doctor when they feel sick but fail to seek the assistance when they are in emotional pain such as feeling guilt, hurt or loneliness.
In this talk he discusses:
- Why it’s so common that people deal with psychological-health issues on their own.
- The convincing case for practicing emotional hygiene – taking care of our emotions and our minds with the same diligence we take care of our bodies.
- How loneliness can create a deep psychological wound.
- The need for awareness of how our minds reacts to failure.
Watch the video below.
2. Faith Jegede: What I’ve learned from my autistic brothers
In this TED Talk by Faith Jegede, Faith shares her story of growing up with her two brothers, both who are autistic and extraordinary.
In this talk she discusses:
- Why everyone should pursue an extraordinary life.
- Individuality, communication and love – these are things that Faith wouldn’t want to change with normality.
- The value of having our own gifts and differences. The fact that we are different doesn’t mean that one of us is wrong, there are just different kind of rights.
Watch the video below.
3. Thomas Insel: Toward a new understanding of mental illness
In this TED Talk by Thomas Insel, Thomas stresses the importance of early detection and early intervention in the treatment of mental illness.
In this talk he discusses:
- Mental disorders and diseases of the mind.
- Brain disorders – depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia.
- For Brain disorders – behaviour is the last thing to change.
- Why we always overestimate when change will occur and underestimate the change that will occur.
Watch the video below.
4. Russell Foster: Why do we sleep?
In this TED Talk by Circadian neuroscientist Russel Foster, Russell studies the sleep cycles of the brain and its role in our lives.
In this talk he shares three popular theories:
- Why we sleep.
- Myths about how much sleep we need.
- Hints at some bold new uses of sleep as a predictor of mental health
Here are a few quotes from his presentation:
- “Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.”
- “O sleep, O gentle sleep, nature’s soft nurse, how have I frightened thee?”
- “Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.”
- “Sleep is for wimps.”
- “Money never sleeps.”
- “Sleep is God. Go worship.”
Watch the video below.
5. Kevin Briggs: The bridge between suicide and life
This TED Talk is by Golden Gate guardian Kevin Briggs, who retired from the California Highway Patrol after 23 years of service. Of those 23 years, most were spent guarding the Golden Gate Bridge – a magnet for suicide.
Joseph Strauss, chief engineer in charge was quoted as saying, “The bridge is practically suicide-proof. Suicide from the bridge is neither practical nor probable.”
In this talk, Briggs stresses to do the following when it comes to suicidality:
- Don’t just talk, but listen.
- Don’t just to listen, but seek to understand.
- Don’t argue, don’t blame or to tell the person you know how they feel.
- Just be there!
If you think someone is suicidal, here are signs to look for:
- Hopelessness.
- Believing that there is nothing that you can do about it.
- Recent social withdrawal.
- Loss of interest in life.
Watch the video below.
6. Joshua Walters: On being just crazy enough
In this TED Talk by a bipolar comedian Joshua Walters, Joshua walks the line between mental illness and mental skillness. He asks, “What’s the right balance between medicating craziness away and riding the manic edge of creativity and drive?”
In this talk Joshua discusses:
- Your drive to do something that everyone has told you is impossible.
- Manic – not full bipolar, where on one side maybe you think you’re Jesus and on the other side maybe they just make you a lot of money.
Being diagnosed with a mental illness doesn’t mean you’re crazy – just sensitive to what most people can’t see or feel.
Watch the video below.
7. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz: What veterinarians know that physicians don’t
In this TED Talk by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, Barbara shares how a species-spanning approach to health can improve medical care of the human animal – particularly when it comes to mental health.
She discusses:
- The difference between giving an animal medication or a human disease.
- How physicians and veterinarians are essentially taking care of the same disorders in their animal and human patients – CHF, brain tumors, leukaemia even psychiatric syndromes like depression, anxiety and compulsions.
- Physicians medical approach vs veterinarians holistic approaches.
- How some of the best and most humanistic medicine is being practiced by doctors whose patients aren’t humans.
Watch the video below.
8. JD Schramm: Break the silence for suicide attempt survivors
In this TED Talk by JD Schramm, JD asks us to break the silence surrounding suicide and suicide attempts, and to create much-needed resources to help people who reclaim their life after escaping death.
He breaks the silence of suicide survivors and discusses:
- How his life was going very well, but despite all the opportunities, he was struggling and fighting addiction and a gripping depression.
- How there are very few resources available for someone who has attempted to end their life once they commit to put their lives back – first physically, then emotionally, and then spiritually.
- The importance of getting help and that it gets better – way better.
Watch the video below.
9. Ami Klin: A new way to diagnose autism
In this TED Talk by an Autism Researcher Ami Klin, Ami defines a new early detection technique that uses eye-tracking technologies to gauge babies’ social engagement skills and reliably measure their risk of developing autism.
In this talk, he discusses:
- What is autism?
- How autism begins with the beginning of life.
- New technologies that are based on eye tracking and the measures created.
