Total Cure for depression and anxiety

Depression and anxiety has become a modern day curse for humanity, especially in developed world or relatively rich classes of developing world. The most unfortunate part is that such people seem to always struggle in life in doing normal things which are effortless for normal human beings. The constant struggle start cementing a belief system that they are worthless, people around them are unfair and the world is a terrible place for them. They find it hard to smile and try to escape from small responsibilities also. Let us try to first understand them and then find the details of methods to get rid of this misery from life.

Depression

Symptoms of Depression

One of the best reasons or causes for depresion has been given by Dr. Beck in his book " The Road Less Travelled" where he says that "Depression is the inability to overcome a sense of loss of something dear and valuable". It starts normally in the childhood where the child does not have the skills to overcome a loss and gradually it becomes a part of personality. The usual symptoms include lack of interst in pleasurable things, low energy levels, sense of sadness in general, feeling of worthlessness, feelings that the people around are unfair and the world is a cruel/unfair place. Left untreated the depression can wreck a normal life in workplace, relationship and general well being.

Anxiety

Anxiety disorder is a terrible thing to happen to anyone. Normally depression and anxiety are seen together and they feed each other in a synergetic manner. People afflicted to this disease are anxious all the time and in most of the situations where the patient's peformance is to be seen, evaluated or commented upon by others leads to a sense of anxiety. In cases of responsibilities where he or she thinks that he will eventually fail. After some time in a chronic state the patients of anxiety will stay under this spell even if there is no real source of anxiety.

Treatment

The twins of anxiety and depression normally seen together. An depressive person will develope anxiety and and an anxious person will develop depression. Left untreated the disease will assume a dangerous proportion threatening very survival. As long periods of anxiety and depression will start wrecking the physical part of the body in terms of problems like diabetese, heart disease, addictions leading to their own catastrophic impact on health.

There are routine treatments through medication but one thing must be understood clearly that the medicines treat the symptom and not the cause. However in severe cases of anxiety and depression which make life miseerable can be perhaps treated with medications to start with.

Eleiminating Anxiety and depression

I am writing this based on my experience and I am not qualified medical practicener. But these things have helped me in my struggle to come out of the mess of life. Though I am not totally out of the woods but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I will be expanding the write up gradulally but in the meantime one can search the net on the topics mentioned below.

• Regular study of literature on the topic of anxiety and depression

One of the foremost requirements of solving a problem is understanding the problem thoroughly. There are numerous books and online literature on anxiety and depression. It will be a good idea to spend some time on these issues either through books or resources on Internet. Googling with search topics like "What is anxiety/depression", how to cure depression", self help on these topics will through up many useful literature. Books by authors like Beck (Road less travelled) are great source to tackle depression and anxiety. Psychology today, NYT, Forbes have have good literature on issus of mental illness and happiness.

• Go to basics of life

We need to revisit the successful lives of people and invariably we find that those lives had been filled with simple foods, good and disciplined sleeping hours, lot of social and family interactions, good thoughts, the ability to take things in a positive manner. Searches on how to be happy etc. will throw up many insights.

• Food

Vegetables, fruits, nuts, flax seeds, fish etc. and many more such thing will help in reducing the severity of sudffering. I will be detailing further in future.

• Herbal Medications

I have found many herbal medicines useful in reducing the pain and some of them include valerian roots, Geriforte (Himalayan Drugs, India), ashawagandha, brahmi.

• Cognitive behavioural therapy

The concept deals with thought management and has huge literature on the net. It is basically identifying and removing toxic beleif systems built over the years in the mind which create mood disorders. Ther are many useful handbooks for self help like from writers such as Burns, Pedesky etc.

• Mindfulness

As defined by GET.gg ( http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk), one of the very good resource on the Web, “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgementally. This increases awareness, clarity and acceptance of our present-moment reality. The practice of mindfulness can weaken the forces of depression and anxiety over a period of time and has the power to liberate the suffering masses. More on this topic is in another article "Mindfulness - can eliminate depression and anxiety without medication"

• Logotherapy

Logotherapy appeared to me as the most powerful concept when it comes to treating mental disorder. The basic principle revolves on the essence of being human. They are:

• Searching, understanding and reinforcing the meaning of life
• Freedom of choosing one's attitude in face of situations and events
• Courage during the periods of suffering

Logotherapy can liberate people suffering from depression or anxiety within no time if it is related to issues like attitude and meaning of life.

The narration will continue with an aim that fellow human beings get liberated from suffering from depression and anxiety sitting at their homes and without queuing up in psychiatric clinics.