12 Steps to Defeat Depression: Manual Therapy

            And behold, a leper came and worshipped [Jesus], saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”

         Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am wiling; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

                                                                         ~ Matthew 8:2-3

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            Reread the above verses. Can you imagine it? Having leprosy? Being grossly disfigured and outcast from your friends, your family, from all of society?  

           

            Can you imagine not being touched for years, because it wasn’t allowed; and because—being afraid they’d contract the disease from you—no one wanted to touch you? To tenderly pat your back, lovingly stroke your arm. Wrap their arms around you in a hug?

           

            Since touch is one of my primary love languages of communication, I can’t imagine not being touched by my husband, my children, my family, my friends. I honestly think I’d shrivel up and die if I couldn’t experience the touch of another person.

           

            Reread the passage again, and notice what Jesus does. In other leper healings recounted in Scripture, He simply speaks and the lepers are healed. But in this situation, Jesus touches. He violates the rules and lays His hand upon this desperate, dying person.

           

            Can you imagine what being touched felt like to this man who probably hadn’t felt another human being's warm gentle hand in weeks, months, possibly years?

           

            Jesus always meets us where we are, providing our greatest needs. And in this situation, Jesus knows that this emotionally and physically starved man needed to be touched.

           

            Maybe that’s exactly what you need today: a loving touch, a hands-on therapy.

             

           

            Manual therapies, like massage and muscle manipulation, have been around for thousands of years, and they are some of the most commonly used group of treatments in the world today. There’s just nothing quite like what we always referred to as “the laying on of hands.”

           

            Whether it’s the sensation one feels when touched, the warmth of the touch, the tenderness of it, or the actual detoxification and healing one receives after a good massage, I believe manual therapy is one of the best ways to increase blood flow to the tissues, lift one’s spirit, and produce healing in the body and mind.

            

             People often asked me if manual therapy or massage works. My response was always, “Well, I think it does, but even if we can’t actually get solid data proving that it does, as long as it doesn’t cause the patient harm, and they think it’s beneficial, then I’m all for it!” There’s just something beneficial to the brain when you believe the treatment you’re receiving is working.

What is Manual Therapy?

           

            Physical forces applied to the body define hands-on treatments—otherwise referred to as manual therapies. They can include massage, manipulation and mobilization. The most common side effect is local tenderness, which usually resolves itself rapidly after the treatment, unless your therapist has been especially vigorous and overdone it.

           

            Here are some of the most popular therapies available:

           

Alexander Technique:

Named for an Australian-English actor, this technique teaches you to become more aware of your posture and body movements and is used to relieve pain improve body function and prevent injury. Its effectiveness has not been well-documented, but if your depression stems from physical issues, then you might do some research on it, find a practitioner in your area, and give it try.

Feldenkrais Method:

This treatment was actually coming into vogue 24 years ago, when I was still doing clinic work. It uses gentle movements and body awareness exercises (some of which are difficult only to the extent that they’re hard to get used to and require a lot of body awareness to perform correctly) to develop increased flexibility and coordination. I’m not sure about the increased flexibility, but it does increase your coordination by increasing your body awareness and quality of movement. It does that through continual body feedback during your exercises you perform with a trained therapist. The exercises are done sitting, lying down or standing and progress in range and complexity. It has been used to treat anxiety and depression, and may be successful in these areas because of the attention it gives to body awareness and control.

Massage:

I can’t say enough good things about massage therapy, but you must have someone who is trained in it in order to reap the benefits. During massage, the therapist manipulates the body’s soft tissues—gently or vigorously—using either their fingertips, hands or fists. (Yes, fists.) They may even do some patting, pounding, pulling, or pinching, depending upon the type of massage.

A massage may make you feel relaxed, but it can also get your blood flowing vigorously and liven you up. Swimmers—who have been some of the frontrunner athletes in using massage in their training and competition—have used it for years to get them loose and charged for a race. Be careful, though. Vigorous massage can hurt you, so make sure your therapist knows exactly what your physical and mental issues are so they can massage accordingly.

