Toys to relieve depression

No toy can replace drugs, psychological counseling and other formal clinical intervention methods in the treatment of depression, but specifically designed auxiliary toys can be used as supplementary support to help patients relieve depression, anxiety, distraction and other accompanying symptoms, and reduce the probability of emotional breakdown, under the premise of following medical advice.

The first time I intuitively felt this effect was when I worked as a volunteer escort in the adolescent ward of the Municipal Jingwei Center three years ago. That day, there was a little girl who was a sophomore in high school who had just been diagnosed with severe depression. She suddenly had an emotional breakdown because of an unintentional remark from her family. She dug her fingertips into red marks on her palms and cried until she couldn't breathe. The nurse did not rush to persuade her, but gave her a soft cloud to squeeze. She sat holding the thing for half an hour, and her fingertips slowly loosened it. Later, she was able to say to the nurse, "This is quite fun to pinch."

But if you ask the attending psychiatrists, most of them have a conservative attitude toward "depression-relieving toys." I have talked about this topic with Dr. Li from Shanghai Jingwei before, and he has come across too many cases that have gone astray: Some parents think that their children just "play when they are stressed", stop taking the medicine prescribed by the doctor, and buy a box of stress-relieving toys to pile up in their children's rooms. This makes the children feel that their pain is not seen at all, and their resistance is even worse; there are also patients who read the propaganda on the Internet, regard the toys as "curative tools", stop psychological consultation without permission, and finally have an acute attack and send them to the hospital. In their view, anyone who dares to mention "toys can cure depression" is essentially disrespectful of the disease and can easily mislead patients to delay treatment.

But social workers and counselors who have been doing emotional intervention on the front line for a long time have a much more flexible view. Teacher Chen, who has been doing sandtray therapy for 8 years, told me that the large and small sandboxes in the sandtray room are essentially "toys" for adults to play with. You don't need to have any skills. You can put them in whatever you want. Those unspeakable emotions and thoughts that can't be told to others can be slowly released by playing with these small objects. She once had a client with postpartum depression who found it difficult to even look at people. When she came for the first consultation, she lowered her head and played with the small glass ball on the sand table for 40 minutes. When she left, she said her first complete sentence: "This ball is cool in my hand and very comfortable."

The gravity dolls, fidget spinners, magnetic wands, and slimes that are now popular online are actually similar in principle to sand toys. They all rely on touch and hands-on movements to pull people's attention away from the messy ruminations in their minds and return to the present. For example, the weight of a gravity doll on the chest can simulate the touch of being hugged. Studies have shown that this deep pressure touch can reduce the body's cortisol level within 10 minutes, and is particularly friendly to depressed patients who often suffer from insomnia and anxiety. But some people feel that the weight is so overwhelming that they make them even more irritated - there is never a "standard answer" to this thing, A is like honey and B is like arsenic.

The most "outrageously" effective toy I have ever seen is a walnut string in the hand of a depressed patient in his 50s. He fell ill because he couldn't bear the blow of the factory closure. When he was hospitalized, he didn't touch any mass-produced stress-relieving toys. He just clutched the bunch of walnuts that his daughter brought him every day and which he had plated for five or six years. He would plate them when he couldn't sleep and when he felt uncomfortable. When he was discharged from the hospital, he told me that he knew the texture of the bunch of walnuts by heart. Every time he touched it, he felt, "I have gone through so many obstacles before, and I can do it this time." It was 10 times more effective than the hundreds of yuan of anti-stress kneading music given by the nurse. You see, there are no "special" depression-relieving toys that can make you feel at ease and pull you out of the emotional whirlpool for a few seconds. It is easy to use.

But I have to remind everyone here that many businesses are now focusing on this traffic and exaggerating ordinary toys to the point of being magical. "Play to say goodbye to depression in 7 days" and "depression-specific toys" all charge IQ taxes. I once saw a blogger selling a so-called "depression decompression box". A set sells for 299. It contains a pinch, a roll of tape, and a few stickers. The total cost is less than 20 yuan. It is purely to make money by taking advantage of the urgent illness of patients and their families.

To put it bluntly, the purpose of these toys is to give people who are stuck in emotions a small "emotional grip". It can't pull you out of pain, and it can't cure the disease, but it can give you a fulcrum to hold on to in those few minutes when you feel like you can't stand it any longer, so that you can hold on a little longer. Of course, after surviving that period, you still have to remember to take medicine as prescribed by the doctor and go to consultations on time - after all, toys are just a small step to help you. To really move forward, you still have to rely on yourself and the help of professionals.