Fighting Severe Depression And Anxiety

Reduce Caffeine And Alcohol

For many of us, a cup of coffee at the start of the day gets us going, and a glass of wine in the evening will help us relax.

But too much of either can seriously affect our bodies ability to manage anxiety.

Caffeine can trigger cortisol production, the hormone that triggers the fight or flight stress response.

And as for alcohol, drinking too much will change your brain chemistry over time, thus lowering its ability to cope with stress.

How Can I Help A Loved One Who Is Depressed

If someone you know has depression, help them see a health care provider or mental health professional. You also can:

• Offer support, understanding, patience, and encouragement.
• Invite them out for walks, outings, and other activities.
• Help them stick to their treatment plan, such as setting reminders to take prescribed medications.
• Make sure they have transportation to therapy appointments.
• Remind them that, with time and treatment, the depression will lift.

Take comments about suicide seriously, and report them to your loved ones health care provider or therapist. If they are in immediate distress or thinking about hurting themselves, call 911 for emergency services or go to the nearest hospital emergency room.

What Strategies Are Often Used In Treating This Dual Diagnosis

Evidence-based research suggests that both anxiety and depression be treated at the same time.

Effective strategies often used in treating these co-occurring conditions include:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy CBT is often used to treat people with both disorders. Fears, anxieties and tendencies toward depression are managed by seeking out their root causes. Once uncovered, patients learn how to take control of their emotions and life.
• Antidepressant medications Often combined with CBT, these may be prescribed in treating both disorders. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are new antidepressant drugs that produce fewer side effects than their predecessors.
• Exercise This can be very helpful for both disorders. Physical activity causes feel-good chemicals to be released in the body. This aids in relaxation and feeling of well-being.
• Relaxation techniques This typically involves meditation or mindfulness. These techniques can often help to remedy both disorders and improve quality of life.2

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Depression Can Look Different Depending On A Persons Cultural Background

Signs and symptoms of depression can look different depending on the person and their cultural background. People from different cultures may express emotions, moods, and mood disorders including depression in different ways. In some cultures, depression may be displayed as physical symptoms, such as aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems.

Do The Opposite Of What The Depression Voice Suggests

The negative, irrational voice in your head may talk you out of self-help. However, if you can learn to recognize it, you can learn to replace it. Use logic as a weapon. Address each thought individually as it occurs.

If you believe an event wont be fun or worth your time, say to yourself, You might be right, but itll be better than just sitting here another night. You may soon see the negative isnt always realistic.

A lengthy to-do list may be so weighty that youd rather do nothing. Instead of compiling a long list of tasks, consider setting one or two smaller goals.

For example:

• Dont clean the house take the trash out.
• Dont do all the laundry thats piled up just sort the piles by color.
• Dont clear out your entire email inbox just address any time-sensitive messages.

When youve done a small thing, set your eyes on another small thing, and then another. This way, you have a list of tangible achievements and not an untouched to-do list.

All goals are worthy of recognition, and all successes are worthy of celebration. When you achieve a goal, do your best to recognize it.

You may not feel like celebrating with a cake and confetti, but recognizing your own successes can be a very powerful weapon against depressions negative weight.

The memory of a job well-done may be especially powerful against negative talk and overgeneralization.

Focus on times when you feel the most disorganized or scattered.

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Finding Ways To Fight Anxiety

All of these strategies can be effective for those that want to learn how to fight anxiety. They each address specific issues that many of those with anxiety face, and integrating them into your life is a great way to reduce the effects on anxiety on your overall satisfaction.

But fighting anxiety isn’t enough. You need to win the war. For that, you need to be ready and willing to commit to a successful treatment option that will get to the heart of what is driving the anxiety, and has been shown to reduce anxiety in those that suffer from it regularly.

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Get A Handle On Stress

Stress can drive up levels of a brain chemical called cortisol, which has been found to be higher in folks with depression. There are lots of strategies for coping with stress, such as time management, meditation, and biofeedback training.

Some stress-relieving activities that you might want to incorporate into your daily life include:

• Deep breathing: A few minutes to slow your breathing and focus your attention on your body in the moment can help you get a better handle on your worries.
• Exercise: Regular physical activity is a great way to blow off steam.
• Progressive muscle relaxation: This process involves intentionally tightening muscles throughout the body, holding that tension for several counts, and then releasing that tension until the muscles are completely relaxed. With regular practice, you may be able to learn how to intentionally relax your body fairly quickly whenever you are feeling tense.

Learning to manage your stress takes time and practice. Talk to your doctor or therapist about other strategies you might try to minimize the stress and your response to it.

