Prescription antidepressant drugs are not the only answer to treat depression. There are many effective ways to treat depression naturally.
1Use herbs. Throughout history, herbs have been used as ancient remedies to treat disease and illness - including depression. If you prefer to bypass traditional treatment (such as antidepressant drugs) herbs offer an alternative remedy for depression and stress.
- The most commonly used herb used for depression treatment is St. John's Wort. However, there are dozens of other depression herbs that also work very well.
2Exercise. Depression often causes feelings of hopelessness that lead to inaction, so the last thing you'll feel like doing is exercise. But studies suggest that regular, moderate physical activity may lessen depression symptoms as much as some medications can.
- Exercise affects the brain in several ways. Exercise can break the pattern of negative unproductive thoughts and help you get back to your past level of activity. Motion creates emotion.
- Exercise alone can often prompt an upward cycle of emotion and energy, inspiring you to return to work and connect again with friends and family, ultimately providing motivation for you to stay on course. Such connections are crucial for beating depression.
3Depression supplements. Depression supplements typically consist of a combination of several herbs and vitamins that treat depression. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not regulate dietary supplements for depression so care must be given to locating a safe and effective product.
- However, just because these supplements are all-natural doesn't mean that you can't overmedicate on them because you can. Special care should be taken if you plan to take depression supplements along with prescription drugs. Its very important to ask your doctor if its safe to combine any dietary supplement with conventional medical treatments.
4Depression-friendly diet. Everyone knows that food soothes. While diet alone will not cure depression, it can certainly boost your mood and provide much needed energy to fuel your motivation.
- Depression diet do's:
- Balance each meal with adequate protein, fat, and complex carbohydrates
- Eat lean sources of protein such as fish, poultry, legumes, nuts, and seeds
- Try to mix in at least five servings of fruits and vegetables every day
- Choose 'fresh' food over processed or frozen foods
- Depression diet don'ts:
- Avoid or reduce alcohol, sugar, and caffeine (including soft drinks)
- Avoid fast food and other 'junk meals' low in nutrients
- Avoid or reduce sugar and artificial sweeteners
- Depression diet do's:
5Hypnosis. Treatment by hypnosis or "Hypnotherapy" teaches you to mentally counter and refute negative, pessimistic thoughts that often fuel your depression. Using deep breathing combined with imagery and suggestion, the process imprints new coping skills directly into your subconscious. All of this leads to conditioning yourself mentally to reject negative and depressing thoughts and install new empowering thoughts.
- Hypnotherapy can be very effective in treating depression especially when combined with other depression treatments.
6Meditation. The ancient discipline of meditation is increasingly being embraced within traditional medical circles as a powerful healing tool. It has been shown to be of medical benefit in a number of ways, including lowering blood pressure and stress levels. The most helpful and gentle form of meditation for your depression is the repetition technique, done silently or aloud, using a word, sound, symbol, mantra, prayer, movement, or breathing pattern. Any practice that can evoke the relaxation response in you is of benefit as long as it is repetitive.
- The relaxation response produced by meditation helps decrease your metabolism, lower your heart rate & blood pressure, and helps slow your breathing and brain waves. This leads to less stress and worry.
7Light therapy. Light therapy (also called phototherapy) consists of exposure to daylight or to specific wavelengths of light using lasers, light-emitting diodes, fluorescent lamps, dichroic lamps or very bright, full-spectrum light, for a prescribed amount of time and, in some cases, at a specific time of day. Bright light to the eyes treats psychiatric disorders such as depression. A meta-analysis of bright light therapy commissioned by the American Psychiatric Association found it to be more effective than placebo—usually, dim light—for both seasonal affective disorder and for nonseasonal depression, with effect sizes similar to those for conventional antidepressants.Ad
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Español: Cómo tratar la depresión de forma natural, Português: Como Tratar a Depressão Naturalmente, Русский: справиться с депрессией естественным способом, Deutsch: Depressionen natürlich behandeln, Italiano: Come Curare la Depressione con Metodi Naturali
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