How to get rid of depression and avoid relapses

How to rid yourself of depression without medication

I’m so glad you’re asking how to get rid of depression without necessarily relying on medication.

If you’re already taking medication, likely, it’s not helping you much. So let’s see how you can rid yourself of depression by focussing on your brain since it’s the centre of your universe. All you have to do is keep it healthy and engaged. No doctor, medicine, psychologist or other person can do that for you.

Let’s get cracking!

Do you really have a ‘chemical imbalance’ in your brain?

In a word, no! And one of the most straightforward explanations is that there’s no standard, scientifically ‘correct’ balance. Every brain is as unique as the person it’s attached to! That means your particular chemical balance is unique to you.

Your body is infinitely capable of balancing the multitude of chemical messengers it produces and coordinates. Look at this Wikipedia page (opens in a new tab) to see how many there are. Simply throwing a synthetic chemical (any kind of psychotropic drug) into your body’s natural mix will more likely create an imbalance. 

The good news is that your brain is not broken!

Depression itself is not an illness. It is a symptom that manifests itself as a consequence of two distinct things:

1. Parts of your life have gone off course (for whatever reason), and…
2. Your response to and way of dealing with the difficulties and challenges.

You’re not alone!

Stats about depression

Percentage of US adults who might have been in need of treatment for severe depression

Side effects of prescribed medication

15 side effects of antidepressants

Prescribed antidepressant medications…

1. Can increase the feeling of being out of control.
2. May increase your dependence on outside sources of help.
3. Don’t deal with the real problem.
4. Don’t help you to meet your emotional needs (see further down).
5. May increase the risk of relapse.
6. Can cause sleep problems – frequent awakenings during the night and sleepiness during the day.
7. May reduce important dream sleep (see my article on the link between dreaming and mental health). link
8. Can cause or increase restlessness and anxiety.
9. Can reduce your libido.
10. Can cause unpleasant withdrawal effects, from mild to severe, depending on how long you’ve been taking them.
11. Can cause permanent damage to your brain, including movement disorders (Google it – you’ll want to know about it!).
12. May cause rapid weight gain, constipation or diarrhoea.
13. Can lead to suicidal and homicidal behaviour (yes, really!)
14. May increase your risk of chronic depression significantly.

Important: If you’re taking medication at the moment, don’t panic now that you’ve read this list. And whatever you do, don’t stop taking it suddenly. If you want to come off it, talk to your doctor first. You’ll need to do it gradually and safely.

The best ways to get rid of depression

There are two crucial things you can do to help yourself:

1. Take action to deal with problems over which you have a measure of control.
2. Change your perception of the stuff you have hope of changing.

And there are three fundamental things we all need in order to be healthy (physically and mentally): a nutritious diet, regular exercise and good sleep.

I know you’re probably severely lacking energy and motivation at the moment, meaning taking action seems too overwhelming and perhaps even impossible. I know it’ll be a challenge, but I also know you can do it by consistently taking one step at a time, going at your own pace.

Food and exercise to improve your mood and beat that horrible depression

A healthy, balanced diet is vital for every aspect of your physical, emotional and mental well-being. Food is the fuel that allows you to function. How well your body performs (including your brain) depends on the quality of the fuel you feed it. 

I know that chips, sweets, pizza, fizzy drinks, alcohol and anything laden with sugar or carbs can be so appealing, especially when you’re feeling so miserable. And that you get a temporary high when you eat them. But it’s a brief and fake high.

Unless you eat well, your brain becomes starved of the nutrients it needs to function at its best.

You know how you can feel sluggish and low on energy when you’ve eaten junk food with too many carbs?

That’s how your brain feels, too. Without the right fuel, you have little hope of getting your brain – and thereby your mind – to function optimally. And depression ensues.

Eating well doesn’t have to be expensive, nor does it have to involve fancy cooking. It just needs you to educate yourself and practise your newly acquired skills.

The importance of getting off the couch

There are plenty of studies devoted to the beneficial effect of exercise on depression. To give you just one example, look at this article in the Telegraph (opens in a new tab).

You’ll need to get moving. No need to spend bucket loads on a gym membership and fancy sports clothes. Just starting with walking around the block will do and doing a few extra streets as you progress.

Getting rid of depression by improving your sleep

You may be sleeping too much or not enough. Either way, you’ll need to actively deal with this particular problem because sleep is one of our best natural protectors against mental health problems.

Sleep problems can be a little tricky to deal with. But don’t worry – I’ve got you covered. I’ve written several articles dedicated to overcoming problems with sleep:

• How to interpret your dreams: this is essential reading as it explains the link between dreaming and depression.
• Natural sleep remedies with plenty of natural remedies and sleep hygiene advice.
• For more help, see also my article: Treating depression without medication.

