6. Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the term used for being present and aware of your surroundings, circumstances, thoughts, and feelings without apportioning judgment. It is a way to see yourself more objectively, promoting emotional balance. Mindfulness has been used to treat pain, disease, anxiety, stress, and depression.
“Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is designed to help people who suffer repeated bouts of depression and chronic unhappiness. It combines the ideas of cognitive therapy with meditative practices and attitudes based on the cultivation of mindfulness.
The heart of this work lies in becoming acquainted with the modes of mind that often characterize mood disorders while simultaneously learning to develop a new relationship to them.” (12)
According to clinical trials, MBCT reduces the rate of depression relapse by 50%. (13, 14) The practice of mindfulness hones mental attention, awareness, and presence, opening to the potential to change your negative thoughts and their physical results.
7. Seek Counselling
Everyone needs someone to talk to. Friends are great for easy stuff but hardcore personal thoughts and feelings are more difficult to share with those closest to you. A professional counselor knows many different techniques to help you work through stressors.
Once you find someone with whom you resonate and can trust, the benefits you can reap from a qualified counsellor are immeasurable. Other than dietary and lifestyle changes, counselling is at the top of the list for ways to combat depression. (15, 16, 17)
The therapeutic relationship is better than medication alone and may be enough to preclude medication (which is always preferable, as psychiatric medications can have serious side effects). (18)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an effective technique to change recurrent negative thought patterns that may be contributing to depression. It’s a short-term treatment combination of psychotherapy and behavioral therapy. Several studies and individual patients have demonstrated the effectiveness of CBT’s. (19, 20)
Just as anxiety and depression don’t develop overnight, learning new ways to cope, reducing stress, applying diet and lifestyle changes, and resolving emotional difficulties doesn’t happen in a day or a week. Employing several natural approaches to manage these conditions differ from the pharmaceutical approach in one very important way: they get to the root causes to contribute to a long-term solution. A series of pills does not.