How Gopi overcame his anxiety and depression in a few months
When @Gopi and I first met, he was deeply struggling with pretty severe health anxiety, PTSD and panic attacks.
He was experiencing lots of symptoms, like:
Intrusive thoughts
DPDR
Mood swings
Depression
Sleeping issues
Digestive problems
And much more...
Gopi told me:
“My mind is in a stress loop since my first panic attack, it keeps repeating the trauma.”
And sadly, this is something I see very often. It starts with one bad experience (like a panic attack) which then puts people in a constant state of fear. Afraid of those intense sensations coming back.
Gopi felt like his life had become more about surviving than truly living, with anxiety negatively affecting literally everything, From his relationships to his job.
🆘 He decided to look for help
After trying many things (including different meds) without the results he hoped for, Gopi reached out. I could immediately tell how motivated he was to get his life back 🙏🏻 He told me he wanted to overcome his anxiety naturally, without having to take meds for the rest of his life.
🌙 His First Win: Sleep
Before we even started the program, I gave Gopi a simple tool to try: guided NSDR
He told me it was impossible to sleep more than 2 hours without waking up and that he hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in months 💤
Just 2 days later, I got this message:
“Thank you so much Matt, NSDR is really helpful. Now I can sleep.” 😴
After that, we started working on the 3-step program.
📚 Step 1: Understanding anxiety
The first step was to deeply understand how anxiety works in his body and brain. This is really important, since your brain can only solve a problem if it clearly understands what the problem is.
Nothing causes more brain-stress than not knowing what’s happening to you...
He learned that anxiety was not the enemy, it was trying to protect him. That mindset shift alone made everything feel a bit less overwhelming.
🛠️ Step 2: Tool Stacking
After that, we started adding more tools into Gopi’s routine, each with its own specific goal. A big part of this phase was focusing on dietary changes. He had been on meds for some time already, but most anxiety and depression medications work by artificially increasing serotonin levels, which over time can reduce your body’s natural ability to produce it. So when you stop taking the meds or lower the dose, you can end up with even less serotonin, giving you more anxiety and depression.
Since 90% of serotonin comes from our gut, we focussed a lot on diet changes. We implemented a ketogenic diet and added targeted supplements, including probiotics and vitamin D to increase serotonin production and magnesium for sleep and feeling calmer throughout the day.
We also worked on optimizing his light exposure ☀️. This included morning sunlight to help balance stress hormones, reducing bright artificial lights in the evening, and using blue light blocking glasses before bed to get deeper, more restorative sleep.
Another powerful tool Gopi used was cold therapy. This not only helped boost his mood but also significantly improved his stress tolerance, making it easier over time to handle anxiety triggers 🧊
Other strategies that worked well for Gopi were strengthening his social connections (especially within the community), practicing breathing exercises, and working out regularly 💪🏻
Within the first month of working together, Gopi had not only improved his sleep, but also started to feel like himself again, got his mental clarity back, could do things without anxiety and started stabilizing his mood!
🚀 Step 3: Exposure therapy
After making such great improvements, it was time to work on exposure therapy. This is where we trigger small amounts of anxiety to desensitize your brain and teach it that the anxiety is just a false alarm. This is how you reprogram your brain 🧠
Gopi started driving, going to busy places, walking in the park, speaking with people, but also used mental exposure by facing his anxious thoughts instead of pushing them away.
And this worked really well! 🙌🏻
There were definitely moments where things felt more difficult and new symptoms or feelings popped up, but that’s all part of the progress. The most important thing is that over-all things only got better.
After just a few months of consistent work, Gopi made some really great transformations. He went from being stuck in anxiety in depression, to reaching nearly a full month without significant anxiety symptoms!
💬 Recently he posted:
“For the first time after eight months, I feel like I'm back to my normal life. I thought my life would never be normal again, but thanks to Matt and this community, I live my life again.”
🏆 Gopi’s Achievements:
✅ Fixed his sleep
✅ Stabilized mood
✅ Significantly reduced intrusive thoughts
✅ Regained mental clarity
✅ Mastered exposure therapy
✅ Found joy again 😄
✅ Improved quality of life
✅ Got off meds
✅ Reduced depression symptoms
✅ Started enjoying social life again
✅ One full month anxiety-free!
Gopi's journey wasn’t easy and there were absolutely some difficult times, but all his hard work paid off in the end , and I’m incredibly proud of everything you’ve achieved @Gopi!🙏🏻
