11 Natural Antidotes to Anxiety and Depression

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Most of these are backed by research and many only require minutes per day. Some will be obvious (though people often still don’t take them seriously), while for most people at least one or two should be new.

In roughly descending order of likely power:

Sleep

While this is one of the obvious ones, and broadly covered in popular media, I will mention two consequences of inadequate sleep that have been well established and bear underlining. One, when you’re sleep deprived you think you’re functioning better than you actually are. And two, sleep deprivation increases emotional reactivity, usually with a negative bias. Sleep is the first thing to nail down if you possibly can.

Exercise

As with sleep, this one is well documented. So many benefits across the board, and another fundamental key to mental health. There are lots of variations and recommended regimens, but I think 30 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week is generally a good minimu…