Holistic Tips for Healing Your Depression
By Melody Wright, LMFT
There’s a certain kind of heaviness that’s hard to explain.
It’s not always sadness.
It’s not always tears.
Sometimes, it’s just a sense of moving through your day with the volume turned down.
A mind full of fog and a body that feels like it’s made of stone.
As a therapist, I’ve worked with many people who’ve carried this invisible weight, often for years.
They don’t always name it as depression at first.
It might come out as “burnout,” or “being off,” or “not feeling like myself lately.”
But beneath the surface, their bodies are telling a different story.
“What I’ve come to understand through somatic therapy is that depression isn’t just a state of mind; it’s a nervous system response.”
It’s not always dramatic or obvious, but rather something that becomes a part of your day-to-day life and settles into your body.
In this blog, I want to offer another lens. A more embodied one.
A way to begin making sense of the quiet weight you might be carrying, and how your body might be asking for support.
Understanding Depression as a Whole-Body Experience
Culturally, we tend to think of depression as being very emotional.
We expect sadness, crying, and withdrawal.
And sometimes, that’s part of it.
But many of the clients I work with don’t necessarily feel sad; they feel detached.
What we often miss is that depression doesn’t always feel like pain.
Sometimes it feels like distance and disconnection.
Almost like a slow drift away from the things that once felt meaningful, until everything feels muted and out of reach.
Depression can stem from a nervous system that has been in survival mode for so long, it no longer has the energy to mobilize.
It shuts down, in a sense, and it’s not because you don’t care, but it’s because you’re drained.
This is the kind of depression I see most often.
And it’s the kind that rarely gets talked about.
What is the Body-Based Side of Depression?
When I look at depression through a body-based lens, I don’t just see a cluster of symptoms; I see a system trying to protect itself.
A body that has been overwhelmed, overextended, and over-adapted for so long that it finally had to power down.
This isn’t weakness. It’s protection.
The nervous system is always working on your behalf. When it senses that the environment isn’t safe enough for connection or expression, it enters a state of conservation.
You stop caring.
You stop reaching out.
You stop feeling.
Not because you stopped trying, but because your body did what it had to in order to keep you safe.
When we stop framing this as a personal failure and start viewing it as a physiological response, a new kind of compassion becomes possible.
How Depression Can Hide in Everyday Life
Depression often goes unnoticed, especially if you’re high-functioning, organized, or used to looking “put together” on the outside.
The symptoms blend in and are rationalized. And often, they become part of your identity.
If you grew up in a place where it wasn’t safe to share how you felt, you might have learned to bottle everything up. That kind of emotional storage can quietly turn into depression.
If you would like to learn more about how to recognize and process your emotions, check out our blog, How to Recognize & Process Emotions When You Were Never Taught How.
You may even find yourself saying things like:
“I’m just not a very emotional person.”
“I’ve always needed a lot of sleep.”
“I’m not the type to get excited about things.”
As a therapist, when I slow down with someone and we begin to explore their experience through the body and not just their thoughts, a deeper layer often emerges.
One that says: “I don’t remember the last time I felt alive.”
“I miss myself, but I don’t know how to get back.”
That’s where the work begins.
What Are The Signs of Depression?
Here are a few ways I’ve seen depression show up in clients’ lives, ways that are often overlooked or misread, especially when the body is stuck in a state of freeze:
1️⃣ Flatness in the face or voice
You may feel like it takes effort to express emotion. This is your body’s way of conserving energy, even in your facial muscles.
2️⃣ Slowness in movement or speech
Everything feels slowed down. Not because you’re tired, but because your system has hit “low power mode.”
3️⃣ Digestive issues or lack of appetite
Your body deprioritizes digestion when in a depressed state. You might forget to eat or feel full quickly. Eating becomes a task instead of a pleasure.
4️⃣ Cognitive fog or blankness
Not just forgetfulness, but moments where it feels like your brain goes offline. You stare at a wall. You may find yourself rereading the same sentence or losing time.
5️⃣ Difficulty connecting with others
It’s not that you don’t care. You might deeply want connection with others. But you may feel like there’s a wall or an invisible barrier that keeps you from reaching out or feeling close.
6️⃣ Emotional detachment
Not feeling moved by things that used to matter, like music, nature, intimacy, and spirituality. You notice the absence, but can’t bring it back.
7️⃣ Persistent internal pressure to be “better”
This one is subtle but can feel overwhelming. You might constantly shame yourself for not feeling more, doing more, trying harder, even as you struggle to get through the day.
Each of these is a signal from your system. Not a flaw to fix, but an invitation to listen.
