Three Options for How to Fight Depression

Once people realize they have a problem with depression they have three options. There is the medication option where the doctor writes a prescription for an antidepressant and sends you on your way. In this day of fast work, fast food and fast cures that just may fit your picture of  a solution for how to fight depression.   But it isn’t the best nor the safest way. Research has shown that people who use one of three types of psychotherapy alone or psychotherapy and medication are taking a route for how to fight depression that has much better results than those only using medication. Depression is caused from an alteration in brain chemistry. The question many people ask  is,” what caused the alteration?”   Theoretically the change could happen genetically, from a genetic predisposition or triggered by stress. Or it could be triggered by all three. At this time researchers have not been able to identify a specific gene for people to be depressed, although there are genetic predispositions that are triggered by stress. Also, from a statistical point of view, depression seems to run in families.

How to Fight Depression:  How Important is it for a Person to Know Specific Causes?

While it is interesting to know why your depressed it doesn’t necessarily change the treatment plan for how to fight depression.  Depression is a chemical change in the brain regardless of what caused the change.

Treat the Signs and Symptoms of Depression or the Underlying Condition?

This being the case, medication without any other treatment can give a person relief from the signs and symptoms of depression, but leave them empty-handed when it comes to a method for how to fight depression as an underlying condition.  One of three different types of psychotherapy supply many of the answers to patients questions and concerns about their problems.

Three Main Approaches for How to Fight Depression

There are three specific psychotherapeutic approaches to treating depression. Many times people consider psychotherapy as a talking cure (Sigmund Freud) when in fact it is a way to figure out what ails you and to find better ways of coping with the stress. In these different types of psychotherapy your words and feelings play a central role. The job of the therapist is to support and professionally guide you through the process. You will examine your thoughts, feelings and actions and then determine how well they have worked in the past and how to change the ones that have been non-productive.

It is important to work with a therapist who you can trust enough to be open and honest. You may have to shop around a bit before settling with someone but this is important since keeping your thoughts and feelings to yourself can deepen your depression. Although there are three different types of psychotherapy most therapists are versed in all three. This knowledge can help you to pick from various tools for how to fight depression that may work for your individual situation. Of course the explanations are a bit simplistic but they help you to understand the basic premise behind each approach.

CBT:  Talking to Yourself Is How to Fight Depression

In Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) the basic idea is that thoughts, feelings and behaviors are all interconnected so that if you make a change in one area it will affect others. For instance, if you make a change in the way you feel about something then they way that you act and your thoughts will also change. If your depression is making you feel worthless then you and the therapist will explore the specific, unrealistic beliefs you have about yourself and the world that make you feel worthless. Then you’d choose alternative behaviors until the system you are stuck in breaks down and your symptoms fade.

How to Fight Depression?  Some Say, “Interpersonal Therapy is the Way to Go”

Therapists who believe that Interpersonal Therapy is the key weapon for how to fight depression assume that the most difficult aspect of depression is how it affects your relationships with others. This type of therapeutic approach is effective with people who have had unresolved grief of the loss of a loved one or significant conflicts within relationships. The therapist and the patient focus on the relationship to identify personal needs that are going unmet and find ways to meet them by ending negative relationships and building social skills.

Using Brief Psychodynamic Therapy for How to Fight Depression

This approach for how to fight depression involves  uncovering an event in your life that triggers core conflicts. These events may no longer play and active role in your conscious memory or thoughts. For instance an individual may be feeling overwhelmed by a situation as an adult that isn’t in proportion to the event but may have been appropriate in a similar situation when they were much younger. The aim is to help the person make a connection between the past and the present and work through the feelings associated with the past events.

So, once informed, choose a method for how to fight depression in a systematic way.  It’s important that you feel the treatment you are receiving is relevant and helpful to your individual situation and to have a voice in the approach you are using. However, since there are three types of psychotherapy that lend themselves very nicely to the treatment of depression you should have no trouble picking a therapeutic approach that works for you.

Know Your Blind Spots

Adult children of alcoholic parents are wise to figure out their own blind spots when they become parents themselves. Although you grew up in a home with one or both of your parents being alcoholics, you want to be certain that you provide a better atmosphere for your own children to grow and thrive in. Adult children of alcoholic parents share certain blind spots while parenting their own children. You know the pain of growing up in an alcoholic home and you know the ways you learned to cope with growing up in that situation. You may have become a miniature adult, a caretaker, and a super responsible little person.  Adult children of alcoholic parents often play the role of the “parentified child.”