A not-so-funny story about an experience I had right out of grad school in my first job highlights my caution. 

The physical therapists I worked for had just attended a conference where they learned a brand new, wonder therapy. Well, they had what we call an “in service” event, where the staff gathered to learn this new, must-know treatment. And guess who they selected as the guinea pig? You got it! Moi. Me; the newbie.

Anyway, the therapist (my boss) demonstrating got real vigorous with the myofascial release and Rolfing (deep tissue massage ) technique he’d just learned, that he was demonstrating on my sternocleidomastoid muscle (the big one that runs from your collarbone and breastbone, and then up and around your neck to the base of your skull). As he pulled, stretched and attempted to separate the muscle from the "tight" connective tissue (or loosen its connection, which, in turn was to give me, the "patient," more flexibility and range of head and neck motion), my neck started getting pretty sore. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough guts to tell my boss to lighten up, but I should have. Upon awakening the following morning, my muscle was so swollen that it put pressure on my airway and caused me considerable breathing difficulty. My lymph glands were swollen to the size of grapes, and my throat was sore and nearly closed.

So, find someone who’s had experience with the different techniques, and don’t hesitate to alert your therapist if they’re causing you pain. It doesn’t always have to be painful to provide effective healing. (Although sometimes rehabilitation can and does cause a patient considerable discomfort.) Most often though, the guideline is for gentle manipulation.

Massage is highly effective for people suffering from stress, anxiety and depression, regardless of the cause. So it’s way up there on my list of favorite therapies. And it has also been shown to increase the strength of the immune system, which means your body is more likely to be able to defend itself against viral and cancer cells.

That wraps up manual therapies. You can probably think of others to add to this list, but I’ve concentrated on those treatments most likely to help you in your battle with depression, grief-driven or otherwise. You may have some you would like to share with all of the readers. Please leave a response so we can add them to the list!

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NEXT WEEK: We’ll be wrapping up this series on depression with cognitive behavioral

therapy and some additional spirit and mood-lifting activities! Then I’ll return to my story, which also covers high-risk pregnancies and premature infants. You’ll be both encouraged and amazed.

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So, until next week,

Thanks for joining me!

Blessings,

Andrea

             

            

12 Steps to Defeat Depression: Spirituality and Prayer Part 4

…always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:14-18

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            So how, exactly, do these verses—and this advice—help you if you’re suffering from depression, especially grief-driven depression?

           

            At first glance, you may react immediately by saying, “I can’t do those. Rejoice? Give thanks in everything? And then you’ll probably add, “And how can this be God’s will, to rejoice in this pain, to give thanks in my loss? It’s impossible, and I don’t even think it’s right.”

           

            I can understand those feelings, and I’ll admit it’s difficult for me to respond in the manner laid out in these verses. I’ve found that it takes perseverance, discipline and a complete change of heart and mind to put these into practice.

           

            But I’ve also found that when I do respond this way—and sometimes it takes a monumental effort on my part to do so, to war with my flesh and mind and wrestle them into submission over this—it provides me with healing and peace I can’t begin to describe. Healing and peace that burrows deep into my soul and heart, that causes an immediate change of attitude and outlook on my circumstances and on my life.

           

            Paul knew what he was doing when he instructed everyone to practice these behaviors because he knew it’s good for you to do it. It’s good for your mind! And what’s good for your mind is usually good for your body, soul and overall health.

           

            So let’s go through each of them. They’re pretty basic and won’t take much time to cover.

           

            Rejoice always!

           

            Hmmm. Really!? You can’t be serious! Oh, I can assure you he is. Rejoice. Always. Even when you don’t feel like rejoicing. Like love, rejoicing is an action, and often, when you start acting in a loving way, your mind and body follow along for the ride. And so it is with rejoicing. When you raise your hands in praise and happiness and change your speech to positive words, and force yourself to think good, rejoicing thoughts, your mind responds. (Remember the cognitive-behavioral therapy I referred to several posts ago?)

           

            Your mind will trigger a release of endorphins and feel-good hormones to bring your thoughts, mind and body into line with your actions. But you must let it all go; no holding back on this one. If any stray negative thought enters in, and you indulge it and start mulling it over and open the door to it, your rejoicing will evaporate like a dove under the flick of a magician’s wand.

           

            When I think of Victoria now, and find myself sliding down into that black hole of melancholy and self-pity, I turn my focus instead to the wonderful memories of her and that pregnancy, and think ahead to the future, of being reunited with her for eternity. And in that thought alone I can rejoice mightily! I unconsciously smile, an automatic reaction to the happiness that creeps across my heart. My entire body bursts with joy over those thoughts. There is nothing sad about them.

           

            I’ll tell you a story that gives you an idea of the sense of humor God has.

           

            About ten years ago, Chris and I were struggling with work stress and life stress, both of which strained our marriage. Chris was having a particularly difficult time and ended up having to take doctor-ordered disability leave. Once again, I found myself at my rope’s end, not knowing where to turn, how to turn or when to turn. So one night I grabbed my Bible and retreated to our front porch rocking chair to cry out to God, to wallow in my agony.

           

            “Okay, God,” I sniveled, “I want to find a perfect psalm. One of those real heartrending ones David penned when he was at his wit’s end and felt abandoned and finished. Find me a real good one!” I flipped open my Bible to the Book of Psalms and stared at the words through blurry eyes. Tears dripped onto the page as I peered and squinted at the Psalm lying open before me.

           

            “What?” I whispered, mildly irked at the verses that leapt off the page at me. “No, God. That’s not what I was looking for! This is a praise and worship psalm, not one I can really sink my aching teeth into. What do you mean by leading me to this one?” After several seconds of pouting and internal argument, I murmured an “Okay, I’ll-read –it-but-I’m-not-going-to-like-it” response and dove in.

           

            As I read aloud the psalm of rejoicing and praise to God, my heart filled with love, understanding, forgiveness and peace. The words eradicated every ounce of sadness from my cells and caused my heart to pound with joy. Within seconds, my attention had flipped from focusing on all of my hurts, to how great and capable my God is. I actually felt a bit embarrassed and silly about my wallowing. For the next half-an-hour, I hugged my Bible close and thanked God for His wisdom and guidance, His loving, tender touch and redirection of my focus—from me and my doubts and human limitations, to His omniscient power to change my circumstances or guide me through them. Tears poured harder at the realization of His guiding hand. And then I laughed outright at the irony.

           

            He had taken me where I didn’t want to go, knowing that I needed to go there. 

           

            If you’ve never tried it, I encourage you to do so. Rejoice, even in the most difficult of circumstances. You’re not rejoicing about them, but you’re rejoicing through them. It will change your perspective.

           

            Pray without ceasing.

           

            This is pretty straightforward: Always be in an attitude of prayer, thoughtfulness, mindfulness (remember that post?), ready to hear God’s voice and leading. It makes you more sensitive to the Spirit and to His guiding hand.

           

            In everything, give thanks.

           

            I know. How does someone possibly do that given the agonizing pain and grief they’re mired in? The answer? You can’t. Not in your human flesh anyway. This is something where you need to surrender everything to God, and let Him do the thanking for you.

           

            In order to accomplish this, I usually say something along these lines, “Okay, Lord. Everything You do and allow to happen, You do for a purpose. So, please, let me learn what it is You have to teach me right here, right now. Don’t let me rebel against it; let me sink myself into it so I can learn all You have for me to understand.

           

            I remind myself (or try to) of the old Scottish adage that says, “The vine is never so close to the vinedresser as when it’s being pruned by Him.” The pruning hurts, but it’s oh, so necessary for the most prolific growth to occur. (More on this in a much later post.)

