10 Tips to Overcome Depression and Anxiety Without Psychological Help.
How to Keep Calm And Do The Right Thing
It is not easy for anyone to deal with anxiety and depression. But there are several ways that can be followed to alleviate the crises and even neutralize them, in an emergency, without depending on a psychologist to keep our heads above water.
To do this, it is first necessary to know ourselves as well as possible, to research the family history related to the illness and to know the starting point that triggered our first crises.
It is primarily a personal and necessary effort to know how to deal with the crises when they strike us.
At no time, by sharing my personal experiences in this account, do I intend to dismiss or invalidate the work of any psychologist, nor advise anyone to take the healing journey without professional help.
The help of a professional psychologist can greatly shorten the path to self-knowledge and find the perfect therapy for your physical and mental health.
My tips are personal with the intention of only showing a parallel path that I was forced to follow, because I didn’t have the possibility to get professional help.
It is just a way to show that we are not lost, in case the only option we may have, at a given emergency moment, is to save ourselves by our own means.
It is possible. Believe me!
I would like to indicate ten items that help me a lot to keep myself balanced and motivated. But first, I would like to clarify some basic points from my personal experience.
My history with depression and anxiety (not exactly in that order!), started when I was eight years old, due to a trauma.
I almost drowned, in a picnic with my family, in one of the rivers in the region where we lived. It was a very hot summer day.
This detail is very important for me to be able to understand my crises, which are usually pronounced when summer approaches.
In other words, my body alerts me to a danger that I know is non-existent anymore.
However, the fear is there in a corner, but I can simply neutralize it, partially, without ceasing to have fun or socialize with friends.
Hence, self-knowledge is extremely important.
I have witnessed similar illness cases in my family since I was a child. In my case, a traumatic event was what triggered, in my body, the genetic family defect.
Particularly, I have a traumatic and also a genetic trigger, as well.
In the next ten items, I will show you how I manage to deal with the illness and consciously keep it under control.
This allows me to live in a balanced and relatively happier way. Also making it clear that nobody can be happy all the time, and not every sad moment we may get through, has anything to do with being depressed or anxious.
1. ACCEPT YOUR FEELINGS
The first thing we should do when we are depressed or anxious is to accept what we are feeling.
For, only from this acceptance, for ourselves, can we go to the heart of the matter and understand the cause of it (whether it is physical or traumatic).
And from this point on, we can react in the appropriate way to achieve physical and mental rebalancing.
We should receive the sadness as it is, instead of fighting with it.
When we understand it, we can also perceive its path to us, and then find the opposite way out.
We must stop sabotaging the crisis for ourselves and also for others around us.
The more openly we live and clarify our situation to the people around us, the more possibilities, space and support we can find, to accelerate the rebalancing process.
2. DON’T BELIEVE IN YOUR MIND
Generally, people who suffer from depression and anxiety (at least the ones I know), have the same characteristic of being somehow quite intelligent and active thinking machines.
That is why self-help texts can help the victims of these illnesses enormously.
They have a great capacity for analysis, so they can find their way out of their own labyrinths, through their own efforts, when they are willing to do so.
We must pay attention to the power of our imagination. Not everything is as bad as we can imagine.
For this reason, it is very important not to believe 100% in our monster-creating minds.
Not everything we think or imagine, is true, was or will be one day.
We have to tell our own mind: I don’t believe you. This is false, never occurred and will never occur!
Experience the relief, that being sensible to ourselves, can bring us!
The mind is a book of fantasies, and we must not believe them.
3. NEVER SELF-MEDICATE
Depression is often a physical illness and not an emotional one, as most people believe.
Therefore, moments when we are sad for no reason are quite common and inexplicable, for friends and family.
Depression and anxiety can be caused by a genetic failure.
In this case, the use of medication is essential to establish physical and, consequently, mental (and emotional) balance.
But, leave this procedure to be decided by your doctor!
When we are taking care of ourselves, without professional help, we cannot act like them regarding what we ingest.
Self-medicating can be highly harmful to our health, not to say fatal.
It is inadvisable to follow this path, which, besides not being positively effective, can make the situation even worse.
Avoid allopathic medicine, without medical follow-up.
The solution, in this case, is to use this motivation toward the numerous existing homeopathic or natural medicines. They are free of side effects.
There are natural medicines for all disorders. From tranquilizers to sleeping pills, made from natural flowers and herbs.
The list of options is long, risk-free, and quite satisfying.
There are no risks of chemical dependency with homeopathic medicines, but there are always risks of psychological dependency.
Therefore, I only use them when I really have no other option. Everyone should establish their own limits.
4. AVOID ENERGY DRINKS
There are neutral drinks and exciting drinks.
Neutral drinks do not mess with our natural state. They are basically water, natural juices and some teas.
Exciting drinks change our natural state, exciting it. Our heartbeat quickens, and we feel more active and awake.
They are drinks such as coffee, energy boosters and alcoholic beverages.
