Alternatives to medication or psycholgical therapies for depression

So depression usually stops after a year for 85% of people according to one study done ages ago. But people don't want to wait a year to stop being miserable and the state doesn't want people to be not working.

Some people prefer to wait for a natural recovery. They face a more painful path. A way to pass the time productively and retain their skills is to blog (if their work was the sort of thing that would apply to blogging). So a lawyer who was unemployed might put his energy into blogging rather than watching day time TV and when they returned to work they'd have their work capacity still there. The proverbial knife would still be sharp. I'm not sure if the material the person blogged on would be important or not. I've clearly blogged on mental health. Jack of Kent was unemployed for a short time and I'd guess he put his time into his excellent legal blog.

A return to work may still be difficult. It's why volunteering while depressed makes sense. (that's volunteering after the person's got 'used' to the depression). Volunteering is no stress, the individual gets some of the benefits of work without the pay or the problems that come with externalisation of depression in organisations. They get that bit of routine and they get to feel useful. They also don't get into the routine that can become the benefits trap.

This option sounds really harsh because it sounds like I'm saying people should volunteer while they're depressed. That's not what I'm saying but I'm sure it would make sense for the current government shakeup of the welfare system. I'm talking about keeping a person active in some way as a way to stop them plunging into deeper depression. Yes, there's an aspect of this which is like asking a person who's broken their leg to go and walk on it. It's not a fair example to use but it's true in the sense that a person with a broken leg walks on crutches and has a cast, and volunteering is sort of that cast.

As I'm reading another paper at the moment about intellectual disabilities I'm thinking (again) that so-called mental illnesses may exist because of the change in civilisation that happened around the time of the industrial revolution. Mass schooling created the automatons ready for mass production factory-type jobs and lives. It was a significant leap in progress to institute a medical benefits system that supported those that weren't automatons (I've replaced the word normal with automaton).

These two ways to keep a person active and minimise the occupational dullness that comes through inactivity are pointless because most people who are told they have depression take doctors advice and take drugs. I just imagine that one day when we're closer to utopia people will think about non-pharmcoological approaches and approaches that involve a therapist and promote DIY mental health.