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How Can We Keep Our Stone Age Brain Happy

Brains can change, and we have the capacity to change them. The key is finding the most effective ways to do that. Enter neuroscience. The chemistry of our brain is very responsive to what we do for better or worse. Depending on the choices we make, we can deplete it or enrich it.

In preliminary clinical trials comparing the effect of lifestyle changes against antidepressants, researchers found that lifestyle choices brought about a reduction in depressive symptoms almost three times that experienced by the antidepressant group. There are six primary lifestyle factors that have been proven to protect the brain against depression and reduce depressive symptoms and Ilardi details them in his book, The Depression Cure. Interestingly, these lifestyle factors are remarkably close to the way we would have been doing things had we been living in the Stone Age.

How To Stop Severe Anxiety Disorders

If you feel your anxiety is out of your control and significantly impacting your ability to function in life, go see your primary care provider immediately. Each additional day you go without treatment reinforces the anxiety, making it stronger. Because anxiety affects so many individuals, there are several options available.

Other anxiety reduction strategies like relaxation exercises and meditation may be less effective for severe anxiety, because the severity often makes spending time on those activities harder to accomplish. They may be useful in combination with other techniques, but should not be used alone.

It is highly recommended to seek therapy to better tackle long term management of severe anxiety.

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People With Social Anxiety Don’t Want To Be Alone

Chances are likely, depending on the severity of your symptoms, that you may benefit from being on medication. If youre thinking, Nope, absolutely notI dont want to rely on anything, then Ill challenge you with this: Is your quality of life getting better each day, or you struggling to make it through the day? Is your own contempt about medication, prior to investigation, really worth it? Have you done your research on anti-anxiety and depression medications, such as SSRIs, to the point where you know enough about them, or are you making a blanket statement that you refuse to take medications?

Ask yourself these difficult questions. For me, it was incredibly helpful to be working with a therapist who I trusted and with whom I developed a strong rapport with before making these decisions with her help and guidance.

We dont overcome depression we dont prevail over anxiety. We accept that we have them, and we treat them effectively. We cant think our way out of a clinical or chemical issue. We cant self will our way into happiness, groundedness, and wholeness.

There is so much freedom in surrendering to the stark truth that we cant do this on our own.

This post became way more clinical than I had intended it to be, but I found that after posting a poll on Instagram about what topics people want to read about, overcoming depression and anxiety beat out the other topics by a landslide.

This is a real issue. You are not alone.

Give Yourself An Exit Strategy

Sometimes, anxiety is due to feeling out of control. You cant always be in the driver seat of your life, but you can take steps to identify your triggers and cope with circumstances that cause anxiety.

Does the thought of going into a social situation or meeting new people make you want to jump off a bridge? As everyone at a party engages in exciting conversations, maybe you see yourself holding up the wall and counting down the seconds until youre put out of your misery. You drove with friends and cant leave, so you spend the entire night looking like the punchbowl attendant. Its this fear that makes you decline invitations and sleep through the weekends.

But what if you had an exit strategy in place before leaving the house? For example, instead of carpooling with your party animal friends, you could drive yourself. This way, you can leave if your anxiety starts to build and you cant handle another minute of awkward interactions. The more in control you feel, the less anxiety youll have.

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The Depression Epidemic: Our Stone Age Brains

There is an undeniable connection between lifestyle and depression. A modern lifestyle is making us sick. The more modern a society, and the more removed it is from the primitive hunter-gatherer way of life, the higher its rate of depression. Our world has changed phenomenally and our lifestyles have changed along with it, but our brains have hardly changed at all. They remain remarkably similar to the ones that powered people in the Stone Age when sleep was abundant, food was nutritious, and people wandered in groups, constantly on the move in the sunshine.

Our Stone Age brains just werent designed to handle the sedentary, isolated, indoor, sleep-deprived, fast-food-laden, stressed-out pace of twenty-first-century life. -Dr Stephen Ilardi

Our brains are beautifully crafted to support Stone Age bodies that live Stone Age lives. When Stone Age brains are forced to live a modern lifestyle, the effect can be devastating. The brain and the body become depleted of the very things that have been fuelling them for thousands of years before now.

Can Depression Be Prevented

Many people wonder if depression can be prevented and how they may be able to lower their risk of depression. Although most cases of depression cannot be prevented, healthy lifestyle changes can have long-term benefits to your mental health.

Here are a few steps you can take:

• Be physically active and eat a healthy, balanced diet. This may help avoid illnesses that can bring on disability or depression. Some diets including the low-sodium DASH diet have been shown to reduce risk of depression.

