21 Essential Steps to Overcome Depression – A Comprehensive Guide

Are you battling to overcome depression? I’m going to share the 21 essential steps to overcome depression.

Do you find it hard to do the steps even when you know they will help you? That’s understandable, some of the symptoms of depression are feeling tired and hopeless. So, when you’re depressed, it’s more difficult to believe the steps will work or have the energy to do them. For this reason, I will also give you tips on how you can do these steps when it feels impossible.

• • Is Feeling Sad the Same as Being Depressed? The Symptoms of Depression
  • 21 Essential Steps to Overcome Depression
  • Is There a Cure — Will You Overcome Depression?

Is Feeling Sad the Same as Being Depressed? The Symptoms of Depression

It’s natural to feel sad now and then. Depression would be a persistent sadness. The symptoms of clinical depression can be more complicated, and it has a negative impact on your life. Your moods become volatile, making you sad one minute and angry the next. Or you could feel numb inside like you don’t feel anything at all.

You stop looking forward to the future and become pessimistic, which reduces your motivation to do anything, and then you feel anxious and hopeless about the outcome. Depression often causes chronic fatigue, and despite feeling tired and having low energy levels, you could have insomnia. So, getting out of bed is difficult because you have poor quality sleep.

When you’re experiencing severe depression, even the simplest act is difficult to do, so it becomes challenging to achieve your goals. But this shouldn’t make you feel like a failure because it isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s the depression that’s making your situation more difficult for you.

It might sound overdramatic to someone who has never experienced a major depressive episode to call it “the grey drizzle of horror” as William Styron did. But when depression has engulfed your life, that description strikes pretty close to home.

When you’ve addressed the depression, things will get easier. You will feel more positive and look forward to the future, helping you be more motivated. You won’t feel so tired all the time, so it will be easier for you to take the steps you need to achieve your goals, and you will have more fun doing them.

So, take time out to focus on overcoming depression. Try the steps that follow and seek out support groups and professional help. Things can and will improve when you put a little time and effort into addressing your depression.

21 Essential Steps to Overcome Depression

The following steps are all part of a coping strategy to incorporate into your daily life. I recommend you skim through the list first. Then come back to the beginning and start doing the steps.

Let’s take a look at how these steps can help you overcome depression.

1. 1. Even 1% Change Will Make a Huge Difference
   2. Stop Beating Yourself Up — Have Compassion
   3. Practice Happiness
   4. Mix with People Who Energize You
   5. Remember to Breathe
   6. Take the Mystery Out of Meditation
   7. Yoga and the Sun Salute
   8. Learn What Gratitude Is
   9. Have a Digital Detox
   10. Bring Nature Inside — Get a Pot Plant
   11. Get Outside and Get Moving
   12. Get Your Heartrate Up with a Daily 1-Minute Workout
   13. Winter Doesn’t Have to Be SAD
   14. Give Your Life Meaning
   15. Your Day Starts the Night Before
   16. Give Your Body the Building Blocks It Needs to Thrive
   17. Check for Nutrient Deficiencies
   18. Choose Supplements to Lift Your Mood
   19. Find a Mental Health Professional Who is the Right Fit For You
   20. Accept You’re Not Alone — Group Therapy
   21. Consider Taking Medication — It Could Save Your Life

1. Even 1% Change Will Make a Huge Difference

You don’t need to make a huge change to make a difference. James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, has a great way of explaining how incremental changes can lead to dramatic results.

He describes a plane leaving the airport with a setting that is a few degrees off. It might not seem like much, but if the plane is leaving Los Angeles and headed for New York, it could end up in Washington D.C. due to that slight difference.

So, if the steps coming up appear to be daunting, then break them into smaller steps. Set a timer for 1 minute. Yes, only 1 minute. And stop when the minute is up. It will surprise you how much of a difference it will make if you do that activity for only 1 minute every day.

The 1-minute method is based on a Japanese practice called Kaizen. The secret is consistency. If you want to change or implement a new behavior, then you need to be consistent. Sometimes 1 minute is all you have the mental or physical energy for. And you’ll find it’s enough to make a massive difference if you do it every day.

2. Stop Beating Yourself Up — Have Compassion

Do you second guess everything you do? Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy. People suffering from depression often have an inner critic. It’s time to learn to have compassion for yourself.

If you have a voice in your head that always finds fault with you, there’s a simple trick you can try. Imagine that voice is a ringing phone. On top of that, it’s someone else’s phone, and it’s ringing in another room. You can choose to ignore it completely. The call isn’t even for you.

