If you struggle with feelings of hopelessness, loneliness, and sadness, you might wonder how to navigate depression. Depression is the most common mental health condition around the world.
- Worldwide approximately seventy-five percent of people struggle with depression and never get a diagnosis or treatment
- Depression is the most significant cause of disability across the United States
- Over sixteen million adults in the US have a major depressive disorder
- Over sixty-five percent of adults with depression are misdiagnosed
If you are among those seventy-five percent of people who haven’t received treatment, you might be wondering, “how can I get through depression?”
Water Gap Wellness Center is a mental health treatment center in Pennsylvania that offers comprehensive depression therapy.
How Do I Get Through Depression?
If you’re asking, “How can I get through depression” it’s important to understand that there are several types of depressive disorders. Some examples include:
- Major depressive disorder
- Seasonal depression
- Postpartum depression
- Depressive episodes from Bipolar Disorder
Given that there are several types of depressive disorders, treatment might look a little different for each. The things you do to get through your symptoms might also look slightly different.
What’s most important to understand is that you don’t have to “get through” your depression and just deal with it or settle. What you need to do instead is learn how to cope, how to manage your symptoms yourself, and how to control things like triggers.
This can be done with several at-home techniques and professional care.
How to Navigate Depression at Home
Several forms of holistic care have been scientifically confirmed as highly effective for managing depression, so if you are wondering, ‘how can I get through depression,’ you can use some of these practices and tips at home when symptoms are high.
Meditation
First is meditation. Meditation is a way of bringing your focus back to the present, back to your breathing and the things within your control. Meditation comes in many forms. You can try the following:
- Tai chi
- Walking meditation
- Eating meditation
- Driving meditation
- Seated meditation
When most people picture meditation, they picture someone who is seated with their legs crossed in a Lotus position, fingertips touching, and eyes closed. But not everyone is able to focus in such a position effectively, and not everyone has time to sit down in the middle of triggered environments or situations.
For that reason, you can learn about several types of meditation online, from your primary care physician, or at a mental health treatment center.
Walking meditation can be used when you are trying to navigate your depressive symptoms and you are outside or in public. Driving meditation can be used when you are in the car.
Yoga
Yoga is another form of holistic care that can be used to figure out how to navigate depression at home. Research indicates that yoga is a highly effective form of treatment when used in conjunction with other therapies.
Yoga is a way to bring together your mind and your body. Your body often holds on to the past in the form of aches and pains, injuries, or stress from before. Your mind often holds onto the future, worrying about what’s to come and how well you’ll be able to handle your depression. But with yoga, you can bring these two together and focus solely on the present moment.
Yoga works as a form of mindfulness, allowing you to recognize that discomfort or feelings of isolation and loneliness associated with depression are temporary, just like the pain you might experience as you move into a new pose that stretches you.
But as you bring your breath together with your movements, you can draw your attention inward and appreciate that even things outside of your control, like triggers or your depressive symptoms, are temporary and won’t control you.
How Can I Get Through Depression with Treatment?
Several forms of holistic care can be experienced when you receive professional depression treatment. With severe depression, you might need medication management services to help you find a medication that you can use to control acute symptoms when they arise.
Music therapy, art therapy, yoga, wilderness therapy, mindfulness, and meditation are all examples of other forms of treatment that can help you manage symptoms.
These types of holistic therapies are often used in conjunction with cognitive behavioral therapy, a popular treatment to help you recognize your negative automatic thoughts and replace them with positive alternatives. These forms of treatment can be received at professional mental health treatment centers like Water Gap Wellness Center.
Water Gap Wellness Center offers several forms of outpatient mental health services in NJ. If you are struggling with depression, we can help you receive customized care that integrates the type of holistic services, education, and therapy best for your circumstances.
Let Water Gap Wellness Center help you find ways to navigate your depression today.