Natural Alternative Therapies for Depression and Anxiety

Negative emotions can suck your energy, ruin your day, week or month, and make it hard to cope with real life.

Depression and anxiety seem to go hand-in-hand for a lot of people. Rather than always being severe enough to warrant immediate medication and intense therapy, low grade depression and anxiety can sometimes respond well to natural alternatives.

Both come from chemical imbalances in the brain, often triggered by feeling helpless or out of control. Changing other chemical balances in your brain can balance out the out-of-wack ones for the better!

Signs you may be suffering from Anxiety

If you:

• Avoid crowds, noisy places or going somewhere new
• Feel short of breath, panicked, sweaty palmed, have a racing heart or dry mouth
• Are unable to concentrate
• Have less short-term memory than usual
• Get weird symptoms that you notice but can’t pinpoint gurgly tummy, loose bowels, vague nausea
• Have the sudden, strong urge to wee and yet when you go, you have the merest of trickles
• Are over-prepared for every day, hyper-vigilant about normal activities or panicked about things you didn’t used to worry about
• Have difficulty relaxing or falling asleep
• Wonder whether we’re all actors in a giant Matrix or The Truman Show (feelings of detachment or unreality)
• Have headaches, muscle tension or a sore jaw from grinding your teeth

Then you may be suffering from anxiety. Anxiety is a normal emotion in our lives, and sometimes serves a good purpose but if it’s interfering with you enjoying life and other people enjoying your company, then naming those feelings as ANXIETY is the first step to dealing with them.

Signs you may be suffering from Depression

If on the other hand you feel:

• Out of character taking risks, speaking out of turn, jumping before you look, or gambling, drinking or shopping more than usual (in ways that worry you), or feel like picking a fight where before, you would be open to resolving a conflict
• That you deflect any gesture or word that requires interpersonal interactions, or can’t believe that anyone likes you, wants to touch you or spend time with you
• Like crying or laughing at inappropriate times, or cry about a tissue ad but ignore the overdue bills
• Feel like: “I’m not depressed, I just don’t care / sleep a lot / can’t sleep / don’t enjoy anything”
• The need to drink, take drugs (either legal or illicit) or make radical changes to your appearance
• Nothing, stuck in neutral, unmoved by ups or downs, slightly zombie-like or out of touch with the day to day
• Bored with your life

…then you may be depressed.

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