When the inner judgemental attitude starts getting to you, another good idea is to visualize a picture in your mind of a place where you could imagine yourself being happy. Perhaps it’s a clean white beach with a clear blue sea or you’re looking out from a penthouse with a glorious view.

Find an image that means something to you. Use that image as a ‘switch to’ image every time negative thoughts start to crowd your mind.

Most of all, give yourself a break. Give yourself permission to rest. This is how you can start to take back control over your thoughts and actions.

3. Practice Happiness

Humans are hardwired to worry and think the worst, and there’s a very good reason for this. Our ancestors learned that we could make the mistake of imagining there’s a tiger in the bushes when there isn’t one, many times over without it mattering very much. But we only need to make the mistake of not noticing when there is a tiger in the bushes once, and it will cost us our lives. This story is from Rick Hanson, the author of Hardwiring Happiness.

So, throughout human history, the people who worried most stayed alive. Therefore, human evolution has set us up to pay most of our attention to fear and danger and dismiss happiness as being irrelevant.

Now we have the opposite problem. We are worrying so much it is negatively impacting our lives, and we need to unlearn the behavior. In the same way as negative thought patterns have been hardwired into your brain, you now need to create new neural pathways using your happy memories.

How You Can Hardwire Happiness

Unlearning thousands of years of evolution will require you to make conscious choices repeatedly and consistently about how you think about happiness going forward. Here are three important steps you need to take:

1. 1. Consciously acknowledge and fully experience happy moments when they happen.
   2. Reinforce happy experiences in your memory by remembering them afterward in vivid multicolor images, using all your senses.
   3. Practice doing this until it becomes a habit.

An Exercise to Practice Happiness

Here is an exercise to help you reinforce memories of your happy experiences.

Think of one specific positive moment when you were happy: truly happy, carefree, and relaxed. Now sit still with your eyes closed. Ask yourself questions like these to help you fully re-experience that happiness in vivid multicolor images, using all your senses.

• • What could you see, including the colors?
  • What could you smell and what did it make you think of?
  • What could you touch, how did it feel?
  • What could you hear and how did it make the experience better?
  • What could you taste?
  • How did it make you feel emotionally?
  • Where did you feel this happiness in your body?

Continue to be aware of your responses and allow the happiness to grow until you can feel it in the same place in your body as when you felt it before. Sit with that happiness and practice maintaining it for a while.

Going forward, hold onto moments of happiness as you experience them. They are precious. Practice recreating and reliving them. You will become more skilled at focussing on the happy moments instead of the unhappy times.

4. Mix with People Who Energize You

In times of crisis, it’s a healthy sign if you reach out for help. It’s important to connect and get emotional support. But are you reaching out to the right people?

Think about your social relationships and how they make you feel. Do they energize you or deplete you? Do you come away feeling upbeat, happy, and motivated, or do you leave them feeling stressed, like everything is hopeless and full of negativity?

When you’re working towards overcoming depression, you need to put yourself first. So, spend time with people who love and support you, people who lift you up and make you feel like a better person. And do what you can to distance yourself from people who knock you down or distort your worldview.

A test for knowing if someone loves you is if they want the best for you, even if it doesn’t get them what they want.

Unfriend people who aren’t good for you. Even if it’s a family member, it doesn’t have to be forever. But you do need to keep only positive influences around you until you are feeling stronger.

5. Remember to Breathe

Even lying in your bed under the covers, you can harness the power of deep breathing to feel better. When you breathe deeply, you breathe oxygen into parts of your lungs that are underused. You flood your blood and muscles with the stimulating effects of having more oxygen.

An often overlooked part of deep breathing is getting rid of the toxic carbon dioxide that our bodies create. We store oxygen in our blood which can keep us going for a couple of minutes, but there’s always an urgent need to get rid of the poisonous CO2.

Deep breathing exercise:

• • Breathe in slowly and deeply for 4 counts
  • Hold for 7
  • Breathe out for 8
  • Repeat this cycle 3 times

How do you feel now after doing that exercise? Chances are you’ll soon begin to feel more grounded and peaceful in the present moment.

6. Take the Mystery Out of Meditation

Meditation doesn’t have to be complicated. The point of meditation is to give your mind a break from the constant flow of thoughts. Even if only for a moment.

