Depression and Anxiety

Did you take the time to ask yourself the hard question, is this your personality or undealt with emotions? I sure do hope so.

Today, I want to talk more about depression and anxiety. There are times in all of our lives we have depression and or anxiety. You have gone through a break up, job lose, a death of someone close, struggling with school, problems with a friend, it can be any number of things and we are going to experience depression. Remember, this is a normal human emotion. Go through the emotion. Do not think you are not good enough or have problems because you experience this emotion. You are not. You need to take the time to go through this time in your life, own it, take on all of the emotions that come along. At the end, you should come out of the experience a better person and no longer depressed.

Anxiety is the same. A new situation in life comes up, or whatever you experience anxiety over. Recognize the emotion for what it is. Work through it. Once the situation becomes familiar, is passed, what ever it takes, you should be able to go on with your life.

However, neither of these should be debilitating. They should not be consuming your life, making it so you can not function. This is not normal. This first thing to do is not run to your doctor and have him write you a script for an medication to help you cope. Before any medication should be given for either depression or anxiety there are a many that should be done first.
Depression:
Symptoms should persists daily for more than two weeks. After this, a full exam should be done to rule out hypothyroidism, which can cause depression or any other illness. A full psychological evaluation should be completed as well. Two other very important steps that should be done before any medication is given, because you are depressed, is a look at your nutrition and your emotions.
Anxiety:
For a proper diagnosis, symptoms should persists daily for six months. Just as with depression, a full psychological evaluation should be completed. Looking into your nutrition and emotions is just as important for anxiety as it is for depression.
However, for either of these conditions, if feelings of suicide, attempts, or delusion behavior. Seek help immediately!!! This posts is not for these individuals.

What to do, before turning to medications.
First, deal with your emotions. When they first come up and even years later. If you are stuffing your emotions, like I said in my last post, they are going to come up some how. They will reveal their ugly heads. Work through your emotions. You can do this by journaling, talking with a good friend, seeking professional help, exercising, whatever you need to do, do it. You do not want undealt with emotions coming back to haunt you 10 years later in the form of depression or anxiety.

Look at your nutrition. When we are not consuming the vitamins and minerals we need, we can experience depression and anxiety. Be sure you are eating fat soluble Vit. A, retonal. We are so afraid of fat these days, do not be, eat it. I know vegetarians and vegans will tell you you can get all of the retonal you need from beta carotene, NOT true. Most people can not convert beta carotene into retonal and those who can, it is only done at a rate of 3% or less. This is not enough. They also try to convince us we can over due retonal, again no. You can safely take 10,000 unites daily. Make sure you are getting enough Vit D, omega-3 fatty acids and your B vitamins. Cut sugars and processed foods as these will cause depression and anxiety. For your thyroid health, you need iodine, natural sources of iodine, like from kelp. A great way to take your Vits A and D and omega fatty acids is through cod liver oil. Take enough so you are consuming 10,000 IUs of Vit. A. Eat the foods like we have talked about in previous posts, REAL food.

Exercise. Are you exercising? If not, you need to be. When we exercise, our bodies release good endorphins and hormones. These make us feel good and look good. Exercising not only releases feel good hormones and endorphins, it can help us relax, sleep better, lose weight, help us feel better about our selves. In the end, helping us fight depression and anxiety.

Do you breath, deeply, everyday? Breathing, deep into your lungs, raising your stomach, is a great way to let go of stress, depression and anxiety. Every day, take time to breath. Feel the breath come into your lungs, hold it for a moment or two and slowly let it out, sighing. Take this time to just BE. Calm everything in your head, letting go of the hurt, pain, past, depression, emotions and just BE. Take this time to ask yourself if your depression is your emotions you have not dealt with or real true clinical depression and anxiety.

Until you learn to deal with your emotions, just BE, eat healthy, breath, exercises, depression and anxiety will control your life. Take them back and enjoy your life!

Until next time,
Just BEing in Christ,
Jenn