Pillars of Health 4: What You Can Do

There are a number of ways to manage depression, anxiety, and other mental health diagnoses.  Medications are commonly used, but aren’t necessary in every case.  There are a number of lifestyle changes that can be made that can help manage symptoms, and for some people may be the only treatment needed.  Working with a therapist doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one option, and those CBT principles can be applied daily on your own. Vigorous exercise can be as effective and therapy and medications in mild to moderate depression.  Practicing gratitude on a daily basis helps to relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression.  Keeping up with hobbies and creative activities also helps with depression and anxiety.  The key thing to remember with these is that they do require some regular effort to maintain, which might be difficult early on but does improve with time.