Depression Treatment - How I Battled Depression and Won... So Could You!

Article

Effective Depression Treatment That Worked For Me!

By Alan Hands (January 2007)

Happy New Year everyone! I really hope you had a great time over the festive season and that the new year brings everything you hope it will.

Sadly, for many people Christmas and New Year isn’t as joyful and triumphant as they would wish. Single people in particular, both young and old, can feel isolated at this time of year and even if you are surrounded by family and friends there can still be plenty of stress, anxiety, noise and squabbles to deal with.

If you add this to the normal stresses and strains of our busy lives it is no wonder that calls to depression and suicide helplines rise by nearly ten per cent at this time of year.

There have been many studies of Clinical Depression and depression treatment, with just as many different statistics produced claiming that anywhere between 16% and 33% of people will suffer from depression at some point in their lives. Without becoming hung-up on the figures, it is plain to see that even using the lower estimates, EVERYONE at some stage in their lives will be affected by depression, either their own or someone else’s.

Unfortunately for me I became one of these statistics, having experienced symptoms of depression and later fell victim to Clinical Depression through a variety of reasons and circumstances.

At this stage, maybe I should introduce myself.

My name is Alan and I am an ordinary person from the UK. This may come as a surprise to you – not that I am from the UK, but that I am a MAN! Yes, men do read Health Womens Inside Insight Newsletter too!

I have an ordinary job, ordinary life and face the same ups and downs as many of you. Like countless millions of others I have had my share of good times and bad but never thought for one moment that I would experience symptom of depression, let alone fall victim to that ever increasingly common illness known as Clinical Depression.

I always prided myself on my laid-back attitude to life and couldn’t understand those people who got stressed about things, never mind those who suffered anxiety or even worse, those that got depressed.

What a shock to the system then that I became a victim of circumstances which saw me not only suffering from severe stress but which also led me down the path of anxiety and panic attacks - a symptom of depression, and ultimately to that dark place where I was medically diagnosed as suffering from Clinical Depression.

My full story is much too long to re-tell in the short space available in this Article, but briefly my recovery started out the same as many people with an ongoing symptom of depression. The doctor prescribed depression medication - anti-depressants. Not surprisingly this wasn’t the answer for me and I believe that in the majority of cases there are far more effective ways and means of depression treatment.

I also tried some counselling – some good, some bad, but my second counsellor pointed me in the direction that would change my life forever. She encouraged me to find out as much about anxiety depression as I possibly could and, having a thirst for knowledge, I thoroughly researched the subject. This led me to make some surprising discoveries about depression and depression treatment. For instance, that there is a connection between excessive dreaming and depression. In turn this understanding led me to find ways to improve my sleep (something I had a longstanding problem with). This important, yet small step on the road to depression Self Help, ultimately helped in a small way in the overall battle with depression.

As I started to become more proactive, my depression self help skills increased. I tried many other things to help with various aspects of my life. Some of my self-help depression treatment included aromatherapy and self-hypnosis and before long the combination of these things and the effects they were having helped change small areas in my life. All these small things had a cumulative effect and I soon found my depression lifting, as a direct result of my self-help depression treatment efforts.

This might seem a strange thing to say, but looking back on things now I am actually GLAD that I went through my battle with anxiety depression. I say this because my life is now so much richer for the experience, having learned so much about an illness that I didn’t understand before and having learned that depression medication - anti-depressant drugs are not always the answer. This has led me to keep an open mind to alternative therapies for depression treatment and not be too quick to discount any possible solutions for any problems in life.

I also made a HUGE discovery which initially helped me in my battle with depression, but which now also benefits all other areas of my life and has led to improvements in everything from my health and wellbeing, to my career and relationships and everything in between.

I am also confident that the techniques and the self-help depression treatment strategies I learned would enable me to banish depression if I were ever in the unfortunate position where it started to return. I am sure that anyone with Clinical Depression could learn from and adapt my techniques to help themselves beat depression like I did.

If you would like to read more about my journey from the darkest days of my depression to the fantastic place where I am now – depression-free, then please visit my website, where you will learn: