Natural Cures for Depression
October 8th, 2006 at 06:18am Under Drugs and Medication+ Mental Health+ Treatment
You are probably smart enough to try anything within reason, when it comes to attempting natural cures for depression - since so many other treatments have fallen short for you and so many efforts on your part don’t quite work.
You’ve probably tried prayer. You’ve tried writing, journaling and crafting fiction and plays—solo and in collaboration—to purge yourself in a kind of cathartic that has worked in other areas of your emotional life before. For years, every single day, you tried power walking, knowing that physical labor (of sorts) will also expunge many evils and keeping with the only form of exercise you actually liked. You tried helping others, learning in a support group that to get your mind off yourself you have to get OUT of yourself, you have to focus on those who are worse off in many ways, etc., etc.
It is only natural, as a recovering addict or alcoholic, for example, or as an ACA (adult child of alcoholics), who believes in avoiding the complications of synthetic drugs, you would lean toward natural cures for depression. Such remedies, you hope, will keep you in the forests, amongst the flora, fauna, and creatures that belong in your eco-friendly environment and life.
So what are some of those natural cures for depression? Some use Saint John’s wort, a.k.a. Hypericum perforatum. St John’s wort is an herb that has been said to contain compounds—such as hypericin and hyperforin—which contribute to what the Greeks said would successfully “ward off evil spirits,” as it was known as the drug that would preside “over an apparition”…which is where it’s name came from.
Others use natural cures for depression that are said to simulate the SSRIs—the selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. When the serotonin levels in your brain are off (imbalanced), your mood is plummeted. On an up and down picture representing normal to depressed moods, say, your mood would be down at the bottom. A high or happy beyond normal person’s mood would be waaaay up at the top. Okay, so the SSRI draws the serotonin levels up, pools them, and traps them in a higher place. You come from the bottom, the SSRI comes from the top, and the effect/result is a leveling off somewhere in the middle.
5 Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) and tryptophan are said to do the same thing, but are natural cures for depression versus intense chemical cures (such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, for example). So 5-HTP supplements the missing or diminished amounts of serotonin and tryptophan by being what depression.org calls the “intermediate step” between the two.
Other natural cures for depression include physical and some mental efforts. Like power-walking, exercise, yoga, and some forms of meditation have been found to adjust the imbalances of serotonin and other mood stabilizing chemicals in the brain. And it goes along with the logic that visualization techniques, which therapists can help you practice, can be tailored toward the positive, to counter the misery that is depression.
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