Or you might have become the troublemaker or clown to compensate. Maybe you were the peacemaker or the one who never made a fuss and just went along with the program. You may have suffered – not only mental and emotional abuse – but also possibly physical or sexual abuse. You might have felt the disappointment of lies and broken promises or been scared of abandonment. You may have avoided getting too close to anyone for fear that they would go away or neglect you. As tough as it was to grow up like this, you know that’s not the way you want your own children to live. Good for you! You’ve committed to giving your kids a better, healthier, happier life. In that case, it’s important for you to seek out alcoholic help for families and to know where your blind spots might be. What might be your stumbling blocks to giving your kids the best life possible? Adult children of alcoholic parents may find it difficult to break their childhood patterns of coping with life. This is something that you’ll need to pay close attention to when dealing with your own children. Adult children of alcoholic parents carry a heavier load as moms and dads, but they can also discover that they have a lot of support in striving to create a better home atmosphere. You need to look at your current patterns of behavior. If you were the clown or the troublemaker, are you still carrying around those characteristics, and if so, are they causing problems?

Stan the Clown

Little Stan as a 4th grader learned to be a clown to diffuse Dad’s anger when he was about to explode. Stan also learned to be hyper alert to changes in Dad’s facial expressions so that he would know when to start entertaining his Dad. People like Stan as adult children of alcoholic parents often find that their coping mechanisms become obsolete or downright dysfunctional when they trying to navigate parenting themselves. A clown can be fun to be around, but are you also irresponsible? A troublemaker who hasn’t learned to stay out of trouble may be leading a life of legal troubles – not a good example to set for your kids, and certainly not nice for them if they can’t see you because you’re incarcerated.

If you’re a perfectionist as a result of being the responsible “parent” in your childhood home, are you demanding too much from your little ones, who are still learning about life through play and fun? Or have you become an adult doormat who just goes along with the program because you don’t want to make waves? None of these methods are terribly healthy for you or your children. Certainly a dose of humor, responsibility and ability to go with the flow is important for everyone. Even raising Cain once in awhile is probably something that everyone does, even the most emotionally healthy people, now and then.

Being the Cute Clown Helped You Then;  It’s Obsolete Now

Your blind spot might come from still being that person that you were as a child of an alcoholic household. That worked for you then, but now, as a parent, it might be more detrimental than anything. If you are an adult child of an alcoholic and you have children yourself, don’t be afraid to get help. Because there are so many adult children of alcoholic parents, it’s usually possible to find resources and help. Making use of help for adult children of alcoholic parents is an important step in recovery in creating a healthy, happy home. Your family is depending on you to do what you can to help yourself deal with your childhood in a way that makes you into a happier, healthier person – for your sake and your family’s.

Anger, moodiness and arguments happen in all marital relationships. Every couple has arguments and disagreements. Every couple gets angry now and then – sometimes with each other, sometimes with circumstances of life. When anger is due to hypoglycemic symptoms, then eating a snack becomes more important than marriage councelling. Everyone gets moody now and then and may snap at their loved ones.

But what about when anger or marital arguments boil over into something far more serious?  Uncontrollable anger could be a result of hypoglycemic symptoms and if you or your spouse suffers from bouts of uncontrollable anger, or your arguments get out of hand, it’s possible that hypoglycemic symptoms are messing with your relationship.

Hypoglycemia is a condition where the brain isn’t getting enough of its main food – glucose. Glucose is a sugar that’s produced by the liver and is delivered in steady doses to the brain. This enables the brain to function correctly and to oversee the functions of all of your body’s systems. When the brain isn’t getting enough glucose, it can’t handle its many functions well, and you begin to notice hypoglycemic symptoms. They are:

• Dizziness
• Sweating
• Headache
• Hunger
• Shakiness
• Irritability
• Paleness
• Moodiness
• Clumsiness
• Confusion or lack of concentration
• Tingling around the mouth

You’ll notice that irritability and moodiness are two of the hypoglycemic symptoms on the list. If you add a pounding headache and confusion to the mix, you have the perfect breeding ground for anger. Because the brain is already not functioning well, it doesn’t have the capacity to regulate moods and reactions as well as it would if it were getting enough glucose.

You can see how hypoglycemic symptoms may lead to an angry outburst. Over-the-top anger is bad in any situation and can cause damage well beyond just the immediate outburst. In a marriage, if there are severe outbursts of anger and arguments, the outcome could be damage that is simply not repairable.