Think of it as ‘il dolce far niente’ which is Italian for ‘the art of doing nothing.’

Put down whatever it is you are doing and just be present in the moment. That’s a good space to be in. You can get there by sitting peacefully and letting your mind relax. It doesn’t have to be for 20-minutes, or 45-minutes, or whatever the app someone recommended to you suggests.

Simply sit still and let everything go for one minute.

7. Yoga and the Sun Salute

We have this idea of yoga that is extreme, like twisting your body into a Pretzel. It doesn’t have to be like that to be called yoga.

Yoga is an excellent way of bringing your mind and body into sync. It is meditation in motion.

Find a class in your community hall or at the gym. Or look for a yoga class on YouTube. The important thing is to find a peaceful space — whether it be in a hall, at the gym, or in your own home or garden — and spend time connecting your breath with your movement.

That’s the aim of yoga: to align your breath with your movement.

Start by doing the Sun Salute (Surya Namaskara) every morning to get your day started. That’s enough if it’s every day.

8. Learn What Gratitude Is

When you’re experiencing depression, it’s tough to feel grateful. Depression saps the beauty and joy out of everything. Your days are drained of color and become a black and white movie. You know you ought to be grateful, but feeling gratitude requires that you feel something other than feeling depressed. So it’s hard to do. 

I’m going to take you on a thought experiment. Imagine you have no luxuries, privileges, comforts, or amenities. On top of all the troubles you do have, imagine you would also be homeless, without shelter, alone, cold, and living on the street.

Now reintroduce the luxuries and amenities you have back into your life one at a time. As you do this, fully immerse yourself in the experience with all your physical and mental senses: sight, smell, touch, sound, and feelings.

For example, let’s start with a shower. Imagine how good that first shower would feel; the fresh smell of the soap, the pleasure of lathering away grime and dirt, the sight and sound of the water cascading over your body, the joy of being warm and clean again, the inner peace you would experience afterward being safe in your newly found home.

Hold onto that feeling of peace. Continue this process until you have added everything back.

When you fully immerse yourself in this process, you will start to appreciate the things you have. Gratitude isn’t a duty and something you ought to do. Gratitude results from fully experiencing the beauty and joy that something or someone brings you and acknowledging it.

When you are ready, then start a gratitude diary and write in it every morning or evening to remind you of the positive things you have in your life.

9. Have a Digital Detox

When you’re depressed, the easiest thing to do is lie on the couch scrolling through social media. Or perhaps you’re a workaholic and can’t get off your laptop. Or it’s a video game, and there’s always another level to conquer.

The truth is your digital devices are tiring you out. The content of what you are focussing on is making you stressed, plus staring at screens is damaging your eyes and interfering with your sleep cycle.

Take a break. Turn off your phone, your laptop, your iPad, and your video games. Put them away somewhere you can’t see them. And have a digital detox.

Then do something different. Go away for the weekend. Take a walk on the mountain, along the beach, along the river, in a park, or in your garden. Read a book. Invite a friend for coffee. Walk the dog. Play with the cat. Play a board game. Break away from the addictive rush of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) social media makes you feel.

When you turn your digital devices back on again you’ll look at them differently.

They’re stealing something precious from you: restorative connection with Nature and genuine face-to-face interactions with real people.

10. Bring Nature Inside — Get a Pot Plant

We surround ourselves with technology and buildings. It’s all so sterile. My suggestion is to bring Nature inside by getting yourself a pot plant. It may seem like such a small action, but having a beautiful living plant in your room will remind you that life on this planet is about more than social media and work.

Out in the natural world, forests and oceans are teaming with wildlife. There are hundreds of vibrantly alive and fascinating animals and plants that we have never seen. Life in the wild moves according to a different rhythm than the unnatural one we impose on ourselves in the concrete jungles we have built.

We feel secure here, but we also make demands on ourselves that are sometimes more than our minds and bodies can endure. We can be strong and resilient, but we forget that we are not machines. The existence we have created for ourselves is not always in tune with our needs and limitations.

It’s a good thing to acknowledge every once in a while that you are only human. You are flesh and blood, and you’re also part of the animal kingdom.

So, get yourself a pot plant. It’s a symbolic act and will help you feel more grounded and in touch with Nature. A plant is a living thing and something you can nurture without much effort. All you need to do is water it once or twice a week. When taken care of, your plant will flourish. There’s a lesson in that.

