Friday, March 22, 2024

Ways To Help Depression Without Drugs

Fulfill Your Sleep Needs

Managing depression without medication

Its very common to find symptoms of insomnia with depression, after all, one ailment makes way for another. And we know, from your point of view, its very tough to have a sound sleep. But, sleep is an essential part of life that needs to be fulfilled to maintain a perfect harmony.

Practicing exercise, meditating daily, and possessing a healthy food habit work better with fulfilling the sleep quota. Also, dont take short naps, and avoiding blue light before one hour of sleep will help grease the pathway to deal with depression without medication.

St Johns Wort: A Possible Herbal Solution

St. Johns wort is a popular herbal treatment for depression in Europe. American physicians are more divided about its usefulness.

According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine , St. Johns wort doesnt appear to be effective in treating major depression. But it may benefit people with mild-to-moderate forms.

St. Johns wort may have serious interactions with medications, herbs, and supplements. To be safe, always consult your doctor before taking it.

Add Structure To Your Life

Having any tenacious ailment, whether on the level of body or mind, breaks the essential structure of life. And, slowly, these things start moving as a loop, making it hard to break them.

So, maintaining a good structure in life is an essential step to dealing with depression without medication, its a natural process.

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Tips On How To Manage Anxiety

The best way to combat anxiety is to commit to a comprehensive treatment program. Overcoming anxiety needs to be a lifestyle, meaning that it is something you work towards on a consistent basis. Think about the last time you wanted to get fit for the summer. You knew you had to exercise, but you couldnt just do it sporadically it required consistent healthy eating and exercise to achieve your fitness goals. This is the same with managing anxiety.

That being said, there are various tactics that can help you better manage anxiety and can be integrated into your life at home, without medical intervention.

Cognitive behavioral therapy and other forms of talk therapy can be useful, but the following represent how to overcome anxiety without medicine.

Meet Yourself Where You Are

Ways to Fight Depression without Medication

Depression is common. It affects millions of people, including some in your life. You may not realize they face similar challenges, emotions, and obstacles.

The key to navigating depression is to be open, accepting, and loving toward yourself and what youre going through.

Every day with this disorder is different. Its important to take your mental health seriously and accept that where you are right now isnt where youll always be.

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Do Something You Enjoy

Depression can push you to give in to your fatigue. It may feel more powerful than preferred emotions.

Try to push back and do something you love something thats pleasurable or meaningful. It could be playing an instrument, painting, hiking, or biking.

The byproduct of engaging in meaningful activities can be a lift in your mood or energy, which can further motivate you to continue to engage in helpful activities that help with navigating symptoms.

Research suggests that walks in nature may improve depressive symptoms in people with clinical depression.

Time in natural spaces may improve mood and cognition, and lower the risk of mental health disorders. However, theres only limited research on the direct effect of nature on those with clinical depression.

Consider taking a walk at lunch among the trees or spending some time in your local park. Or plan a weekend hike. These activities can help you reconnect with nature and soak in some rays at the same time.

Take Time To Be Quiet And Reflect With Meditation And Mindfulness

Meditation is the kind of word that can still intimidate people. However, theres plenty of evidence this practice, whether it be mindful meditation, meditation during yoga or other meditative activities, helps quiet the mind.

Practicing meditation and mindfulness has shown to lower our blood pressure, heart rate, and have a profound effect on our mood.

Harvard Medical School has even reported on a study that found meditation to be as effective as antidepressants in treating depression.

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The Number One Tool For Better Sleep

Whatever your sleep pattern looks like, there are some excellent tools to help you improve it. As a natural consequence, your depressive symptoms will decrease. Sleeping is one of the best medication-free depression treatments we have, and the tools are the same, regardless if youre sleeping too much or too little. There is a number one tool for improved sleep, recommended by Dr. Matthew Walker :

  • Wake up at the same time every day and establish a bedtime

So, the best thing to do to improve your sleep is to decide to wake up at the same time every day and to go to bed at the same time every night, even during weekends. Use 90 minutes to unwind before bedtime and set an alarm for when your unwinding-time begins. Theres no use going to bed when you dont feel tired. Also, if you find yourself lying awake unable to sleep, get out of bed after 20 minutes and do something relaxing until you feel sleepy again. Then, return to bed. If you lie awake in bed for too long, your brain will start to associate the bed with wakefulness.

If you dont like this sleep tool, or think its too challenging to start with, check out these strategies for improving sleep and reducing depressive symptoms:

If you need more information about these sleep tools before starting making changes, . It includes a complete sleep module with both theory and homework for beginners.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Therapy

rTMS – a new way to treat depression without medication

Transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy is an innovative depression treatment that uses gentle magnetic waves to stimulate certain areas of brain cells, leading to pronounced changes in mood and behavior.

