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    Healing From Depression Naturally: 52 Proven Ways to Elevate Your Mood and Live a Life Free from Depression
    Healing From Depression Naturally: 52 Proven Ways to Elevate Your Mood and Live a Life Free from Depression
    Healing From Depression Naturally: 52 Proven Ways to Elevate Your Mood and Live a Life Free from Depression
    Ebook197 pages2 hours

    Healing From Depression Naturally: 52 Proven Ways to Elevate Your Mood and Live a Life Free from Depression

    By Douglas Bloch

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    About this ebook

    In seeking a way to heal from his depression, author Douglas Bloch came to develop a "better mood" recovery program that employs a "holistic," multi-modal approach to lifting one's mood. The result is the e-book, Healing From Depression Naturally, which consists of 52 proven tips that are designed to help the reader to live optimally and to manage his symptoms of depression and/or anxiety.

    Using the tools from Healing From Depression Naturally, the reader will learn to:

    • adopt new beliefs.
    • develop new behaviors and habits.
    • strengthen his "psychological immune system and learn new ways to respond to stress.

    Therefore, by applying these strategies the reader can change his brain, and thus change his life.

    "To optimize the function of the healing system, you must do everything in your power to improve physical health, mental/emotional health, and spiritual health...
    One must see the whole picture of health, and
    understand the importance of working on all fronts."

    Andrew Weil
    Eight Weeks to Optimal Health
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateAug 6, 2013
    ISBN9780929671086
    Healing From Depression Naturally: 52 Proven Ways to Elevate Your Mood and Live a Life Free from Depression
    Author

    Douglas Bloch

    Douglas Bloch's recent publication, Healing from Depression: 12 Weeks to a Better Mood, has been acclaimed as "a lifeline to healing." He facilitates ongoing support groups for people who suffer from depression and anxiety.

    Read more from Douglas Bloch

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      Healing From Depression Naturally - Douglas Bloch

      depression.

      Healing From Depression Naturally

      Tip #1: Set the Intention to Heal

      Welcome to your first tip for healing from healing from depression and anxiety. In the introduction to this e-book, I talked about my personal experience with depression and what helped me to recover. Now I would like to begin the process of guiding you on your journey towards mental health recovery.

      I would like to start by giving you an overview of my mental health recovery program. It consists of three life-changing steps. I call them the three pillars of mental health recovery.

      Step 1: Set the intention to heal. Make the decision that you want to get well, even if you don't know how. Setting the intention to heal is the starting point of all recovery

      Step 2: Reach out for support. Love and connection are an essential part of the healing process. Human beings are hardwired for connection. Thus, enlisting the support of others is a key factor in your recovery process.

      Step 3: Treat your symptoms using a combination of mutually supportive therapies. An example of this integrative approach can be seen in the way we treat heart disease. If you asked a cardiologist how to prevent or to recover from a heart attack, he or she might prescribe a cholesterol-lowering medication and tell you to eat a low-fat diet, exercise three times a week, and cut down on the stress in your life.

      In a similar manner, depression must also be treated using a variety of coping strategies that act to support you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

      The following statement sums up these three pillars of recovery:

      INTENTION + TOOLS + SUPPORT = Mental Health Recovery

      Now let's look at Step 1, Set the Intention to Heal, in greater detail.

      Step 1: Set the Intention to Heal

      The Taoist philosopher Lao Tsu said, The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Today, you are setting out on a journey of healing from anxiety and depression. What is your first step as you begin this quest? It is simply to state your intention to get well.

      This may seem like a small act, but it has profound ramifications for your future health and well being, whether you have been struggling with depression for weeks, months or, like me, since childhood. Regardless of the time involved, the first step is the same--making the decision to heal.

      For some readers, this may seem too difficult, since depression robs us of our energy, motivation and hope. Fortunately, at this point, I am not asking you to do anything, only to make a decision. You don't have to know how your healing will take place. You don't have to believe that it is possible. If you are feeling particularly hopeless or discouraged right now, ask yourself this question: Is there a part of me, however tiny, that wants to feel better? If you can find just a molecule within you that says, I WANT TO LIVE, your healing journey has begun.

      By setting the intention to heal, you will stimulate and support your body's healing system--its innate capacity to control disease and bring itself back into balance." Physician Andrew Weil describes this phenomenon in the book Spontaneous Healing. Weil writes:

      The body can heal itself. It can do so because it has a healing system. At every level of biological organization, from DNA up, mechanisms of self-diagnosis, self-repair, and regeneration exist in us. Medicine that takes advantage of this innate healing is more effective than medicine that simply suppresses symptoms. [I think you need to provide a reference here]

      Although we call depression a mental illness, the disorder manifests with debilitating physical symptoms as well. And as anyone who has survived an episode of depression knows, the brain and body can heal themselves if they are given the right support. Saying, I want to feel better, is the first step in changing your brain chemistry.

      Creating Your Vision of Wellness

      The basic tool that you will be using to translate your intention to heal into a reality is the vision statement of wellness. Essentially, your vision statement will answer the question, What would my life look and feel like if I were free from the symptoms of anxiety and depression?