- How individuals with autism can be free from devastating consequences that come with it at times – profound intellectual disabilities, lack of language, profound isolation.
- How some individuals work extremely well in some areas of strength such as artistic abilities.
Watch the video below.
10. Andrew Solomon: Love, no matter what
In this TED Talk by Andrew Solomon, Andrew asks what’s the line between unconditional love and unconditional acceptance?
In this talk he discusses:
- Unconditional love – how much love can there be even when everything seems to be going wrong?
- Unconditional acceptance – what are the levels of acceptance?
- The joy of unbearable responsibility and how it conquers everything else.
He says: “The love you have for your children is like no other feeling in the world. And until you have children, you don’t know what it’s like.”
Watch the video below.
11. Vikram Patel: Mental health for all by involving all
In this TED Talk by Mental health care advocate Vikram Patel, Vikram outlines a highly promising approach to mental health by training members of communities to give mental health interventions and empowering ordinary people to care for others.
In this talk Vikram shares:
- Why suicide is the leading causes of death in young people in all countries in the world.
- What is DALY.
- The benefits of task shifting – use whoever is available in the community and train them to provide a range of health care interventions.
- 5 key lessons that are critically important for effective task shifting.
- Why we need to stand together, shoulder-to-shoulder, and advocate for the rights of people with mental illness to receive the care that can transform their lives.
Watch the video below.
12. Laurel Braitman: Depressed dogs, cats with OCD — what animal madness means for us humans
In this TED Talk by Laurel Braitman, Braitman asks what we as humans can learn from watching animals cope with depression, sadness and other all-too-human problems.
In this talk Laurel discusses:
- How she discovered that animals can suffer from mental illness.
- How trying to identify mental illness in animals often helps us be better friends to them, which can also help us understand ourselves.
- Why fear and anxiety are extremely helpful animal emotions.
- Some of the funny ways that dogs can develop compulsive behaviour.
- The importance of viewing creatures with their own individual weather systems guiding their behaviour and informing how they respond to the world.
Watch the video below.
13. Eleanor Longden: The voices in my head
In this TED Talk by Eleanor Longden, Eleanor tells the moving tale of her years-long journey back to mental health, and makes the case that it was through learning to listen to her voices that she was able to survive.
She discusses:
- How her voices helped her communicate about emotions, which were remote and inaccessible.
- How her voices were a symptom of fear.
- How her mental illness was a meaningful response to traumatic life events.
- How the human animal has an innate capacity to heal and the intellectual spirit to harness this instinctual capacity.
An inspiring quote from this talk:
“Sometimes, you know, it snows as late as May, but summer always comes eventually.”
Watch the video below.
14. Jim Fallon: Exploring the mind of a killer
There is no denying that in our modern world today, crimes and murder cases and mass killings have an amazing exponential growth. Even more worrisome is the fact that violent killings are done by psychopaths and they commit more the 30% of violent crimes and killing spree.
This talk is about Psychopathic killers and what led them to do such horrifying acts. Science proved that psychopaths have different brains compared to normal people.
In this TED Talk, neuroscientist Jim Fallon discusses:
- How serial killers have severe brain damage due to bleeding in their orbital cortex or a part of the temporal lobe.
- How getting the major violence genes is sex linked.
- How excessive amount of serotonin can help in passing the gene from the mother to son.
- How different types of brain scans and genetic analysis can be used to check if our kids have the bad gene.
Watch the video below.
15. Shane Koyczan: To This Day… for the Bullied and Beautiful
It seems that we have been hearing an awful lot in the news over the past few years about bullying. Bullying in children is very common and it can be relentless and cruel. Sadly, there are few of us who have not experienced bullying at some point in our lives.
In this TED Talk, Shane Koyczan, who was a victim of severe bullying, relates his story about how he was bullied at school.
In this talk he discusses:
- The different forms of bullying.
- The emotional effect of being rejected by parents.
- What it’s like being bullied at school.
- How to stand up for yourself without using violence.
Watch the video below.
16. Ruby Wax: What’s so funny about mental illness?
You can gain the people’s sympathy if you are sick physically but not if you have mental illness. Mental illness is a scary subject for many of us but it can happen to anyone. Even worse, the lives of those who are suffering from the disease are often plagued by stigma and discrimination of the society.
Well-known comedian Ruby Wax, who was diagnosed with clinical depression 10 years ago discusses how we can put an end to social stigma on people who have mental illness.
In her talk, she covers the following topics:
- Potential causes of mental illness: traumatic events and disease.
- What to do when you start hearing voices which are not real.
- Why people with mental illness always have an active mental imagination?
- How to deal with the social stigma of mental illness.
Watch the video below.
17. Sherwin Nuland: How electric shock therapy changed me
Depression is so painful that those who suffer from this condition will do virtually anything to ease and cure the pain even to the extent of undergoing shock therapy, which is also known as electroconvulsive therapy or ECT.
In this talk, Sherwin Nuland who has experienced the benefits of ECT shows us how ECT was developed and helped him.
The following topics are covered:
- The history of Electric Shock Treatment.
