A well-designed 10-minute online exercise can spark small reductions in depression. That’s the key finding of my team’s paper, published in Nature Human Behaviour.

Many people believe that to start overcoming depression, they need a therapist, medication or a radical change in their environment. However, our study shows that taking small steps to learn practical skills can lead to measurable improvements in depressive symptoms.

In 2024, my team and I took to social media to pose a question to the field of mental health: If you could get 500 people struggling with depression to give you just 10 minutes of their attention, how would you spend that time? We received 66 responses from people around the world, including scientists, mental health app developers, popular YouTubers and students.