Personally, I avoid as much as possible drinking exciting beverages, because they can change my physical state, and I stick to the group of neutral ones.
Of course, at a party with friends I won’t miss a glass or two of wine, but I don’t allow myself more than that.
Lately, I have been able to cut out alcohol completely and am very thankful for it the next day.
A cup of coffee makes my body tremble and I feel as if I am reproducing the state of anxiety.
I become restless and nervous. So I always avoid drinking coffee or black tees, specially at night. It causes insomnia.
Plenty of water is always the best option.
5. EAT HEALTHY
We are what we eat. Everyone knows this phrase, but few follow it.
The food we eat has a direct impact on our physical and emotional well-being.
Particularly, I have stopped following any diet, eating meat (rarely), fish, vegetables and fruits, without any guilt or ideology.
I used to be a vegetarian.
Nowadays, I try to balance a bit of everything and I feel happy that way. Actually, I am a mixture of several so-called “healthy trends”.
Only, I don’t consume sugar or fast food.
I feel that my body and mind thank me.
6. EXERCISE
Physical exercise is wonderful for elevating our mood and physical disposition.
I worked for many years as a dancer, and I always hated aerobic exercise. That’s why I don’t go to gyms.
Anaerobic exercises have always been part of my day, until today.
These are the so-called exercises for body and mind, like yoga and its derivatives, like Pilates, stretching, etc.
Anyway, people are different and have different necessities. If the gym is a go for you, follow your heart!
My day always starts with yoga. I always have my yoga mat next to my bed. So I have no excuse not to exercise as soon as I wake up.
My body gets rid of the aches and pains of the night’s sleep and prepares itself for the day ahead in an ideal way.
Yoga is one of the best exercises for the body and the spirit. It is a good pathway to reach the next item, as well.
7. MEDITATE
Any other item on this list can be missing from my day, except this one: meditation!
In fact, I believe that all the understanding I have of my illness and condition, ways of dealing with it, controlling it, and being resilient, comes from my daily meditation.
I can notice the difference in how I feel on days when I meditate and on days when I don’t.
There are several internet sources and apps that can help anyone interested in taking the first steps to meditation.
You can access, for free, my YouTube page (Meditation & Life) and demystify meditation.
It is simpler and easier than anyone imagines.
I will leave the link at the end of the text, for free access by everyone. The page is in Portuguese, but most of the videos have English subtitles.
“Meditation is the new medicine of the 21st century” (Yuval Noah Harari, in “21 Lessons For The 21st Century”)
And he is right!
Just get started!
8. COLOR YOUR LIFE
Once we understand a little more about our illness, we can learn to control it, and understand that we must not stop experiencing life.
It is a power that we gain over it.
If we know that it will always be lurking, we understand that we must learn to communicate with it in some way, and impose ourselves.
This will be a constant game, in which we will prove to ourselves that we can be always in charge.
It is like making lemonade out of the lemons that life offers us. And those two lemons will always be close by.
We cannot fool ourselves with that.
That is why we must always color our life. Just socialize, even when you have that peculiar pain in the chest for no reason.
I remember once, walking around the city with two friends, when in that situation.
The pain was there in one corner, and I was in the other, enjoying myself in the best possible way, with good companies.
The fact that my friends knew how I was feeling helped a lot to make the walk as normal as possible.
Because at these times, we have no way to explain the pain in our chest, nor even to extirpate it by locking ourselves at home alone.
Even in pain, the best option is to go out and observe the world.
Despite the tears. Motivate yourself to get out.
A responsive body heals much faster.
Put on your beautiful sunglasses and go!
Believe!
9. CHOOSE THE RIGHT FRIENDS
At all times in life, it is always good to be surrounded by the right friends.
They are the ones who understand us without words, who know when to speak and when to silence.
Choosing the right company in these hours of crisis is very important.
Even more important it is to get rid of the toxic people of your life!
If there is nobody to turn to, we always have ourselves.
To show exactly this is the intention of this confession.
Many times, I had no one to turn to and this was the way I had to discover myself as my best friend and companion.
We are not always in a group, or with the love of our life, or with friends.
And that’s just fine!
We all need to have time and space for ourselves.
There is no reason to suffer extra if we are alone in times of crisis.
We are our own base of resilience and motivation. And we are never alone when we learn to love and care for ourselves.
10. IT WILL PASS
Nothing is forever.
Everything passes and changes.
I always use these phrases for everything in my life.
Especially in times of loss, defeat, and illness.
I wish they were also part of the phrases in the minds of all people in the world.
It’s uplifting!
The power we gain by expressing them is immense and transforming.
Believing in changing circumstances is a big step towards physical and emotional rebalancing.
Tomorrow will be better than today.
But this only depends on the willpower of each one of us.
A matter of self-love and resilience.
We just need to get consciously to work!
I hope I can be anyway helpful and wish you the best in your life.
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Thank you!
PEACE & LOVE!
