Life Hacks: Natural Ways to Alleviate Depression

I hate medication. I will suffer for hours with a headache before I’ll take anything for it. This is because I have this irrational fear that OTC (over the counter) drugs are gateway drugs and that once you start with those then it is only a matter of time before your doctor has you addicted to the legal stuff.

Ignoring that particular peculiarity, I feel that the human body was designed to heal itself. All we need to do is give it the right tools in order to do the job. Therefore I have compiled a list of things that I have done and others recommend doing to help alleviate depression.

(Note: I’m not a doctor or even associated with the medical profession. Depending on your health status, some of these may require approval by your doctor in order to do them. Use your head and consult one if necessary.)

Malignant Narcissism

I am fascinated by aberrant human behavior. I believe that abnormal, dysfunctional, strange and even curious behavior tells the truth about us as human beings. We have this terrible habit of whitewashing our negative traits, as individuals and as a collective, that it is almost necessary for us to be continuously reminded of our imperfections and what we could become if we are not careful.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a psychological disposition characterized by extreme self love. Now we are all narcissists to a degree. It is actually healthy to be concerned with ourselves and our well being because this is what inspires us to do things that ensure our survival. However in mentally stable people, this natural narcissism is balanced out by concern over the welfare of others. A person diagnosed with NPD, on the other hand, value their self above all others including those they claim to love. If they show concern for another person, it is only a ploy to try to fool the observer into thinking that they are “good people’.

Do You Believe in Second Chances?

In 2004, a man by the name of Willie Joe McAdams was put in jail for the attempted murder of Cedric Thomas. Because my search skills suck I was not able to find any information on the crime so I don’t know why McAdams wanted to kill Cedric but based on the little bit I did find, it may have had something to do with drugs (McAdams being on them rather than a drug deal gone wrong).

McAdams was sentenced to 40 years in prison but due to a clerical error was released on May 4, 2007 after serving only four years. (Yes, I know the math doesn’t work out quite right. The only thing I can think of is that the judge included time served.) However, that’s not the strange part. Instead of bolting off into the underground to avoid the law and perhaps make a new life for himself, McAdams hunts down his victim and…apologizes.

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar Disorder, also known as Manic Depression, is considered by the psychiatric community to be a mood disorder and is classified as a mental illness. It is characterized by extreme and unpredictable shifts in mood as sufferers cycle through bouts of mania followed by depression.

Like most diseases, the severity of BD varies from person to person. In severe cases classified as Bipolar I a patient will experience full blown mania (characterized by rapid speech, racing thoughts, decreased need for sleep, hypersexuality, euphoria, psychosis, grandiosity, irritability, and increased interest in goal-directed activities) in an alternating cycle with clinical depression (characterized by fatigue, anxiety, guilt, anger, hopelessness, sadness, apathy, depersonalization, melancholy and suicidal ideation).

A person with Bipolar Disorder is 10 to 20 times more at risk for death by suicide than the average “normal” person. In fact persons diagnosed as Bipolar II (instead of manic they experience hypomania but spend more time in a Major Depression state than Bipolar I) have higher rates of suicide compared to other mental health conditions including sufferers of straight Major Depression.

Current studies into Bipolar Disorder say many things. One of those is that as much as 50% of adult sufferers of BD manifested symptoms as children (17 and under). There is a growing concern about catching BD early because some research claims that BD, like depression, is the result of a deficiency in the brain. However BD cannot be cured only managed through the use of medication.