Scientific research suggests that people living with depression may have reduced brain activity in the prefrontal dorsolateral cortex, an area of the brain involved in regulating mood. TMS uses an electromagnetic coil to generate a magnetic field that passes painlessly through the clients scalp, inducing small electrical currents in the target brain cells and stimulating neuronal activity.

TMS is a safe and painless therapy for treating depression with few side effects. The most common side effects are temporary mild headaches and scalp discomfort which tend to reduce throughout treatment. In 2008, the FDA cleared TMS as an effective treatment for treatment-resistant major depressive disorder.

A typical course of TMS involves daily sessions over 4-6 weeks, followed by a few weeks of tapering of sessions. Its a non-invasive procedure and you remain conscious throughout the sessions, communicating with another therapist throughout. You can return to normal activities immediately afterward and drive to and from the treatment center.

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Relinquish Your Control Of Everything

One of the causes of anxiety is an overwhelming fear that something bad is going to happen. The thoughts start racing through your head as you consider all the possible bad outcomes. Then, you begin rehearsing your potential response to each one. Before you know it, you are paralyzed with fear, and your brain is on overdrive.

Everyone wants things to work out for the best, whether it is something as simple as getting to work without any traffic tie-ups or the desire for a positive outcome from a serious medical test. Unfortunately, there are many things that are beyond your control. Worrying about something for which you cannot possibly affect the outcome can cross the line into anxiety.Control is a big issue for people in addiction recovery. In some respects, they are learning to take control of their lives and get on a better path. In other ways, they need to give up control to a higher power to unburden themselves. Like many other things in life, control requires striking the right balance.

In the case of anxiety, relinquishing control will have a positive outcome. Realize that you cannot control the outcome of every situation, and thatâs okay. It is not your responsibility to decide when or how bad things happen. Your job is to take what happens in your life and look at it in the most positive light, feel your emotions, learn your lessons and keep breathing.

Lets Learn As A Society To Better Treat Anxiety And Depression Without Medication

Perhaps depression is inherent to the human condition. That doesnt mean we cant heal or that healing always requires drugs. From diet to exercise to meditation there are natural interventions that can help treat depression without medication or antidepressants.

At Flow we believe the best way to fight depression is a combination approach. If you are finding it difficult to know where to start, why not try out a few of the approaches listed here and see what works for you. Committing to a few habits can help you discover what approaches, whether it is tDCS, or medication, or perhaps both, will help reduce your depressive symptoms.

Remember there is no single best and fail safe treatment for depression. What works for you will be individual to your experience and the unique balance of chemicals in your brain. We are rooting for you.

Before you go, dont forget to check out our free depression app.

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Treat Depression With Brain Stimulation

A safe and effective way to treat depression without medicationfrom home

Our fifth medication-free depression treatment is a brain stimulation technique called transcranial direct current stimulation. Brain stimulation has been used to treat depression for decades, yet still, relatively few people know about this effective option.

First of all tDCS is a form of non-invasive neurmodulation that is very different from electric shock therapy . It works by applying a low energy direct current waveform to a targeted region of the brain. This low energy current does not cause neurons to fire but rather affects the plasticity of the brain, manipulating the likelihood of neurons to fire. Used in clinics to effectively treat depression, and now with Flow we have developed a wireless headset that delivers this gentle electrical stimulation for you to use at home to treat depressive symptoms. In the flow treatment, the electrodes are placed high up on the scalp to target the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Lowered activity in this brain area is associated with depressive symptoms such as fatigue, sleeping problems, concentration difficulties and changes in appetite. The electrical current in tDCS stimulates brain activity in the DLPFC and thereby alleviates the depressive symptoms.

This is the first portable tDCS device approved for medical use in the UK and EU and its available to buy or rent online.

Share What Youre Going Through With People You Love And Trust

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Dont feel embarrassed confiding in a friend or voicing your struggles. Talking about your problems or worries is not a self-centered or self-pitying endeavor its an act of courage. It can be the best thing you do for yourself to lighten the burden and begin the process of regaining your happiness. The people you talk to dont have to be able to fix you, they just need to be good listeners. Sometimes all we need is a listening ear.

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Exercise Helps Treat Depression Without Medication

No article about evidence-based depression treatments would be complete without mentioning regular exercise.

Exercise is a powerful, natural method of treating depressive disorder that rivals both antidepressants and psychotherapy in its efficacy. Consider the chemistry: exercise causes the body to release chemicals called endorphins. Endorphins not only make us feel good but also act as an analgesic and reduce the feeling of pain.

Exercise also supports brain plasticity. A 2021 study in Germany found that physical activity enhances neuroplasticity in non depressed people and improves clinical symptoms of major depressive disorder.

Why does exercise feel so good for the brain?

