New Inventive Methods For Anxiety & Depression Treatment

Alternative Anxiety and Depression Treatment

People who cannot wait long for a brand new medication have some other options. Besides medicines such as benzodiazepines and SSRIs, psychotherapeutic approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Mindfulness help patients in depression treatment, learn how to recognize and change the thoughts that encourage negative behaviors and emotions.

And there are other remedies which are not medical, such as exercise and more that will be discussed below, which studies have shown are beneficial for depression and or anxiety.


In recent years, many clinicians say among the trends in health is the growth in the use of a method that is thousands of years old and predates a number of the current approaches: mindfulness. Using procedures that help patients to concentrate on the present moment can usually work as a great tool to help them control terrifying fears about the future.

Uncertainty is absolutely central to stress. Stress is about being concerned about something which may happen in the future. This stress turns out to be impractical and a waste of time–nine in 10 things people worry about never come to pass.

If we are living in some future, what-if situation about something terrible that may happen, if we can realize that we are off there. Like, I am sitting in a chair in a room, here several days ahead of the upcoming event that I am imagining, there right there is a sort of mindfulness.

We have just gotten back into the present time, realizing where we were seeing where our thoughts have gone. And that could indeed be helpful for individuals with worries.

It makes an odd kind of feeling that the most promising approach in the era of technological-based advances in brain science dates back thousands of years, considering the technologies that provide us information and take us out of the present.

So if you are feeling anxious, maybe there is something you can do while you are waiting for science to come up with a new medicine that will help you relax: Put your mobile phone down, switch off the cable news and try to live in the present moment. Listen to the sounds around you. Have a walk with your friend and see the sun rising. Most importantly, do not look at social media or read the news.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Cognitive therapy is the gold-standard in depression treatment, and for many people, prescription pills are a lifesaver. But simply because therapy is standard, does not mean it works for everybody.

Other Alternative treatments

Here are five cutting-edge treatments that have helped people seek the relief they never imagined they’d find.

1. Ease Symptoms With A Sniff

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of esketamine–a chemical cousin of the drug ketamine, also known as Special K–as a nasal spray for curing treatment-resistant depression. The first drug of its kind, advertised under the brand name Spravato, it had been found in clinical trials to provide patients considerably faster relief–in just a couple of hours–than they would get from conventional antidepressants, which may take a few weeks to completely take effect.

Spravato works on the glutamate system, a powerful stimulatory signaling system in the brain, rather than other drugs, such as Prozac, that work by raising serotonin levels. Spravato can help with depression as research indicates medicines that target the glutamate system and it may reduce obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety disorder, post-traumatic anxiety disorder, and social anxiety. A number of these disorders also accompany depression; they coexist. So occasionally improving one enhances the other.

Spravato isn’t as simple as spray-and-be-on-your-way. It has to be conducted under health-care supervision due to the chance of abuse, and then there are the charges: $590 to $885 per session but amounts will vary depending on the negotiated price with your health insurance company. However, immediate relief might be well worth the price.

2. Technologies Help To Examine Feelings

VR takes you places that your anxiety won’t let you go!  They say facing your fears is the perfect way to overcome them.

Exposure therapy has been used for depression treatment for a long time, but it has never been more accessible than with virtual reality. A study has shown physiological stimulation does happen in those virtual environments. If we can excite that physiological reaction, we have the chance to expose patients to it and allow them to habituate to it over time.

Take the fear of flying. It is not simple and certainly not cheap to get a plane that will fly you as you learn how to deal with your depression treatment.  Putting on a headset that shows pictures of what it is like being inside a plane might be equally as effective.

For example, when we turn the engine of the airplane on, their chairs begin to vibrate beneath them. They have headphones so that they could hear the captain make an announcement. From the time they get on a real plane, their anxiety is significantly diminished.

3. Going Green

Because wellness is always in blossom.  Speak with any gardener, and he will definitely tell you how focused or calm he feels after working the land. It turns out having a green thumb impact more than just your harvest.

Coordinated gardening, headed by a trained horticultural therapist. Used as a depression treatment, schizophrenia, anxiety, and PTSD at hospitals, community gardens, shelters, and correctional facilities nationwide.

At GreenHouse17 in Lexington, Kentucky, a refuge for sufferers of intimate-partner abuse, the survivors can work on a farm for a weekly stipend. It offers the time for women to think and stop and be silent and still in a restless world according to GreenHouse17’s executive director Darlene Thomas.  After various stays at GreenHouse17, Melissa Keaton says gardening stopped the negative feelings that used to keep her awake at night. “My mind was overthinking about what I did wrong,” Keaton says.

4. Eye Movement Therapy Stops Bad Feelings

EMDR is an optical solution for anxiety.  Describing eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) can seem like the plot of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Are the emotional suffering of painful memories just erased? It is not that exactly; EMDR does not erase negative memories but instead “alters the way the brain encodes the experiences.

EMDR is based on the concept that unprocessed memories from our past–say, sorrow about your father leaving the family. Cause us distress and can cause us to respond to long-ago issues in the present. Such as being anxious, your spouse is always on the edge of dumping you. Once we feel anxiety, our mind is hijacked into responding to the situation like it was the same as past experiences.

EMDR needs patients to face those scenarios head-on to stop the “hijackings” and lessen adverse reactions. During the sessions, patients share targeted traumatic memories while practicing eye movements as guided by their therapist. (Normally, a therapist moves his hand back and forth across a client’s field of vision.) The technique dulls the pain of those memories.

It is the brainchild of Francine Shapiro, Ph.D., a California-based psychologist who recognized her own negative sentiments associated with painful memories changed because of her eye movements. Researchers aren’t really sure why EMDR works, but studies have proved the therapy’s ability to successfully manage trauma. Unlike other procedures, EMDR provided her with a clear context for understanding where her anxiety comes from. That context will help to reduce the power her anxiety wields over me.

5. Chatbots as Therapists

Imagine the perfect therapist, nonjudgmental, always available, and you never get charged when the hour goes over. One caveat: She is a chatbot.  Artificial intelligence, real results.  Treatment via artificial intelligence is on the upswing. Think Talkspace, but rather than a human therapist, you chat with a bot that was programmed by a therapist. Anxiety is the most common mental illness in the U.S., yet only 37% of victims receive treatment.  AI treatment is a user-friendly, inexpensive option.  As a founder, and CEO of the chatbot app Woebot, Alison Darcy, puts it, it is “therapy, redefined.”

Like, really redefined: As it is not FDA-approved medical equipment, Woebot doesn’t claim to manage depression treatment, nor can it replace traditional therapy. Instead, it promotes emotional support to help control uneasy feelings more “herbal supplement” than cure. Says John Torous, M.D., manager of director Psychiatry Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School.

The FDA is directing a program (with Apple and Samsung) to streamline approval. But for now, most apps are charged as wellness programs. That doesn’t mean they are ineffective; a study by Woebot and Stanford University found texting the bot for two weeks really reduced anxiety. Therapy or not, a bot might give the support you need, especially when fear strikes at 3 a.m.!

Author: Joe Clark

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