11. Get Outside and Get Moving

Sometimes when you’re depressed, it takes a supreme effort to get out of your home. But it’s best to get your mind off your depression, take in different scenery, and breathe in fresh air. So, try to get outside every day. Even walking around the block is enough to get your circulation going and clear your mind.

Do you need the motivation to do this? Find something as small as a view of the sky, a beautiful tree, or a specific shop window. Set a goal that motivates you to get to that spot. Then don’t ask yourself if you feel like doing it, get up and walk out the door.

Some people in a deep depression can’t even bring themselves to leave their room. If this describes you, then go somewhere in your house where you can open a door or window and see outside. Then set your timer for 1 minute. Breathe in deeply and take in the view for 1 minute.

If you can break away from your everyday routine and get into Nature. Take a walk in the mountains, along the beach, or in a park. Smell the fresh breeze, watch the butterflies and bees, listen to the birds singing, and feel the sun on your face.

Don’t lock yourself away. Aim to get outside at least once a day.

12. Boost Your Energy Levels with a Daily 1-Minute Workout

Remember I said earlier that all you need is 1 minute of an activity for it to be effective? That even applies to physical activity. Simply set your timer and do some form of aerobic exercise for 1 minute. You could jog or walk on the spot, do burpees, jump lunges, star jumps, or you could check out this 1-minute workout video.

And, you guessed it: do it every day. This 1-minute exercise strategy is all about increasing the intensity and being consistent.

Limit yourself to 1 minute to start with. When you go online, you will see longer workouts and be tempted to increase the time. This is not a bad thing in itself, but the challenge here is to be consistent. Whichever workout you choose, commit to doing 1 minute every day.

So, don’t do 45-minutes on one day and nothing the next. The point here is to get regular, daily exercise.

You need to move your body every day. You need to get your heart rate up every day. Doing a 1-minute workout will go a long way towards boosting your energy levels, clearing the brain fog and lifting your mood. The benefits will be incremental and grow over time.

If you want to get a super boost to your mood, circulation and energy levels do a 9-minute workout on your Power Plate… it’s invigorating!

13. Winter Doesn’t Have to Be SAD

Do you get the winter blues? Winter gets us down because of the very real effect of not getting enough sunlight. SAD — Seasonal Affective Disorder — is a physical response due to the lack of sunlight our brain needs to be stimulated and the lack of Vitamin D our bodies need to be healthy.

Winter has its own beauty. Experience the joy of the crisp, cold air and get outside even if it’s winter. Remember, you’re not going to melt in the rain. Wrap up warm and if you get wet then have a hot shower when you get back.

Even in summertime, working fixed hours often means that you’re inside all day and miss out on valuable sunlight. Take time every day to go outside and feel the sunlight on your skin. Ten minutes can be enough to brighten your day.

14. Give Your Life Meaning

Do you spend so much time racing to meet other people’s deadlines and satisfy their expectations that you forget to put aside time to do some activity, especially for yourself?

What inspires you? What have you always wanted to do but never gotten around to?

It could be something like knitting, golf, cycling, or chess. Or it could be working for a charity or fighting for a cause. Perhaps you like to tinker with old cars, or play the piano, or bake cakes. What about learning another language or traveling to a foreign land? Did you previously have a goal to make a quilt or sand your floor? Perhaps you’ve always wanted to start a blog, or you love building jigsaw puzzles or working in the garden. Or you might want to do public speaking.

It could be any hobby or interest.

Bring this activity into your routine by taking the first step towards making it a reality today. It could be a small step like doing an online search on how to get started.

Find a way to give your life meaning and give yourself something to look forward to.

15. Your Day Starts the Night Before

Do you wake up feeling disoriented after hitting the snooze button a couple of times? Dragging yourself out of bed to face anything that gets thrown at you is not a good recipe for success. Plan ahead, so you’re ready for the day. Be proactive, not reactive.

Start your day the night before. Develop an evening routine that includes deciding how you want tomorrow to unfold by controlling what is in your power to control. Plan your meals, choose a task you want to accomplish, calculate the number of hours you need to sleep, and decide what time you need to wake up.

Then wind down before going to bed by doing something that doesn’t include looking at screens or social media. Take a shower or bath to relax and enhance your sense of wellbeing. Read a book. Engage in a hobby. And go to bed early to get enough sleep before the next day begins.

Sleep is the vitally important time when your body repairs damaged cells, flushes toxins, eliminates free radicals, assimilates nutrients, and sometimes even organizes your thoughts.

