Managing Depression With Mindfulness - by Andy Hobson

COURSE

Managing Depression With Mindfulness

With Andy Hobson

Over this 10-day course you will learn how to manage your depression using key mindfulness techniques and concepts. The aim of this course is to offer you new ways to recognise, manage and relate to the thoughts, body sensations and emotions that can contribute to depression.


Meet your Teacher

Andy has been meditating for over 17 years and has been teaching mindfulness to groups and individuals for eight years. He trained to be a mindfulness teacher at the Centre for Mindfulness, Research and Practice at Bangor University in the UK - an international centre for excellence in mindfulness training. He has a Certificate in Psychodynamic Counselling Skills from the BACP approved Manor House Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy and an Intermediate Diploma in Therapeutic Communications with Children from the London Metropolitan University. Andy has five year's experience supporting vulnerable children and their families, where he managed a holistic family therapy service at a primary school in London. Within this role Andy taught mindfulness to parents and carers suffering from anxiety and depression. This course is based on Andy's group mindfulness courses and his experience supporting parents and carers, as well as the arts based mentoring he offered to children at the school. Andy uses a gentle, empathetic, creative and light hearted approach to working with depression with mindfulness.

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10 Days

15.6k students

4.6 stars

16 min / day

Anxiety

English


Lesson 1

Reconnecting With Your Senses

Today we'll be exploring how depression arises for you in your body and in your thoughts, to get a clearer picture of what you're working with and how you are relating to your experience of depression at the start of this course. It's important to have a deeper sense of what you're working with in order to be able to begin the process of stepping back from it and managing it in a more helpful and mindful way.

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Lesson 2

Starting with Acceptance

Last session we explored how depression appears for you in your body and thoughts to get a clearer picture of how your experience of depression manifests. Today we're going to build on what you discovered about your relationship with depression by exploring acceptance. We can use acceptance as a way of stepping out of our internal battle with depression and change the way we relate to it.

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Lesson 3

Finding Your Safe Place

Last session you began the process of accepting your experience of depression as a way of stepping back from it. We can use acceptance to put yourself in a stronger position to begin working with depression using mindfulness. From tomorrow we'll begin the next part of our journey where we'll go into more depth into your experience of depression. Before we do this, it's helpful to have a safe place you can go when you come across strong emotions, thoughts or body sensations in meditation so today we're going to prepare for the rest of the course.

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Lesson 4

Getting To Know Your Depression

Last session we established a safe place we can go to when the going gets tough during meditation. Now you’re prepared and ready to venture a little deeper so today we’re going to get to know depression a little more through body awareness. Having more finely tuned body awareness means you’re less likely to react when challenging situations arise and more likely to respond, and therefore less likely to go down the usual paths that can lead to depression. You’ll also learn how playfulness, self kindness and imagery can change how you relate to your personal experience of depression.

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Lesson 5

Relating to your Inner Experience

Last session we began to go deeper into your awareness of your body in order to build the mindful skills you need to recognise depression early, so you can step back and begin to work with it. Today we're going to build on this further by seeking out positive and neutral experiences within your body. This is a way to begin treading new neural pathways which can help to break the depression cycle.

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Lesson 6

Your Relationship with Thoughts

Yesterday we continued exploring changing our relationship with our present moment experience by purposefully looking at the positive. Today we're going to continue building our mindful muscles of awareness by discovering how thoughts can shape our present moment experience. We'll also learn how we can begin to recognise negative thinking that can contribute to depressive mind states.

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Lesson 7

Freedom From Thinking

Yesterday we began to investigate how our thoughts can shape our present moment experience and how we can recognise negative thinking. Today we're going to build on this by learning how we can step back from negative thinking in order to see our thoughts more clearly, recognise the old stories in our heads and not follow them.

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Lesson 8

Breaking The Cycle

Last session we learned how to recognise and step back from negative thinking. Today we're going to build and expand on this by exploring how emotions show up in our bodies and how our mind can add an extra layer of judgement on our present moment experience. The more we tune into our bodies and become aware of thoughts the more likely we are to respond mindfully rather than react to how we're feeling and what we're thinking.

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Lesson 9

Going Beyond Depression

Yesterday we looked at the whole picture of our present moment experience and what we can add to challenging thoughts, emotions and body sensations. Today we're going to go a little further by exploring the possibility of befriending and surrendering to our experience of it. This is a very powerful way to change our relationship with and manage depression in a robust and meaningful way.

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Lesson 10

Mindfulness In Action

Yesterday we befriended and surrendered to depression as a way to take the charge out of it and change our relationship to it. Today we'll look back on the course and I will outline what we've covered. We'll also explore how to establish a daily mindfulness practice for depression and you'll learn how to cultivate a positive relationship towards yourself using mindfulness and kindness.

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Ask your teacher

This course includes 252 community questions and 163 audio replies from Andy Hobson. The community classroom and teacher audio replies are only available via the app.

252

4.6 (943)

Recent Reviews

Jk

February 5, 2026

Help guide me to understand how to manage my depression a little more. Very relatable, relaxing, and many good tips. Thank you

Becca

February 21, 2025

Thank tou so much! Be well 🥰

Joelle

December 12, 2024

I know dépression/low mood visits us regularly especially in winter but this course gave me some peace and respite and it is like receiving a massage, it's bliss while it last and little by little, it helps. Thank you.

Sue

December 12, 2024

What a beautiful course ❤️ I will be revisiting thus course as manage my winter blues. Thank you, Andy x

Candice

June 3, 2024

Thank you for putting this course out Andy. We often throw meds at our depression as our sole way to cope. I know I have. Making meditation a daily practice is showing me that we can have multiple tools in our toolbox to navigate the stormy bits… 🌊

Brian

April 19, 2024

The course gave me a different perspective - one I was working on - but had not yet arrived upon. Good course.

Leslie

March 12, 2024

Your voice is very calming, Andy, and your course is very gentle and soothing. You give the participants lots of choice, while also helping us build confidence. Whatever your own personal journey has been, your course has the authenticity of someone who has experienced depression first hand and who has learned how to manage it effectively. You also include a non-judgmental perspective, which is important for people going through depression. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us, Andy!

Jeanne

December 17, 2023

Sadness and depression are still with me but your soothing voice and words were calming. Thank you 🙏

Jamie

October 15, 2023

This course reminded me of simple (but not always easy) ways to sit with the complicated feelings of my anxiety and depression, with kindness and acceptance. I am truly grate for this course and Andy’s soothing, supportive presence throughout the teachings. 🙏🧡

Lori

September 26, 2023

Beautiful and helpful. Thank you, Andy.

Tonia

September 13, 2023

Easy pace and so gentle. 💕✨🙏🏻

Margie

August 10, 2023

Great take-aways from this course. Thanks heaps. 🙏

Rob

May 24, 2023

Great stuff Andy - Thank you

Khari

May 19, 2023

Very helpful.

Michael

April 17, 2023

Excellent

Audrey

April 4, 2023

Great start!

Ann

March 18, 2023

Just ok for me

Patrick

March 8, 2023

Enjoyed it. Thank you!!

Deb

February 24, 2023

I thought this course was very helpful. I went from feeling ok to feeling great by the end of the 10 days. I did it alongside some longer meditation 30 mins plus & felt a real benefit by the end. Thank you Andy you have the most calming voice

Natacha

January 14, 2023

Andy has such a great voice and helps you through difficult moments

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