PrepperPsych: Dealing With Depression – Three Prepper Options

Let’s talk for a few moments about depression, and some alternative ways of treating it.

I was walking The Place with my local conservation agent, as he pointed out various plant species and their characteristics.  We walked by a pretty yellow flowering one, and he commented “St. John’s Wort”.  

I stopped. It was growing wild literally within arm’s reach of my driveway.  

I’d been turning over in my mind how to do a piece on depression, as it’s a real problem now that would only get worse during emergencies, and there seems to be little help out there in Prepper World for mental health problems; but it’s a hard problem for a couple of reasons.

Many reports support St. John’s Wort as being effective as an herbal remedy for depression. The sight of it definitely lifts my spirits. Thanks gailhampshire* for the image.

The disclaimer first

For one, I’m not a physician, or a psychologist, so while I have more than a layman’s knowledge of mental health, I’m not an expert (and so these are not medical suggestions; just information sharing).  For another … mental health is just hard from a prepping perspective.  

Mental health problems do best with ongoing professional attention, and in many cases prescription drugs are key and frequent adjustments are necessary.

St. John’s Wort for depression

St. John’s Wort was high on my list of options for depression, though.  While there is some mixed opinion and study quality is always a problem with supplements, St. John’s Wort has shown much more favorably in clinical trials than most herbal remedies.  That means there’s a real chance it actually works.  

Studies report it as being pretty safe. So far as I can tell, preparation is quite within reach too; it being just a dried herb. I hadn’t known where or how easily it grew though.  Well, now I know; it likes Missouri just fine and is happy to plant itself.  Could one grow enough to make it work?  I don’t know; but if someone in my group had the need, I’d be giving it a try.  

Depression treatment idea number two

There’s another remedy that lots of research has shown to be highly effective; and this one would be available in most emergencies.  It looks like this:

Spandex. Spandex is good for depression. No, wait, that wasn’t it….it was … Exercise!

Exercise.  

Exercise works as well as prescription meds (shown in multiple studies) to treat depression.  No, this isn’t some moralistic comment.  It’s about exercise changing your brain chemistry in a way that increases activation and nerve cell connections and causes production of mood-elevating chemicals.  

Brisk walking will do it, gardening or farming will do it, hauling water…yep, physical exertion of pretty much any sort. The hard part (and I get it is actually hard) is making it happen once the depression has settled.

Before we go, one more idea…

The last option on today’s menu is also widely available, and especially so to preppers during times of emergency. Here’s some of it in action:

Giving is good for the giver and the receiver.

Helping others.  

I can’t tell you why this one works; but it’s observably true when people become active in helping others, their own moods on average improve.  While it bothers my scientific self to not have a good mechanism to explain it, ignoring observed fact just because you don’t know why it’s true is just folly.  

This approach works in many cases.  The good news is, as preppers, we are likely to have knowledge or materials or both that can make other people’s lives better; and it’s likely to make us feel better into the bargain.  That, good readers, is a win-win.  

* By gailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K (Common St. John’s Wort. Hypericium perforatum) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons