Treatments for Depression to Consider If You Want to Avoid Antidepressants or When the Drugs Don't Work
Depression can impact your quality of life, and it can even interfere with your ability to work or go to school. Seeking treatment is important so you can function, maintain a social life, and be present for your family. Medications are an important treatment for depression, and there are several options to try after discussing your situation with a doctor. Here are some other treatments for depression you may want to consider.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
This treatment involves placing a magnetic coil against your scalp so magnetic pulses can be delivered to your brain. The treatments are given in a clinic that has the necessary equipment, so the treatments may not be easy to find in you live in a rural area.
You may need to take treatment daily for several weeks. The magnetic waves stimulate the area of your brain that has low activity due to depression in an effort to lessen or reverse depression symptoms. Your doctor may likely only recommend this treatment if medications haven't helped.
Talk Therapy
Seeing a mental health professional might benefit your depression. You might have individual talk sessions or group therapy where you meet with the same group of individuals on a regular schedule who also suffer from depression. Talk therapy allows you to speak your thoughts which can make them less powerful. Plus, a therapist is objective and can help you spot errors in your thinking.
A therapist can teach you how to overcome repetitive negative thinking. They can also teach you ways to deal with your depression on a daily basis, such as increasing physical activity, improving your diet, avoiding isolation, and being compliant with medication.
In group therapy, you have the chance to help others deal with their depression, and this can benefit you as well by widening your perspective on how depression affects people and ways to deal with it. Talk therapy combined with medication is often an effective way to deal with depression.
Clinical Trials
If you're not satisfied with your current treatment or if you want to avoid depression medications, ask your mental health professional about clinical trials you might be able to join. You may find a trial that interests you, but you have to qualify for it by having a medical history that matches the research clinic's needs.
Several treatments for depression are being studied and have been studied in the past, such as vagus nerve stimulation, deep brain stimulation, taking certain supplements, and psychedelic microdosing.
Even if you don't qualify for a clinical trial or don't live close enough to the research clinic to take part, researching trials makes you aware of the latest treatments for depression and how well they worked in the research setting.