It’s important to be checked for hypoglycemia if angry outbursts are common. If the diagnosis is positive, treatment is fairly straightforward and fairly easy. Watching for hypoglycemic symptoms is your first step to ending anger and marital arguments that are just too much to take. Ask for a glucose tolerance test if there is suspicion that you or your partner are suffering from hypoglycemic symptoms.

Even if hypoglycemia is diagnosed and treated, you’ll still have times of irritation and some arguments – this is normal in any marriage. But if you treat the hypoglycemia carefully, you’ll find that the worst of the anger and arguments subside, as do the other hypoglycemic symptoms, leading to a happier, healthier life for everyone.

What is Divorce Recovery?

Divorce recovery is a period lasting at least several months in which a person loses and then recaptures a  sense of self, a settled faith in Christ that integrates all aspects of the divorce, and connections with people.  It is the process of  healing from the wounds, sins, and trauma of a dissolved marriage.

Some Key Aspects of Divorce Recovery

Having watched a number of people who have gone through this process it seems to me that it includes at least these elements:

1. Facing the fact of the breakup.  Divorce recovery begins on the day you truly face the fact that your marriage is over.  Many poeple take months or years to get started on divorce recovery because they will not, or cannot, face the fact that their marriage is dead.
2. Becoming reasonably settled in new friendships, family connections, and social interactions.  This can include a change in location, a job change, going back to work, changing churches.  It also includes finding key people who’s presence and/or advice prevents unnecessary suffering on top of the unavoidable misery of a divorce.  Divorce recovery usually involves giving your connections with people a complete makeover to fit well with your new needs and capacities to give.
3. An identity change that produces every bit as much upheaval as a turbulent adolescence or a mid life crisis.  Ideally, it results in a person to both say and feel,  “The marriage may be dead, but I’m not; and I can be a happy, purposeful person who rebuilds successfully.”  It also includes redefining what it means to be a mom or a dad and changed beliefs about what is necessary to have a strong sense of family.
4. A wise and thorough grieving of all the losses entailed by the divorce.
5. A personal sifting of the lessons learned.
6. A self-assessment of one’s own style of relating to a husband or wife that may have caused or exascerbated problems in the marriage.
7. A reaffirmation of belief  in the institution of marriage after a season of cynicism and disillusionment.
8. A deeper sense of being forgiven by a gracious Heavenly Father.  This includes sorting out all the many tangled issues of conscience that seem to plague conscientious followers of Christ.
9. Damage Assessment:  A realistic assessment of specific ways that your ex-spouse has harmed you.  One the reasons that people get stuck in unforgiveness is that they have not adequately faced, taken inventory, and felt the emotions of how they have been hurt or wronged.
10. Forgiving:  Finding the freedom in Christ to:  (a) let go of anger or grudges; (b) Choose to no longer hold anything against your ex; (c) Catching your self thinking thoughts like, “I really hope that works out well for him/her…”  When we have forgiven someone we don’t have to pretend to be happy for someone’s blessings.
11. Taking responsibility for your life in the present, not in the sense of blame, but in the sense of, “I am the one responsible for what I do with my life from this point on.”
12. Finding one’s own unique style of being single and being hopeful and confident for the future.  This includes resolving your views of dating, sex, marriage, and commitment.  It even includes being playful again.  It’s not just about being older and wiser, it’s about being confidently wiser.  This new confidence involves the desire to love and be loved again, knowing the perilous risks that genuine love always brings into our lives.

Many people try self help for panic attacks and don’t get very far. The reason is that they try to run before they can walk. If you can’t use self help anxiety control methods on mild anxiety, how do you suppose you will be successful with self help for panic attacks which involve the most extreme forms of anxiety.

There are numerous methods involved in the reduction of mild anxiety. For this article, I shall look at the simpler ones. Yoga, Tai Chi and sport may not be something you are accustomed to doing each day. Other than exercise and hitting the pharmaceutical cupboard, there are even simpler remedies to relieve mild anxiety. Here is a checklist of items to action each day.

Tips for Reducing Mild Anxiety to Prepare for Self Help for Panic Attacks

1.  Early to bed, early to rise. The expression fits well into a balanced day though its more about the controlled sleeping patterns. It’s not a good thing to have only a few hours of sleep each night. Have a good night’s sleep; 7 hours each night fits well into a mild anxiety relieving pattern.

2.  Don’t drink vast amounts of caffeine as this disrupts your daily balance. If you are prone to drinking too much caffeine, try cutting down and fit some decaffeinated coffee and tea into your day. Yes, caffeine gives you a burst of energy to enable you to feel more alert but the effect is short. This is especially true with self help for panic attacks. Caffeine increases anxiety.

