Alternative Therapies for Depression
Elodie shares her favorite alternative therapies for treating depression symptoms.
Psychotherapy, also known as talk therapy can help with your depression, but other forms of therapy can help reduce stress which can help your overall depression as well.
Art Therapy
This first category of alternative therapy deals with the arts and includes:
- Music therapy
- Dance therapy
- Painting
- Sculpting
Art therapy helps you express your inner feelings outwardly to whatever medium best suits your needs.
Meditation
The second category of alternative therapy deals with meditation. So this can be included in your yoga practice or even deals with prayer.
Yoga meditation has been shown to help relieve stress and reduces the inflammatory stressors, as well as it helps contribute to being more focused and overall emotional health. Lastly, if you incorporate yoga into your
Finally, if you incorporate yoga into your lifestyle, deals with breathing and stretching which can increase your physical health which contributes to a release of endorphins which helps you as well.
Sensory Therapy
The third category of alternative therapy deals with sensory therapies. Sensory therapy includes:
- Massages
- Acupuncture
- Light therapy
Body massages are used to relieve stress and pinpoint certain stresses in your body as well as there is acupuncture which is a traditional Chinese therapy which deals with needles and what it does is activate certain painkillers, natural pain killers in your body.
The other form of treatment is light therapy, and this is usually used to treat seasonal depression or depression that occurs through the winter due to lack of vitamin D or not having enough sunlight.
Expression Therapy
Final category deals with an expression which includes things like laughter therapy which helps release endorphins which are also known as feel good chemical or neurotransmitter of your body. There are many avenues to explore when dealing with your depression.
A lot of these work best when used in conjunction with psychotherapy or traditional therapy, but you have to continue doing that research to find out what suits your needs.
