Depression is something that affects a lot of people in life. I am sure that if you have somehow landed on this page, you must be suffering from depression at some point of time in your life before.
The main problem with depression that it is unlike a lot of other illnesses which can be controlled with medication. As any doctor would advise you, turning to medication for supressing medication is probably the last thing you should ever do.
Recovering from Depression
If you really want to recover from depression, then the first thing you should keep in mind is that taking action is required. But you would probably feel that taking action is really difficult when you are depressed, and even just thinking about the stuff you could actually do to make yourself feel better from depression might make you even worse off. Do not let this discourage you though, by breaking them in small bits of chunks at a time, you will definitely be able to overcome depression alone naturally without any form of medication in your life.
As taking massive action would be difficulty for any depression or anxiety sufferers, the motto one should keep in mind is to “start small and stay focused”. Start with a small task everyday and reward yourself for completing that task. Over a few weeks, you would be surprised at how much you actually were able to do despite all that negativity in your life from depression.
Depression Tip 1: Maintain supportive and strong relationships
You may try to lie yourself, but deep down inside everyone knows that one of the main reasons for depression or anxiety is actually loneliness. When a person is alone, he tends to let his imagination drift more, and if he is a negative person by nature, all of the time his mind would be full of negative thoughts. And I’m sure you would agree that anyone who is constantly thinking negative thoughts would definitely suffer from depression eventually.
Thus, it is important to try and maintain good social relationships to try and take your mind off things. If you have difficulty talking to your families about your problems, you could try to look for your neighbourhood counselling centre whom have professional counsellors who would be able to listen to your problems either for free, or for a very small fee. You should never be afraid to try to reach out and ask for someone else for help. No one in this world is able to achieve anything big on their own without any help.
If any of your friends or your loved ones ask you to go out, just try to force yourself go whenever you are free, instead of choosing the easy way and cooping yourself up at home. For the first few times, it may feel really difficult to get out of your house and join your friends, but I assure you that it will slowly get easier over time and you would enjoy it more too.
Depression tip 2: Get rid of your negative thinking
Negative thinking is one of the major causes of depression, and it can really be troublesome if one does not know how to handle it well. Negative thinking can affect your self-confidence, your perspective on the situations you encounter, and also the way as to how you see yourself.
But of course, just saying or trying something else like “Just think positive thoughts then!” doesn’t really help. So how should one try to cope with negative thinking?
Here are some ways to do it:
- Put yourself in another’s shoes. Think about would you actually say what you are saying to yourself to another person? If the answer is no, then why are you being so hard on yourself? Treat yourself just like how you would treat any other person and you would definitely feel much better.
- Stop trying to be a perfectionist. A lot of depressed people seek perfection in everything they do and beat themselves up whenever they fail to meet their expectations. In short, they are also afraid of failing and try to use that as an excuse. Always tell yourself that it is ok to fail and no one will think badly of you other than yourself.
- Mix with positive people. I am sure that everyone has a friend or acquaintance that he or she would notice is very positive, and that no matter what happens in their life they still can maintain a fresh outlook. These are the people whom you would want to mix with, and try to observe what they do whenever they meet with any obstacles.
- Keep a diary to record all your negative thoughts. It would be great if you were able to maintain a diary to record all of the negative thoughts you experience. Jot down a negative thought whenever you experience them and note down what actually triggered it. Then try to ask yourself whether there is any way to look at the situation in a non-negative way, and whether what you are thinking is really warranted.
Depression Tip 3: Taking care of yourself
It is important to take care of yourself and only settle for the best in your life if you really want to break out of depression. These are a few things that one can do to achieve this:
- Get enough sleep. Adults should aim for generally eight hours of sleep every night. Many people who suffer from depression most of the time have sleep problems. Whenever you do not get enough sleep, you may end up feeling irritated or tired the next day and this does nothing to help your depression issues.
- Get exercise and expose yourself to sunlight. As weird as it may sound, the lack of exposure of sunlight may make depression worse. It is not difficult to see why this is the case though, when you imagine someone who is always out in the Sun as compared to someone who is cooped up at home in a dry and dark place. Who is the one most likely to suffer from depression? Also, a little bit of exercise can also help, and the great thing is you can do both of these together in just under 15 minutes a day.
- Do the things you like or enjoy. It’s important to try and do the things you like or enjoy in order to keep your spirits up. A lot of people whom suffer from depression or anxiety would claim that they don’t really have hobbies they like to do, but they are just lying to themselves. Everyone has something that they would like to do deep down inside their hearts. Find out what are those things and then try to put aside some time to do them every week, and you will find yourself in much better spirits. Even simple things like listening to music could also work.
These are just 3 simple depression self-help tips that anyone can use in order to learn how to overcome depression and anxiety naturally without any kind of medication. The last thing you should always remember that do not be afraid to turn and seek for professional help if you really do not know what else you are able to do in your life in order to cope with it.
Face up to depression and you will realize that it is actually not as scary as what you think it would be!