Online depression counselling to beat depression

Talking to an online professional therapist is one of the best ways to deal with depression. Depending on your needs, counselling or therapy can help you to:

• Get things off your chest without the fear of being judged,
• Calm down,
• Understand how your brain works
• Understand yourself more
• Understand others better
• Build better relationships – at home and at work
• Improve your relationship with your partner or spouse
• Improve relationships with friends, family and work colleagues
• Explore solutions to difficulties you have some control over
• Change how you think about stuff you don’t have any control over
• Re-engage with life- and mood-enhancing activities
• Set goals so that you can look forward instead of staying stuck in unhelpful patterns
• Become more resilient and future-proof against the inevitable challenges of everyday living and significant life events,
• Cope with the psychological impact of life-changing health problems
• Deal with major losses
• Overcome the psychological consequences of childhood adversity.

A note of caution!

Do not let yourself be submitted to endless navel-gazing. It’s particularly counter-productive when you’re depressed. As you’re likely to have a negative bias while you’re depressed, you’ll only recall stuff that’s gone wrong.

Sure, some work may be done to process complex childhood events and their consequences on your mental health. However, therapy needs to be timed well and balanced with plenty of life-enhancing strategies.

(By the way – don’t worry about the difference between counselling and therapy. The one thing that makes a difference to the success of your treatment is the quality of the professional relationship you have with the person who’s helping you) (2)

Self-hypnosis – a user-friendly and effective treatment for major depression

Hypnosis with the help of a download is affordable, safe and effective. 

Getting rid of depression by improving the social aspects of your life

Living your life means constant trial and error and plenty of learning, unlearning, hellos, goodbyes, great and lousy relationships, endings, pain, messy feelings, etc.

No one way of living your life can prevent all that messiness, challenge, pain, disillusionment and frustration. But you shouldn’t really want to, either. Because without all that, there wouldn’t be any excitement, hope, achievement and joy!

So, here’s the best treatment for depression – major, minor, clinical or any other name you want to give it.

The best treatment for depression

The best treatment for any psychological distress is to work with your inborn resources to meet your essential emotional needs, also called the Human Givens.

You were born with the mental and emotional means to deal with the world around you.

Here are some of those needs you’ll ideally want to meet in balance:

• The need to connect with other people and your environment
• The need for time and space to reflect on and learn from your experiences
• The need for fun, love and laughter
• The need for a sense of achievement
• The need to give and receive attention
• The need for privacy – time and space for contemplation.

Looking at this list, you may be able to see why you’ve become depressed.

Meeting your emotional needs means focussing outward. Chances are, something happened in your life after which you increasingly turned inwards, focussing mainly on how bad you felt. You probably started to withdraw from the people around you. Maybe you started taking antidepressants which would have flattened your mood – including any feelings of fun, love and tenderness you had left.

Let’s see where you’re at.

To help you assess the state of your essential emotional needs, I’ve prepared a free worksheet for you. Filling in the worksheet starts your recovery and getting rid of that depression.

Let’s talk about how you can meet those needs

3 steps for meeting your need to give and receive attention

Here are just a few ideas. I’m sure you can come up with your own to suit your particular situation.

1. Reconnect with loved ones. Start slowly – just a 20-minute visit if that’s all you can manage right now. Bring love and light to people who love you – it’ll do you good too.
2. Aim to remember and share their birthdays, troubles, joys, and achievements. Write down all the important stuff, so you remember and can pleasantly surprise them with your interest.
3. Cook a meal for someone who needs your support and friendship once a fortnight. If you don’t feel up to eating with them, simply drop off an oven-ready meal for them to eat later :-).

3 steps toward having time and space for contemplation

1. Schedule 2 x 20-minute slots each day to simply think about what went right that day and what you enjoyed and take the time to savour those moments.
2. Divert your attention to what you might do tomorrow if you’re in danger of rehashing stuff that’s got you depressed.
3. Before going to sleep every night, remind yourself of 3 things for which you’re grateful. Small things will do. Be sure to savour them, remembering how you felt, saw and heard that moment.

3 steps for meeting your need to have a sense of achievement

1. As eating the right foods is important, make this something you work towards achieving. Write down every step you take to improve your food intake. Consistent baby steps are great. Ensure you take the time to appreciate your achievements.
2. The same goes for exercise. Try to be active daily, even if you can only manage a 15-minute walk. Something is better than nothing. And build on what you can manage each day or each week. Before too long, your 15-minute walk might turn into a 60-minute one. And that’s something to be proud of for sure!
3. Try your hand at new things. Again, you don’t have to do anything drastic. Try cooking something you’ve never had, finding a different route to work, or meeting a friend in a new place. Setting yourself mini-challenges (increasing them as you go) will help you to keep achieving.

You’re all set now – you can do this! Though the temptation is, of course, that you don’t believe me for one minute. Please, prove me wrong – take the challenge and get rid of your depression starting today.

Finally

I hope that knowing you do have the ability to heal yourself has made you feel empowered. You can rid yourself of depression without necessarily needing medication or therapy.

It just means you need to take action, get off the sofa and stop ruminating over how awful your life is (even though you might well have a hard life. Dreadful things do happen!).

As a therapist (retired), I know you’re far more capable, strong and resilient than you think. You’ve got this!