Non-Pharmacological Interventions
Most-searched in 2026
16 interventions. 8 rest on strong human evidence. Ordered with the best evidenced first.
Movement as Medicine, With Evidence That Rivals Drugs for Depression
The closest thing in this library to a universal prescription: for depression, controlled trials put aerobic exercise on par with antidepressants, and the mechanisms are now well understood.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the Gold Standard and the Yardstick
The most studied and most cross-culturally validated psychotherapy there is, strong enough to be the yardstick other therapies are measured against, with an honest caveat about shrinking real-world effects.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression Relapse
One of the strongest evidence entries in the library: a structured eight-week program that prevents depression relapse about as well as staying on antidepressants in people with recurrent episodes.
The Intervention With No Industry Behind It
The library's clearest case of strong evidence that no one profits from: social connection predicts mortality on a scale comparable to smoking, and almost nothing in the wellness market sells it.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
A WHO-endorsed PTSD treatment that clearly works, attached to a mechanism (the eye movements) that may not be the active ingredient.
The Oldest Hands-On Medicine, Now in the Clinic
A practice documented across at least four ancient civilizations that modern Cochrane reviews now support for musculoskeletal pain, anxiety, and preterm infant development.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and the Lineage It Set Aside
The program that brought Buddhist mindfulness into Western medicine by stripping its religious context, a move that made the research possible and set aside 2,500 years of teachers in the same gesture.
From the Mazatec Ceremony to Breakthrough-Therapy Trials
A mushroom medicine used in Mesoamerican healing for at least a thousand years, banned from research for forty, and now producing some of the strongest patient-reported outcomes in psychiatry.
Two and a Half Millennia of Practice, a Modern Mechanism Dispute
A practice with strong evidence for specific pain indications wrapped around a traditional theory of qi and meridians that has no anatomical basis, and the two should never be confused.
Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (KAP)
A 1960s dissociative anesthetic that proponents and trialists report can reduce severe depression and suicidal thoughts within hours, now the one legal psychedelic-adjacent treatment in routine clinical use, shadowed by questions of durability, bladder harm, and a booming at-home market.
A PTSD Treatment That Met Its Trial Goals and Was Declined by the FDA
A therapy whose Phase 3 trials reduced PTSD symptoms and was still declined by the FDA in 2024 on design and conduct grounds, a rejection about process and safety, not a verdict that it does not work.
Mindfulness Meditation
A roughly 2,500-year-old Buddhist attention practice, stripped of its religious frame in the 1970s and now one of the better-studied mind-body interventions, with honest, moderate, condition-dependent effects.
A 3,500-Year Tradition, One or Two of Its Eight Limbs, and a Billion-Dollar Industry
One of the most ancient and most commercially distorted traditions in the library: strong evidence for back pain and anxiety, an eight-limbed philosophy reduced to its postures, and a real and under-acknowledged injury record.
Real Mood Effects, Heavy Commercial Claims, and a Genuine Safety Line
A practice with real mood and alertness benefits and a thick layer of commercial claims on top, where the most important content is the cardiovascular safety line.
Ibogaine (iboga; Tabernanthe iboga; noribogaine)
A sacred Central African initiation medicine that Western clinics reframed as a single-dose addiction interrupter, carrying both striking anecdotes and a documented record of cardiac deaths.
A Clinical Framework With Broad Uptake and a Contested Neuroscience
The most influential, and most contested, theory in modern trauma care: its clinical language is everywhere while its core neuroanatomy is under sustained scientific challenge.