Sleep deprivation can contribute to depression, early-onset dementia, an impaired immune system, and brain fog. You need to get enough sleep, and you need it to be consistently at the same time every night.

So, set yourself up for success by planning out your day the night before.

16. Give Your Body the Building Materials It Needs to Thrive

Would you pour a soft drink in your petrol tank? Of course not. So why do you treat your body like a garbage bin and then expect it to be a cheerful, focussed, energetic, problem-solving machine when you don’t take care of the food you eat?

Your body needs four components to feel satisfied and perform at its best:

1. 1. Macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fats, and water)
   2. Flavor
   3. Micronutrients, and
   4. Fiber

We tend to focus on the first two: macronutrients and flavor, and then wonder why we are always hungry and lethargic. Your body is craving micronutrients and fiber, in other words: fresh fruit and vegetables (predominantly green vegetables).

Commit to a healthy lifestyle and plan to have three balanced meals a day at the same time every day. Stabilizing your blood sugar levels will reduce a lot of food anxiety and addictive eating. Add vegetables, salads, and beans to your meals and eat them first so that you feel full and satisfied.

Avoid junk food. Eat fresh fruit, nuts, and seeds for dessert. In that way, it will be easier to reduce and ultimately stop eating sugary snacks, processed fats and flour.

The food you eat is used to rebuild the cells in your body. Give your body quality building blocks to gain superior health.

Check out Dr. Fuhrman’s Aggregate Nutrient Density Index (ANDI). It will help you know which foods are the healthiest based on their nutrient density.

Every bite of white bread, pita, bagel, candy, ice cream, cookie, pizza and croissant enhances your suffering and takes time and quality off the end of your life—in proportion to the amount you consume. Empty calories come with a cost that you have to pay three times:

“First, you pay in the present by feeling ill and being overweight and sickly. Second, you pay in the future, with poor health and loss of brain function and memory as you age. Third, you pay again down the road with the years of life taken away from you.”
— Joel Fuhrman, MD and bestselling author of Eat for Life

17. Check for Nutrient Deficiencies

There are several nutrients that are essential to keeping your body and minds working optimally, and many of us are deficient in these nutrients without even knowing it. One of the effects of being low in these nutrients is depression. So, it’s a good idea to get your nutrient levels checked and top them up by supplementing.

Here are the most critical deficiencies to check for:

• • EPA and DHA are Omega-3 fatty acids that is essential for healthy brain function and mood stabilization.

• • Vitamin D3 helps with the regulation and absorption of calcium.

• • Vitamin B12 is vital for the nervous system, healthy red blood cells, serotonin production, and myelin synthesis.

• • Zinc strengthens the immune system and is important in the creation of DNA and healing wounds.

• • Iron is essential for transporting carbon dioxide and oxygen in red blood cells to all areas of the body.

• • Magnesium is vital for the absorption of calcium and plays a role in bone density.

• • Iodine is essential for thyroid health which will affect brain cognition and mood.

Being deficient in any of the above nutrients will contribute to your depression. You can get your levels checked with a blood test authorized by your doctor. You could also get a test kit delivered to you. So, get your levels checked and take steps to bring them back to normal as soon as possible to help you overcome depression.

18. Supplement to Lift Your Mood

Through the ages, people have found that certain natural herbs and nutrients strengthen our immune system, improve our health and give us a sense of mental wellbeing. For some people, certain supplements are powerful antidotes to help them manage stress and overcome depression. For others, it is one more essential aspect of a multi-faceted treatment plan.

Here is a list of adaptogens and nootropics that can help your body deal with stress and lift your mood:

• • Rhodiola helps combat stress and adrenal fatigue, improves mental resilience, and boosts mental performance.

• • SAMe helps create and regulate hormones and proteins in the body. It is used to treat depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome and for improving mental performance. SAMe is also used for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, liver disease, and heart disease.

• • St John’s Wort is widely recommended for treating depression; however, it needs to be used with caution as it interferes with the effectiveness of birth control and prescription medications.

• • Ashwagandha is used to treat stress, anxiety, and depression. It can reduce levels of cortisol, lower blood sugar levels and increase brain function.

• • 5-HTP is an amino acid that is naturally found in the body and is a precursor to the production of serotonin, which in turn decreases anxiety and depression. However, care should always be taken when supplementing with amino acids, and there is no proof that supplementing to increase your levels will increase serotonin production.

