Beyond Medication: 4 Proven, Drug-Free Aids for Depression
If you suffer from depression, you are not alone. In fact, almost 3 million Australians live with depression or anxiety today. While medication such as SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) may help to stabilise your mood, they tend to come with a range of unwanted side effects. Consider the following tips to help you to overcome depression in your everyday life without the need for prescribed drugs.
Keep a Regular Routine
Creating and sticking to a daily routine has been shown to lessen the frequency and severity of depressive episodes. Getting up early in the morning, setting goals and sticking to them will provide positive reinforcement and a sense of achievement and purpose that can significantly alleviate feelings of aimlessness and general low moods. Avoiding oversleeping is crucial: aim for 7-9 hours of sleep every night, with a set time for bed each day, and be sure to stick to this until it becomes a habit.
Exercise and Watch Your Diet
Regular exercise such as running and cycling has been shown to improve mood by releasing natural serotonin and dopamine: the so-called 'runner's high'. Joining a sports club will also expand your social network and help you to turn your attention to meeting new people and learning new skills, rather than dwelling on the problems in your life. Diet also plays a significant role in our daily moods. Avoid refined sugars, which destabilise blood-sugar levels. Complex carbohydrates and whole grains will supply your body with steady, slow-releasing energy, which can help to stabilise your mood over the course of your day. Avoiding alcohol is also strongly recommended, as excessive use has been shown to correlate strongly with depression.
Practice Mindfulness
Depression is often exacerbated and extended by negative thought patterns: vicious cycles of thinking in which mistakes that you feel you have made or problems that you perceive in your life come to dominate your conscious and unconscious mind. Mindfulness meditation is the practice of becoming more aware of one's thoughts as they arise, allowing the practitioner to observe common patterns in their thinking and avoid falling into negative cycles. There is a vast amount of material on mindfulness available online and even apps which can be installed on your smartphone, so consider sampling a beginner's course to begin to gain some control over your moods and thinking.
Consider Counselling
A form of talking therapy with an experienced counsellor can be greatly beneficial for individuals living with depression. Talking through your problems with a trained professional can be a great relief if you have been in the habit of keeping them all to yourself. Look for a qualified local professional with good recommendations and get in touch; it may change your life completely.