How can simple walking be so beneficial for the brain and just as effective as medication for treating depressive symptoms? Neuroscientists Dr. Julia C. Basso and Dr. Wendy Suzuki explain that when you exercise, chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin are released in your brain. These chemicals make you feel happiness and pleasure. And working up a sweat isnt limited to its immediate effects. Long-term, thanks to all that improved plasticity, exercising actually creates new brain cells, making your brain more resistant to depression and other diseases.

So how much exercise is enough to treat depressive symptoms?

  • 30-40 minutes of exercise 3-4 times a week is enough to get out of depression

Watch: the benefits of exercising for treating depression without medication:

The Depression Epidemic: Our Stone Age Brains

There is an undeniable connection between lifestyle and depression. A modern lifestyle is making us sick. The more modern a society, and the more removed it is from the primitive hunter-gatherer way of life, the higher its rate of depression. Our world has changed phenomenally and our lifestyles have changed along with it, but our brains have hardly changed at all. They remain remarkably similar to the ones that powered people in the Stone Age when sleep was abundant, food was nutritious, and people wandered in groups, constantly on the move in the sunshine.

Our Stone Age brains just werent designed to handle the sedentary, isolated, indoor, sleep-deprived, fast-food-laden, stressed-out pace of twenty-first-century life. -Dr Stephen Ilardi

Our brains are beautifully crafted to support Stone Age bodies that live Stone Age lives. When Stone Age brains are forced to live a modern lifestyle, the effect can be devastating. The brain and the body become depleted of the very things that have been fuelling them for thousands of years before now.

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Find Reasonable Goals That Provide Accomplishment

In most cases, those with depression will feel guilty when they talk about goals because they set unworkable and unreasonable goals. Goals are workable only if:

  • Its something you can control and doesnt depend on others
  • Its something thats manageable and not overwhelming
  • Its something realistic for you and not someone else
  • Its measurable, and you know whether its getting finished or not

If something goes wrong with the goal, adopt a what can I learn from this type of attitude instead of judging yourself. You should never compare your progress to others.

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If Youre Up For Exercise Consider A Walk Around The Block

Treating depression without medication at HPR Treatment Centers

On days when you feel as if you cant get out of bed, exercise may seem like the last thing youd want to do. However, exercise and physical activity can help to lower symptoms of depression and boost energy levels.

future depressive episodes.

Even when you have the feeling that youre unable to or have very little energy, see if youd be willing to do the opposite of what your mood is telling you to do, such as curling up in bed. Instead, set a small goal for yourself, such as taking a walk around the block.

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Treating Depression Without Medication Is Possible

If you’ve been diagnosed with clinical depression, it can be upsetting for you. You may have been aware that you have some periods when you feel down or disengaged from your life, but to have a medical professional say it to you somehow makes it seem more real. However, depression is not the worst thing in the world, and there are millions of people who have been diagnosed with it who still live productive, full lives. Medication is always a possibility. However, if you’re concerned about side effects or you’d prefer not to take medication for a different reason, there are positive coping skills available for you to use. In this article, we’ll be discussing non-medical treatment for depression.

Complementary And Alternative Therapies

Some people find complementary and alternative therapies help to manage their symptoms. For example, this may be aromatherapy, reflexology or acupuncture. Complementary therapies may also help manage some of the side effects of medication, if you decide to continue with it.

Some herbal remedies can interact with antidepressants and other types of medication. So if you are thinking about taking a herbal remedy alongside any medication, speak to your doctor or pharmacist about whether this is safe.

St John’s wort

is a herbal medicine that is sometimes used to treat symptoms of depression and anxiety. It is available to buy without needing a prescription.

There is some uncertainty about the effects of St Johns Wort, as well as the correct dose to take and how it interacts with other medicines. It is best to seek advice from your doctor before taking it, especially if you are already taking any kind of medication.

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Listen To Upbeat Music

There’s no doubt that music can have an impact on how you feel, so choosing the right music when you’re feeling down might be an effective way of lifting your mood.

Research has found people who are depressed may have a tendency to choose music that intensifies rumination, sadness, and emotion-focused coping. So while you might be tempted to turn to somber tearjerkers when you’re feeling down, consider listening to more upbeat songs to boost your mood and inspire positive feelings.

Don’t Forget About Your Self

How To Treat Depression Naturally Without Drugs

Self-care is important for everyone, even if you are not battling depression currently or not. Self-care is all about taking care of yourself and doing things that you enjoy.

We spend a lot of time caring for our families and we forget ourselves. Depression can be caused by stress. If you take the time to relax, care for yourself, it can actually help your depression without medication.

When was the last time you did something 100% for yourself? It can be as simple as a drive, going shopping, going out to lunch, or my favorite going to Starbucks. A nice relaxing hot bubble bath is a great form of self-care as well.

Depression is a real problem that can be treated without medication. You deserve to feel better and we hope you will try these 5 ways to treat depression naturally. If not, then please consult your doctor or therapist about the many other types of treatments available for this condition!

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