Body-Based Tips For Managing Depression
When you're living with depression, even the idea of doing something to feel better can feel overwhelming. That’s why I don’t offer quick fixes or high-effort routines.
Instead, consider starting with small, body-informed practices that meet you where you are.
These are tools I’ve used with clients (and sometimes in my own life) to begin shifting out of the shutdown state that depression often brings. These tips are not about forcing change but rather about slowly reawakening connection, energy, and aliveness in the body.
Here are a few to try that make a difference:
1️⃣ Start by Noticing What’s Here
Instead of pushing through or distracting yourself, try gently checking in with your body.
What are you feeling in your chest, stomach, or jaw? Is there tightness, pressure, or numbness?
Even naming sensations like “I feel heavy” or “My chest feels tight” helps your nervous system begin to process rather than store what you're experiencing.
🌀 This isn’t about fixing. It’s about noticing, without judgment.
2️⃣ Create Rhythms, Not Routines
Depression often disrupts your ability to stick to structured plans, and trying to follow strict routines can trigger shame when you “fall behind.”
Instead, try creating rhythms: small, repeatable actions that support your body:
Opening a window first thing in the morning
Drinking water before coffee
Lighting a candle at night to signal rest
🌀 Rhythm regulates. Your nervous system responds to patterns more than pressure.
If you would like to learn more about how to build a gentle rhythm, check out our blog, How to Build a Daily Routine to Support Overwhelm.
3️⃣ Include Movement…but Make It Gentle
You don’t need a workout. You need movement that signals safety to your body. Try:
Rolling your shoulders slowly
Rocking side to side while seated
Dance to your favorite song, music can create different emotions for us
Even just stretching or swaying to soft music helps interrupt the freeze response that often underlies depression.
🌀 When the body starts moving, emotion and energy often follow.
4️⃣ Connect Through Sensation
Depression can flatten sensations. One way to slowly reconnect is by inviting the senses back online:
Run your hands under warm or cool water
Press your feet firmly into the ground and notice the texture under them
Hold something textured, weighted, or comforting (a stone, a cozy blanket, a warm mug)
🌀 Sensation brings you back to the present moment.
5️⃣ Give Yourself “Permission to Pause”
Instead of pushing through the fog, what happens if you actually pause and rest, without needing to earn it?
Sometimes, setting a timer for 10 minutes of intentional stillness (not scrolling, not zoning out, just being) can help your system reset.
🌀 Depression often demands rest. Giving it willingly, rather than resisting it, can feel radically different.
6️⃣ Let in a Little Bit of Support
Connection can feel like too much, but total isolation rarely helps. Try starting with low-effort ways to let support in:
Listening to a voice or song that soothes you
Sitting quietly with someone, even without talking
Reaching out to a therapist for support
🌀 Support doesn’t have to be deep to be meaningful; it just has to feel safe enough.
What is the Best Therapy for Depression?
Talk therapy can be powerful. It gives language to your experience, insight into your patterns, and support from someone who cares.
But if you’ve tried therapy before and felt like it didn’t touch the part of you that’s hurting, it’s not because you failed. It may be because the work never included your body.
“Depression isn’t only in your mind or your emotions; it can live in your body, too, but that’s something that isn’t talked about enough.”
Depression can impact how you breathe, how you sit, how you digest, and how you respond to your environment.
So it makes sense that healing also needs to include your body.
We may be biased, but this is why Somatic and Holistic Therapy is the best type of therapy for depression.
Somatic and holistic therapy offers something different:
🌱 Gentle practices to reconnect you with sensation
🌱 Nervous system education to help you understand your experience
🌱 Movement, breath, and grounding in session to support regulation
🌱 Permission to go slow and to go with your body, not against it
We’re not trying to “snap you out of it.” We’re working to bring you back into a relationship with yourself, your body, and your life.
Final THOUGHTS
If you’ve been carrying this quiet weight, I want you to know: you’re not broken.
Your symptoms are not signs of failure; they’re signs of your body’s resilience.
They’re messages from a system that has done everything it can to protect you.
Depression is not just something to treat. It’s something to tend to with presence, with curiosity, and with care.
Somatic therapy is one way of doing that.
Not by fixing you, but by helping you come home to yourself again.
If that feels like something you’re ready for, we’d be honored to support you at Life By Design Therapy™.
This Weeks Affirmations
I can begin again as many times as I need to.
My worth is not measured by my energy, output, or mood.
I am allowed to ask for help, even when I don’t have the words.
Feeling disconnected doesn’t mean I’m alone. Connection is still possible.
I am allowed to rest, even if I don’t feel like I’ve earned it.
Additional Resources
**If you’re interested in learning more about ways to support and heal depression, check out these books below:
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