Cure for Depression?

Learn how to fight back when life gets you down without expensive psychotherapy or drugs.

Depression is defined as "a psychiatric disorder characterized by an inability to concentrate, insomnia, loss of appetite, anhedonia, feelings of extreme sadness, guilt, helplessness and hopelessness, and thoughts of death". 

I am neither a medical doctor nor a psychiatrist, so I cannot speak intelligently on the workings of chemical activity in the brain and the effects of drugs to counter these effects.  I can, however, tell you my belief.  I believe that just as we can cause and cure our own stress, anxiety, and headaches, our thoughts can cause and cure the "chemical imbalances" in our brains that we know as depression.

If depression is brought on by our thoughts, and we can control our thoughts, then isn't it true that we can control depression with our own thoughts?  If you have a positive mental attitude, it is extremely difficult to get depressed.  People with positive attitudes do not experience helplessness and hopelessness.  They understand that they are in control of their own destiny as well as their thoughts and feelings.  It would be fair to say, however, that this level of positive mental attitude does not come easily, and takes time to build. Thinking positively is a habit just like depression can be a habit.  However, depression is a habit most people would like to do without, so it makes the habit easier to "kick".

Besides building and applying a good positive mental attitude to your daily life, here are some "miracle" cures for depression that can instantly take you out of a depressed state into one of motivation, gratitude, and energy.

• Have goals and focus on them; do something each day that brings you closer to their attainment.  Be sure your goals, and life purpose, are empowering enough to both excite you and motivate you.
• Ask yourself, "What am I thankful for? What is good in my life?"  Write these things down, close your eyes and experience the feelings these things bring to you. 
• Help someone else.  This one reminds me again of the movie It's a Wonderful Life, when the angel saved George by allowing George to save him.
• Change your physiology.  Stand or sit up straight, take deep breaths, keep your chin up, chest out and smile.
• Keep active.  Boredom follows lack of activity and depression often follows prolonged boredom.  Do something productive--build, create, write, read, learn, play--anything that will keep your mind and/or body active.
• Exercise.  I cannot stress enough the seemingly limitless benefits of regular exercise.  Preventing and perhaps even curing depression are just a couple more.

We can actually sum up all of these "cures" into one: change what you focus on.  When you feel like you may be depressed, or even just a little down, you may be that way because you are focusing on the negative in your life, not because you are suffering from the disease known as clinical depression.  Try focusing on all the good things in your life, what has been, what is, and more important, what can be.  If you cannot think of any good things in your life, then think harder.  We can all at least be thankful for being alive and having the gift of free will.  As an American or a citizen of another free country with opportunity, we have even more positive things to focus on.  Focus on the positive and build your positive mental attitude, and depression may become an emotion you will no longer have to experience.

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