- The advantages of ECT.
- How this therapy works.
- His personal experience of ECT.
Watch the video below.
18. Oliver Sacks: What hallucination reveals about our minds
Hallucinations can occur in any sensory system. They provide neuroscientists with clues about the hidden workings of the brain.
In this talk, Temple Grandin relates the story of her old patient who suffers from Charles Bonnett Syndrome, in which a visually impaired person will experience lucid hallucinations.
He covers the following:
- Describes the experiences of his patient in detail.
- Provides scientific explanation about the disease.
- Why the disease was named after Charles Bonnett.
- Explains Charles Bonnett Syndrome in a nutshell.
Watch the video below.
19. Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability
There are many challenges to face when life itself can complicate how we feel. Do you yearn to be free authentically?
In this talk, Brene Brown discusses vulnerability as the pathway to lasting connections and liberating of the true self.
She discusses:
- Connection – the main reason to why we are here.
- How shame affects our ability to connect with people.
- How vulnerability works
- Why people who believe that they are worthy have strong sense of love and belonging.
Watch the video below.
20. Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds
Today, medical research is still in the process of understanding how autism develops and why it affects certain individuals. While most people understand how autism affects the brain, yet nobody can determine the real cause of the disease.
As a child, Temple Grandin was believed to be autistic. In this talk she shares about how her brain works like being able to think visually which helps her in solving challenges in which normal people are not able to do.
In this TED Talk Temple shares:
- What is autism?
- The different types of autism: musical, visual and verbal.
- How autistic people think.
- Autistic people compared to animals.
Watch the video below.
21. Elyn Saks: A tale of mental illness – from the inside
Suffering from schizophrenia is a relentless battle. Having this disease does not really mean the end of a normal life. At the beginning, it will take some time to learn how to manage the condition to lead a normal life.
In this TED Talk, Elyn Saks tells us her story of how she fully recovered from being psychotic and got back to her fulfilling, productive and creative life.
She shares:
- Her journey to being a psychotic.
- What is schizophrenia?
- The signs and symptoms and schizophrenia.
- The road to her recovery from schizophrenia.
Watch the video below.
22. Robert Gupta: Music is medicine, music is sanity
As we all know, music can heal both the body and the mind. But how does music pull back a schizophrenic into the realm of sanity?
Robert Gupta, a renowned violinist shares his encounter with a brilliant, schizophrenic musician (Nathaniel) and how he helped transform this disturbed man into a charming, Juliard-trained musician.
In this talk you will learn about:
- Music as a therapy.
- Robert’s encounter with Nathaniel.
- Nathaniel’s background in music.
- Nathaniel’s reaction to music.
Watch the video below.
23: Jon Ronson: Strange answers to the Psychopath test
Let’s face it – people tend to put labels on each other. Unfortunately, if there are people we don’t like, we call them psychopaths. The question is, have you been mislabeled by someone? Can we distinguish sane from the insane?
In this TED Talk, Jon Ronson discusses:
- Madness and obsession of all kinds.
- Capitalism and psychopathic behaviour.
- The definition of psychopath.
- How to find grey areas in a world that doesn’t like grey areas
Watch the video below.
24. Johann Hari: Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong
Our world is filled with different temptations from clothes, chocolates, sweets or watching pornography and drugs. Basically addiction can be material and fantasy that distracts your attention and takes your thoughts away and can form a temporary need or desire.
In this TED Talk, Johann Hari highlights that too much of anything is bad. Every form of addiction is bad, whether it’s drugs, idols, the internet or smartphones.
Addiction can destroy your life. But we have the ability to change and recover from addiction that is holding us to become the best we can be.
In this talk Johann discusses:
- What is addiction?
- The different forms of addiction.
- The impact of patients on medication.
- Addiction vs connection.
Watch the video below.
25. Morgana Bailey: The danger of hiding who you are
In this brave TED Talk, Morgana Bailey speaks four words that might not seem like a big deal to some, but to her have been paralysing. Why speak up? Because she’s realised that her silence has. In front of an audience of her co-workers, she reflects on, and how it makes us judge ourselves.
In this TED Talk Morgana Bailey discusses:
- The personal, professional and societal consequences of hiding.
- What it means to fear the judgment of others.
- How fear makes us judge ourselves.
- Coming out to yourself and the journey to self-discovery.
Watch the video below.
26. Est Soler: How we turned the tide on domestic violence (Hint: the Polaroid helped)
Those who live in an abusive and violent environment have scars that run deep. Domestic violence is any behaviour that is threatening or violent and it can be physical, psychological or financial violence. And the impact on women who suffer from domestic abuse is staggering.
In this TED Talk, Esta Soler discusses:
- The 30 years of tactics and technologies that led to a 64% drop in domestic violence in the U.S.
- How the Polaroid camera and social media have helped reduce domestic violence.
- The best way to solve domestic violence: empowerment of women, healing hurt kids, and prevention.
- The importance of public education to campaign about domestic violence on women
Watch the video below.