           

            And then there is the thanks I can give—and which renews my hope—at the reminder that God is still on the throne, He’s still in control, and prayer changes things. Sometimes what prayer changes is not the situation, but me, my attitude, my outlook. My heart. 

           

            So the main takeaway point is that there is always something for which I can give thanks. And giving thanks does wonders for my mind, body and soul!

           

            Pray the Scripture.

           

            This one isn’t in the list, but I have found it to be one of the most singly powerful ways to pray. Use Scripture to pray for yourself, your spouse, your children, your family and friends. God promises that His word will not return void unto him, so you can be assured that you are praying powerfully, in words that will be pleasing to God. Words that you can wrap around your heart and soul and soak yourself in. Words that will change you, inside and out.

           

            The bottom line is: Do NOT let anything or anyone steal your joy! Not even you! So often we give our joy away, or steal it from ourselves because we are so self-focused. That alone can keep us in bondage to depression and pain and rob us of the sound mind God wants us to enjoy.

                       

            Good luck on practicing these principles. Please let me know how it goes!

           

            I’ll be praying for all of you!

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NEXT WEEK: Relieving depression with manual therapy. The following week we’ll finish this series on beating depression with cognitive-behavioral therapy, and the first week in February, I’ll return to my story. You’ll want to join me for that, to read about the miracles, the internal struggles, the extreme battles with evil and spiritual darkness, the high-risk pregnancy, the joys, the losses, the angelic visit. All of it. It’ll be a story of redemption and joy you won’t want to miss.

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Until next week,

Thanks for joining me!

Blessings,

Andrea

12 Steps to Defeat Depression: Spirituality and Prayer Part 3

Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray,...” Luke 11:1

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Prayer.

It’s the lifeblood of every believer—every follower of Jesus Christ.

It’s the lifeblood of every person who has a devotion to God.

It’s even the last resort for every agnostic fence sitter who hasn’t, can’t or won’t make a decision about what they believe or Who they believe in.

Jesus’ disciples ask Him a lot of questions, like what do his parables mean where is He going and why is He doing certain things, but it is His praying that seems to really grab their attention.

We don’t know why—whether it’s the way He prays, the power of His prayers, or how often He prayers—but prayer obviously grabbed the disciples’ attention, and they wanted Jesus to teach them how to pray.

Jesus doesn’t respond by giving them a lengthy, academic discourse on why they should pray or the benefits of prayer. What He says is: “When you pray, say:” and then launches right into what is famously known as The Lord’s Prayer,” but what is really a model prayer for his followers. (His personal prayer, recorded in the Book of John doesn’t look anything like this simple, get-right-to-the-point-and-cover-all-the-bases prayer recorded in the Book of Luke.)

Immediately Jesus takes the position that, 1) Prayer is important, (we can glean that from how often he prays); and 2) He assumes His disciples pray.

His disciples prayed then, and they should be praying now.

Just how important is prayer? One look at the Bible tells you. The Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) is filled with the beseeching, praising prayers of the Old Testament saints. The New Testament is full of powerful examples of them too. James, the brother of Jesus and author of the Book of James, was called “Old Camel Knees” because he was said to have spent so much time on his knees in prayer.

Martin Luther is thought to have said: I have so much to do that I shall have to spend the first three hours in prayer.  

In his first epistle to the Thessalonica church, Paul instructs the believers to “pray without ceasing.”

And it’s worth noting that research indicates that people who pray have happier, healthier lives, and they are more likely to survive catastrophic events and illnesses, and live longer. (If you’d like a fascinating read on this subject, get the book, The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life, by Ben Sherwood.)

I think you get the point. Prayer makes a difference in your life.

*But what exactly is prayer? It’s a reasoning-together between a Father and His child, a Lord and His follower; a deep, heartfelt conversation between two friends.

