How to Defeat Depression and Anxiety

To someone who has never had any experience dealing with depression and anxiety, it can be a very daunting task. There are two possible perspectives you could be coming from if you are trying to figure out how to defeat depression and anxiety. First, you could be the person suffering depression and anxiety or you could be a loved one of the person who is suffering. Either way, the situation can be effectively dealt with.

The person suffering the symptoms

If you are the sufferer of depression and/or anxiety, it is of utmost importance you understand anxiety is not a problem of the mind. Many people who are experiencing these symptoms feel they are going insane. This could not be further from the truth because people with anxiety are most often very intelligent people. Their minds are functioning at 100%; their nervous systems are not operating correctly. Take any thought you may have about having any mental disorder and banish it from your life.

The first thing you should do is get a physical checkup. This is a very good move because people who suffer from anxiety often have panic attacks where they feel they are having heart problems, or many times they feel they are having a stroke. By getting a checkup a person experiencing anxiety can easily find out if he is having some serious physical problem.

A doctor can readily tell, simply by listening to the heart if a patient is having a heart problem. Therefore, if the doctor issues a clean bill of health, the next time you have an anxiety attack you know it is only your nerves making you feel the symptoms and not a physical problem you are having.

When experiencing anxiety, many times you may have panic attacks. Panic attacks usually come on when an anxious person tries to fight or run away from his extreme nervousness. Nervousness is a condition where adrenaline is flooding through the bloodstream. Adrenaline is one of the body's natural resources available to strengthen us when we are afraid of something. It soups-up our muscles to prepare us to fight with an enemy or run away from it.

When we are suffering an anxiety disorder, adrenaline pumps through our veins for absolutely no reason. When this happens, it brings about horrible physical feelings. These feelings are very scary and therefore we try to fight them or run away from them. When we do so, we simply pump more adrenaline throughout our system. In this way, we are producing a vicious cycle of fear-adrenaline-fear.

The way to defeat panic attacks is to stop the fear-adrenaline-fear cycle. And the only way we can do this is by refusing to become afraid of the physical manifestations brought on by the original dose of adrenaline that runs through our anxious bodies.

While healing, the doctor may prescribe a tranquilizer. Don't be afraid of this prescription. It is only going to be used temporarily while nerves become desensitized and we have learned to totally ignore any manifestations adrenaline gives us.

The support person

If you are a loved one of someone suffering from anxiety or depression, bare in mind it is a type of illness, which must run its course. Don't be afraid for your loved one, nothing terrible will happen as long as you're there to offer your support.

During this time, never tell a person to just snap out of it. They are trying with all their might to snap out of it and it is this very effort making the symptoms worse. Always understand there's nothing wrong with the person's thought processes and the whole problem with any anxious person is adrenaline is running rampant throughout the body.

All you can do is be there for support and let the person know you understand. Reinforce the fact there are millions of people suffering the same thing. Try to remind this person to trust the fact the body can and will heal itself. In the meantime emphasize adrenaline is causing all those strange and unpleasant feelings. Once one loses the fear of adrenaline's tricks, a healing mode will follow.

It has been proven that people who live with people who love them heal quicker than people who are alone. Always be there for support, always be a friend and never try to hurry the healing process and the service you will be doing your loved one will be immeasurable.

The author of this article is Ed Lathrop. Having lived through an anxiety disorder and now being free of all its symptoms, he has built a free website that deals with anxiety and gives help in a way only a former anxiety sufferer could. This website can be found at: http://dealingwithanxiety.net