      A vision statement is based on the second habit from Steven Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People-- begin with the end in mind. According to Covey, this habit arises from the principle that all things are created twice--first in the mind and then in the world of form. In writing a vision statement, you create an exact mental blueprint of health that you are seeking and communicate this picture to your brain and nervous system. The following exercise will show you how.

      Composing a Vision Statement

      Imagine for a moment, that you are in a state of health and wholeness. Imagine that your mental and emotional health are functioning at optimal levels. What would it be like for you to be in a better mood?

      How would your body look and feel? How much energy would you have available to you?

      How would you be feeling most of the time? What types of thoughts would you be thinking?

      What types of relationships would you have? What kind of work would you be involved in? What would your spiritual life look like?

      Drawing upon the answers to the above questions, on a separate page write a paragraph (or more) describing your vision of mental and emotional health.

      See if you can use all five senses--sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste--to depict your experience. Set it down in the present test, as if the experience were happening now.

      Also, see if you can tap into any positive feelings such aliveness, peace, strength, etc. In doing so, you are uncovering into your deepest passion for change, an energy that will fuel your recovery process.

      As you proceed with this exercise, do your best to write something, even if recovery from depression seems like a distant reality. If you can't imagine yourself being completely well, choose to see yourself feeling a little bit better. One woman simply stated, I just want to feel my life force again. Remember, I am not asking you to believe in your healing; only to desire it.

      If this still seems like too much, ask someone to help you write your vision statement--e.g., a friend, family member, your counselor, your doctor, etc. You don't have to do this work alone.

      There are many ways to write a vision statement. What follows are two sample vision statements of different length.

      Peter's Vision of Health and Wellness

      Peter, a client who suffered from anxiety as well as depression, wrote this vision statement to describe his desire to return to his old life.

      I am calm and peaceful. My energy is strong and good, I am engaged in life with my family, friends and co-workers. I am happy and easy going. I sleep well and peaceful at night. I wake up in the morning looking forward to my day, whether it is new design challenges at work or weekends where nothing is planned.

      I look forward to being with and doing things with my friends and family. I travel extensively and I love it. I am a body builder enjoying my great body and my workouts.

      I am a good influence on my kids, and they look to me for advice and support which I give easily and positively.

      I love my life.

      Laura's Vision of Health and Wellness

      The following vision statement is only two lines, but it perfectly captures the essence of joy and wellness.

      I am healed, whole and complete.

      I am fully alive, filled with love, joy and gratitude.

      In working with clients over the past decade, I have found that those people who write a vision statement and focus on it on a daily basis make the quickest progress in their recovery from depression. If your vision statement is clear, specific, and has the power of heartfelt commitment behind it, it will activate both your inner healer and a benevolent aspect of the universe that will support you in your desire to be well.

      Over the next few days, see if you can use this exercise to formulate your own vision of wellness. It doesn't have to be perfect; just start someplace. My vision statement went through a number of revisions before it got to its present version. Be patient. Soon your vision statement of wellness will become a beacon of light, guiding you towards your recovery.

      Healing From Depression Naturally

      Tip #2: Reach Out For Support

      "Anything that promotes a sense of isolation often leads to illness and suffering.

      Anything that promotes a sense of love and intimacy,

      connection and community, is healing."

      Dean Ornish, Love and Survival

      Welcome to your second tip on overcoming anxiety and depression. In the first tip, I explained how setting the intention to heal represents the first step on the road to recovery. Now I would like to share an equally important principle, that the power of intention is magnified when it is shared with another person. When we state our vision of wellness in the presence of one or more supportive people, our vision becomes strengthened and exponentially magnified.

      This principle of mutual support is demonstrated by the success of Alcoholics Anonymous. No cure existed for alcoholism until two drunks came together and said, Let's do together what neither of us can do alone. Each day, tens of millions of people gather together in AA and other 12-steps communities to join together in love and caring to mutually support each other's healing.

      Having support in your life is not just helpful in promoting recovery; it is essential. One cannot overcome an illness like major depression (or any dark night of the soul experience) by oneself. The weight of the illness is too immense, even for the strongest-willed individual, to bear alone. Whenever I see people withdraw, isolate, or try to beat the illness on their own their symptoms invariably worsen. Conversely, when people take the risk and reach out for help, they open themselves to a healing force more potent than any known drug. In his book Love and Survival, Dr. Dean Ornish says this about the healing power of human connection:

      I am not aware of any other factor in medicine--not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery--that has a greater impact on our quality of life or incidence of illness.

      Finding Allies in Healing

      Having healthy relationships not only helps to alleviate depression, but also helps to prevent its recurrence. Isolation, on the other hand, makes one more vulnerable to mental and physical illness.

      Building a good support network takes time and the process is unique to each person. It means surrounding yourself with people who can validate what you are going though and who can unconditionally accept you. I have identified six types of connections that I believe are extremely helpful in healing from depression:

      family and friends;

      mental health professionals;

      mentors and allies;

      group support;

      community service; and

      relationships with animals.

      Let's explore them in detail.

      1) Family and close friends

      This is often the first line of defense against emotional or physical illness. During my depressive episode, I was fortunate to have my wife Joan as my caretaker. In addition, I had three to four close friends who took shifts to help care for

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