Herbal Treatments For Depression

Herbal treatments for depression are found on several Internet sites, and according to the reports from the FDA, they are quite effective for relieving the distressing symptoms of this illness. The customer should be careful to buy them from someone who will guarantee that the herbs being bought meet the recommended standards. They will be ineffectual if they are not measured correctly. And for the person who is suffering from the symptoms of depression, it's important that the remedy should work. Those symptoms can include any or a combination of the following: Depressed mood; low self esteem; excessive tearfulness; disturbed sleep patterns; disturbed appetite (either loss of appetite or binge eating); loss of libido; fatigue and loss of interest and motivation; irritability and anger; or anxiety and panic attacks.

The cause of this illness isn't clear. No one is sure why some people get depressed and others don't. Sometimes the condition seems to happen because of a stressful event. Sometimes the illness seems to happen for no reason at all. Genes could play a role, as sometimes a depressed state seems to run in families. However, not everyone who has a relative with the condition is going to develop it. It is widely understood that this is a serious medical condition. Scientists believe that the source could be an imbalance of a chemical in the brain called serotonin. If this imbalance happens, it can affect the way people feel. Herbal treatments for depression provide one of the ways in which people can begin feeling better rather quickly, and drugs for depression is another. Of all the characters in Scripture, there is none with more reason for being depressed than Job, but through it all he remained true to his God. "Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." (James 5:11)

The most common of the herbal treatments for depression is St. John's Wort (an old English word meaning plant); and the second is Passiflora, which reduces anxiety and soothes frayed nerves. There is one company that produces a medicine that combines those two herbs that are often referred to as "Nature's Prozac." Clinical trials showed that these herbs work as well as prescription anti-depressants, and they have no side effects like mood swings, loss of sex drive, or weight gain.

The most important treatment for this condition is not medication. Anyone suffering from any or all of the symptoms of this illness should talk to a professional--a psychologist or psychiatrist--to work through the causes of the problem. Drugs for depression help, but are never used alone. Regular exercise is an effective treatment for the disorder because vigorous exercise raises the serotonin levels and naturally calms the depressed person. Good nutrition and adequate rest are part of the recovery process as well, and there are foods that also raise the serotonin levels, such as oats, turkey, milk, pasta, and other carbohydrate-rich foods. It makes sense that physical good health promotes mental health, so taking care of ones self is a requirement for recovery.

Prior to the current antidepressant drugs coming on the market, there were other drugs that altered the moods of the people who took them. Opium was the drug of choice a century ago, and it was an ingredient in many prescriptions of the time (besides the recreational use that was well known). Barbiturates and amphetamines have each been the drugs of choice at different times during the last half-century. All of these drugs made the people taking them feel better in some way. Drugs for depression do not always succeed in causing pleasant feelings. Side effects from these medications vary from rashes or hives to insomnia or sedation, to tremors, nausea, or diarrhea. Recent studies have shown that these medications are effective in about half the people who take them.

It is wise to remember when dealing with depression that there can be marked improvement without any medication at all, whether herbal treatments for depression or drugs for depression. By doing the work with a licensed professional, the patient can often bring about the desired results. However, that takes time, and when the symptoms are very painful, the assistance of some kind of medication helps a patient feel as though he's making progress a little sooner. This is important especially when the depressed person is considering the possibility of suicide.

There are two kinds of therapy for the disorder. The first is interpersonal therapy, which looks at the patients' personal relationships that both cause the problem, and make it worse. The second is cognitive-behavioral therapy, which helps people learn how to get more fulfillment through their own actions. The person is shown how to unlearn the patterns in his or her behavior that add to, or are a result of, the depression.

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