When you’re deep in depression, it may feel to you as if nothing will make a difference in your life. Everything is so bad that nothing is going to fix it. Not even prayer. Nothing looks good to you, outside or within. You’re unhappy, miserable, dejected. You feel as if the entire world is against you and you’re going nowhere. And, often, you don’t care about the going-nowhere-part, because you don’t possess enough energy to care.

It’s at this point that you may need one of the most beautiful, effective prayers ever recorded in the Bible. It’s the one Peter says, (actually, he probably screamed), when he starts walking across the water, takes his eyes off Jesus and gets a good look at and earful of the howling wind and begins to sink.

It’s dramatic, and a little humorous. Peter gets right to the point. “Lord, save me,” he yells. And Jesus immediately stretches out His hand and catches Peter, to keep him from drowning. But Jesus gets in a lesson when He does it. He says to Peter, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

And that is often the crux of our depression problem.

Doubt.

Doubt in others. Doubt in ourselves. And, yes, even doubt in God.

Things happen, and the world doesn’t revolve exactly the way we think it should, or our life doesn’t go according to our plan. We get thrown horribly off-balance and don’t make the right adjustments, don’t think rightly about our situation.

In the end, we fall into the trap of judging our current situation—and then projecting the outcome of it—by our own limitations, and often forget about God—who has none. Or we simply project our limitations upon Him, thinking or believing He really can’t do any more than we have done to change the situation.

Before I go on, let me insert here that I do not believe for a second that all illness, including mental illness like depression, is caused by sin in someone’s life. I think to believe that is to blatantly ignore Jesus’ own comment on the subject, and to disregard the story of Job. Certainly all sin, illness, physical, mental, material and spiritual deterioration and death entered the world through one man, Adam. But constantly telling ourselves, or listening to someone else tell us, that we’re sick or depressed because of our own sin—or someone else’s—actually causes us to wallow in self-pity, denies the lifesaving power of the cross, and forfeits the redeeming, saving work Christ did there! *(See footnote at bottom of page.)

Again and again, especially when I am suffering the most, I remind myself of what Paul says to the young pastor, Timothy: “For God has not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (My emphasis.)

If I believe that verse, then I must reason that something, or someone, has stolen my (spiritual) power and sound mind from me—or I’ve let them have it—and I want to do everything in my power to recover them!

Whether we admit it or not, recognize it or not, pay heed to it or not, we are all involved in a raging spiritual warfare, with hidden land mines planted everywhere, so I shouldn’t be surprised when those mines explode and send my life helter-skelter. And when it happens, I should instinctively know what I must do to fight on to win.

Pray.

For I believe it is through the magnificent, healing power of prayer that you and I can gain victory over depression and debilitating grief.

I believe praying is the single most important activity you do in your life, after accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior, because it is the most life-changing activity. Praying, more than anything else, has the power to alter and restore your life! 

And right now some of you may be asking, “Andrea, what is prayer? What does it look like?" The short answer is: It’s a reasoning-together between a Father and His child, a Lord and His follower; a deep, heartfelt conversation between two friends.

Next week we’ll get more specific. I’ll cover what I believe are the most effective prayer strategies and why I believe them to be the most effective. But if you want to get started right now, begin by opening up your Bible and researching the subject. Find some of those powerful prayers uttered by the saints. Go through Psalms and see what David and the other psalmists had to say in their prayers. If you have a concordance, start with a word search.

And if you’re really struggling in depression and sadness, and find strength and motivation in extremely short supply, you can always follow Peter’s example.

“Lord, save me!”

If you do, you can be assured that He will!

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Until next week,

Thanks or joining me!

Blessings,

Andrea  

* Depression has a myriad of causes. And as I’ve pointed out in the past, one of the causes is due to a chemical imbalance, which is sometimes so severe that it warrants medication. If you need the medication, TAKE IT, but make sure you are simultaneously working through other avenues to recover.