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What Are Bullet Journals

The bullet journal, created by Ryder Carroll, a New Yorkbased digital product designer, is a notebook-based organizational system that you can use to track the past, organize the present, and plan for the future.

Unlike a planner with its preprinted pages, bullet journaling involves taking a blank notebook and creating your own, ever-evolving system with which to keep all aspects of your life organized under one roof work, side hustles, health, the works.

Once set up, the process of maintaining your bullet journal is an adaptable practice meant to be self-curated as you determine what works best for you, according to the official website.

Stay Connected To Friends And Family

Depression likes to isolate people, but that is exactly the opposite of what you need. Connection with others promotes emotional well-being and a sense of security. Instead of turning inward when you experience seasonal depression, reach outward. Find more ways to spend time with people. Set up lunch dates. Join a club or team. Host a game night. Find a walking buddy. Visit family. You may not initially feel like being around other people, but once you put yourself out there and start interacting, you will feel an immediate uplift.

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Build A Support Network

One of the most important things you can do to help yourself with depressionother than medication and therapyis to develop strong social support.

For some, this may mean forging stronger ties with friends or family. Knowing you can count on supportive loved ones to help can go a long way toward improving your depression.

For others, a depression support group can be key. It may involve a community group that meets in your area or you might find an online support group who meets your needs.

Create A Wellness Toolbox

A wellness toolbox is a set of tools that you can use to help soothe yourself when you are feeling down.

The tools you find most helpful might not work for someone else so it’s important to carefully consider what things can help you feel your best.

Think of things you like to do when you’re happy. Then, when you’re feeling down, try one of those activities.

Cuddling your pet, listening to your favorite music, taking a warm bath, or reading a good book are just a few tools you might find helpful.

Create a list of the activities you might try when you’re feeling bad. Then, choose an activity to try when you’re having a particularly rough time.

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How Is Depression Diagnosed

To be diagnosed with depression, an individual must have five depression symptoms every day, nearly all day, for at least 2 weeks. One of the symptoms must be a depressed mood or a loss of interest or pleasure in almost all activities. Children and adolescents may be irritable rather than sad.

If you think you may have depression, talk to your health care provider. Primary care providers routinely diagnose and treat depression and refer individuals to mental health professionals, such as psychologists or psychiatrists.

During the visit, your provider may ask when your symptoms began, how long they last, how often they occur, and if they keep you from going out or doing your usual activities. It may help to make some notes about your symptoms before your visit. Certain medications and some medical conditions, such as viruses or a thyroid disorder, can cause the same depression symptoms. Your provider can rule out these possibilities by doing a physical exam, interview, and lab tests.

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Recognize And Conquer Your Critical Self Attacks

Depression is often accompanied by a critical, self-destructive mentality that interferes with and distracts us from our daily lives. When depressed, people tend to accept this negative identity as a true representation of who they are. Many people fail to recognize that this sadistic point of view is actually the voice of a well-hidden enemy within, what my father, psychologist Dr. Robert Firestone, refers to as the critical inner voice. Internalized early in life, this inner voice functions like an over-disciplinary parent holding us back and keeping us in our place.

To begin this process, it is helpful to think of these destructive thoughts as being like the parasites that keep you in bed when you’re sick with the flu. Don’t listen to these attacks when they tell you not to pursue your goals, to isolate yourself, or to forego an activity you enjoy. This gives the voice even more power over you. Instead, when you notice these thoughts and attitudes starting to intensify and take precedence over your more realistic, positive ways of thinking, it is essential to identify them as an alien point of view. Ask yourself, would you think such cruel thoughts about a friend or family member who was experiencing the same struggles. By having compassion for yourself and recognizing this inner voice as a destructive enemy, you can begin to see who you are more clearly and realistically.

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Think About What You Could Be Angry At

While some experience depression as a continual state of sadness or increased painful emotions, some depression can come in the form of a state of numbnessa lack of feeling that weakens all excitement and smothers your potential to feel joy. Suppressing or cutting off emotions could be a defense against something you aren’t comfortable feeling. Many people who suffer from depression are actually masking a feeling of anger, turning their rage toward someone else on themselves. Anger can be a hard feeling to accept, as from a very young age we are often told it is bad to be angry, that we need to behave, and not to throw tantrums or get in fights. While acting abusive is never acceptable, feeling anger is a natural part of our everyday lives. By acknowledging and accepting or discussing your angry feelings, you are much less likely to turn these feelings against yourself or allow them to lead you into a depressed state.