3.  Eat lots of fruit, get the needed daily vitamins. Apples and bananas are very healthy supplements as part of your daily food intake. Bananas are not fattening and apples help the immune system. Don’t eat too much processed food; concentrate on drinking and eating the required vitamins.

4.  Exercise can help particularly because you need to be well-rested for the rigors of self help for panic attacks. It’s important to get sleep and 1 hour of cardio-vascular exercise per day will help improve your sleep, making you stronger for self help for panic attacks.

5.  Salt raises your blood pressure, so keep an eye on salty foods being consumed. Higher blood pressure will contribute to your mild anxiety levels and is a killer.

6.  Look back over the past week at the positive aspects that made you feel good. Did something occur that attracted an experience of joy and laughter? Send some time focusing on that moment as it will allow you to attract good feelings into your mind and smother any negative impact from the day.

7.  If you must reach for pharmaceuticals, try some antioxidants. Speak to your local pharmacist initially about remedies to relieve mild anxiety. There are various remedies that protect you from heart disease and lower your blood pressure.

Enforce these remedies to relieve mild anxiety each day to keep a healthy body and mind. Set a time that is convenient to perform the tasks, and stick to a schedule that works around your other daily commitments.

Self help for panic attacks starts with basic health practices and anxiety control techniques and then adding to those skill incrementally.

Getting married in one’s late teens or early twenties is not inherently a problem.  But finding a life coach becomes much more crucial.  The lack of self knowledge, the lack of life experience, and the rapid pace of change put unique strains on a marriage between two very young people.  There are considerations to keep in mind, but they all boil down to this:  find a life coach wh0 can guide your some the white water.

It seems strange that anyone would need to offer cautions about early marriage these days, since statistically it seems that most people are actually putting off marriage until they are in their late thirties or even older than that. But there are still those who want to be married at a very young age and unfortunately many turn a blind eye to the unique problems they’ll be facing if they go through with such an early marriage. If this sounds like you, what are some things you need to think about and consider before getting into such an arrangement?

First off, keep in mind that many young people have a hard time making a living when they lack employment history. Someone in their very early twenties may have a degree but because of a lack of experience, have a harder time finding a job than others. Financial problems are very common for those who opt for early marriage. Also, many young people lack experience in handling the money they have, and in planning their budget and sticking to it. It’s hard enough for mature adults to put money away in savings much less for younger people to control their impulse spending!

Wondering what to give the new couple as wedding present?  What about giving them some marriage councelling sessions.   If that doesn’t seem appropriate then find a life coach that will let you purchase 3 sessions:  one each of the husband and wife and one when they are together.   Early marriage have worked for thousands of years, but now the social and family resources to make it work are often missing.

Many who get into an early marriage have really no idea how much it actually costs to rent an apartment or buy a home, and of all the smaller expenses that go with living outside their parent’s house. Utilities, groceries, gas and insurance for the car, health care costs, all of these things add up pretty quick and take quite a toll on the young person’s financial situation. Many an early marriage has ended simply because the couple couldn’t afford all those responsibilities thrust upon them.

There are also other responsibilities in marriage that many young people are unprepared to handle, and often don’t even expect. Most are accustomed to the life of a single person where you go wherever you want to go, whenever you want to, without a care or thought in the world. However, even early marriage means having to consider that other person in your plans and your actions. Failing to call when you’re out late or wanting to go out with friends when your spouse wants you at home can cause a lot of arguments between people, especially those who don’t know how to handle these types of situations. Those in an early marriage are often surprised at the number of demands put upon them by their spouse and by how quickly an argument can erupt over even minor or small things.

Anyone considering an early marriage would do well to really think seriously about what they’re getting into. Marriage between two mature adults is difficult enough, as the statistics on divorce will prove, but an early marriage brings about special conflicts and problems as well. If you want to have a long and successful marriage, you need to consider what problems you and your potential spouse might face, and do so before you actually take those vows.

Searching for anxiety and depression help is like walking on an overgrown trail in a jungle echoing all kinds of animal and slithering noises. When you become confused, you consider asking another explorer for directions (therapy). Or, you can pause to look at the sweaty, smudged map (self help) that’s crumpled up in your pack. You ponder why you didn’t find a better map as you slap huge bugs painted with colors you’ve never seen before. To make matters worse, the anxiety and depression help you need is not all in one place. Should you pace yourself to find relief from panic attacks first? Or, should you first walk all night to find an antidote to depression, delaying your attack on anxiety?  What do you think?