• • Ginseng can increase energy levels and improve brain function.

• • Ginkgo Biloba improves cerebral circulation and mental cognition but must not be mixed with antidepressant medications.

• • Lion’s Mane Mushroom helps repair nerve and brain cell damage, may protect against dementia, improves focus, and helps with anxiety and depression.

19. Find a Mental Health Professional Who is the Right Fit For You

It’s important not to self-isolate. Investing in a therapeutic relationship will help you to become more objective and optimistic about your condition. You will find that talking about your situation will be a relief. It will be good to share the burden with someone who is impartial and qualified to treat depression.

There are many different approaches to treating depression. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help you spot negative thought patterns and help you to learn new coping skills.

Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) is helpful when the source of your depression is social interactions. IPT helps build interpersonal skills, deal with unresolved grief, conflict resolution and transitioning relationships like breakups or marriage.

Alternatively, therapists who practice ‘positive psychology’ will focus on the positive, asking you questions that will help you discover your strengths and build on them.

Therapy is not a quick fix, and there isn’t always a reason why you’re depressed. Sometimes it is a mental health condition and has nothing to do with your circumstances. It’s important to find a therapist who is a good fit for you and is someone who will help you find what makes life worth living for you.

But don’t use that as an excuse to change therapists every time therapy gets difficult. Work at being consistent with your appointments and commit to healing your mental health over the long term.

20. Accept You’re Not Alone — Group Therapy

Do you feel like nobody will understand, that your situation is unique and that only you have the answer to getting out of this depression? Let’s look at the statistics.

Percentage of Adults Who Experienced Symptoms of Depression in the U.S.

Ages	% of the U.S. Population
18 – 29 years	21%
30 – 44 years	16.8%
45 – 64 years	18.4%
65 years and over	18.4%

Hearing other people’s stories by joining a support group will help you make these statistics more relevant to you. The first thing you will realize in a group setting is that you are not alone. There are other people who are experiencing the same or similar experiences to you.

It might take a couple of attempts until you find a support group that is right for you, but just as with a therapist, try not to leave a group every time things get uncomfortable. Try to persevere when you are faced with a challenging episode. It could help you have a breakthrough and make progress in your efforts to overcome depression.

The members will share the tips and resources that have helped them, and you might be able to share things that have helped you. Listening to how other people have dealt with depression could increase your understanding of your own experience. It could also help you feel more optimistic when you’re all working towards the same goal.

21. Consider Taking Medication — It Could Save Your Life

Depression stretches over a continuum from mild and temporary to chronic and severe. If left untreated, depression could devastate your relationships, your career, and your health. It could even lead to suicide. So, you need to take it seriously.

Some people can pull themselves out of the depths by using the steps outlined above. And then, there are people for whom depression will be an ongoing challenge. Depression can be classified as a mental illness and could be part of a bigger issue like bipolar disorder. The same as a physical illness may need medication, you may also need to take medication to manage a mental illness.

Finding a psychiatrist you trust and who is willing to work with you to find the right medication for you will be important. Antidepressant medication isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Each one of us has unique needs. There are many influences from your physical and mental makeup to your circumstances that will determine the side effects you experience.

These factors also influence whether to use medication to get through a difficult time or as a long-term treatment protocol. It could take time to find the best option for you, so be patient and keep going.

Medication might be what you need to bring your mind back on track so that you can make good decisions. And the same as insulin is necessary to treat diabetes; psychiatric medication could save your life.

One medication that is remarkably effective at reducing depression and anxiety is Metformin, it does this by increasing serotonin levels. Originally created to treat Diabetes Type 2, Metformin also has many other health benefits for longevity, cardiovascular health, blood sugar regulation and healthy insulin sensitivity.

Metformin requires a prescription in the U.S. and could impact kidney function, so be sure to be under the supervision of a medical professional before you consider taking it.

Is There a Cure — Will You Overcome Depression?

Be open to developing the willingness to overcome depression. Depression is always treatable. Your condition can always be improved. Know that doing the steps needed to overcome or manage depression is time well spent.

For some of us, depression is a momentary setback. For others, it is a major depressive disorder that will need a long-term management strategy. Trying out solutions to overcome depression will help you plant your feet more firmly on the ground and gain a deeper understanding of who you are.

When you operate from a solid sense of self, you will start making better decisions, and your life will improve. Even if depression is something you battle with often, believe things will start to get easier, and trust you will have times when you experience joy and happiness again.