Historical documents written by philosophers, and healers throughout the ages point to the ancient ways of treating depression, one of the most profound and debilitating illnesses one can have. This prominence disease was initially called “melancholia” at the time when the old time ‘physicians’ thought it’s only seen among those possessed by demons.

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The early Babylonian, Chinese, and Egyptian viewed depression as a form of demonic possession, which takes away crucial aspects of life we need to thrive, like sleep, energy, memory, and sex drive; thereby using techniques such as beating and starvation to drive out demons from the afflicted person’s body. Some old physicians who held weird beliefs about the real cause of depression and those who were of the thought that depression was caused by an internal conflict between unacceptable impulses and a person’s conscience, invented the following ways with which depression was combated in the ancient times.

NOTE: Some of the following practices are still relevant today.

Water Immersion

This therapy for depression was developed in the beginning of the 1800s. It involved keeping people under water for as long as possible without drowning them.

Jin Shin Jyutsu.

This is an ancient practice of treating depression in Japan, it’s known to effectively treat not only depression, but, anxiety, PTSD and back pain.

It involves disabling the more-than-normal emotional states of depression, anger, fear and anxiety by pulling lightly and squeezing the fingers. Those who practice this method believe each finger addresses a different issue.

Lobotomy treatment

In the 1800s, people who see the depression treatments of the era as inadequate, and those who were so desperate to get treatment were treated with lobotomy: a surgical operation performed to destroy the frontal portion of the brain.

They called this a ‘calming’ treatment. But, Lobotomies were not successful as they result to poor judgment and decision making.