Depression self help is an option that you have. First off, it is incredibly important for you to seek out the necessary support for your condition. Both depression and anxiety are serious conditions that should not be left untreated. But, there are various degrees of severity offered by them. In some cases, depression self help is not an option. This is very evident when it comes to the treatment of a severe case in which you are thinking about or have attempted suicide. Then, depression medicine is the best way to go at least from this point.

Understanding Your Options

What many that experience depression do not know is that they do have the ability to explore depression self help options. You do not have to be heavily medicated if you do not want to, unless you are in a very severe case or are suffering from manic depression symptoms. So, what can you do? Here are some things that have been found to help.

· Alternative treatments for depression include supplements of herbal products. There are many products that offer help from anxiety as well as from depression. Products made from high quality ingredients can be helpful. Purchase these only from reputable providers of quality foods.

· It is necessary for you to realize that depression self help must focus on your own feelings about yourself. One way in which you tackle your condition is to realize that things may not be as bad as they seem. The negative thinking that is overtaking your mind is not something that is your fault, but part of your depression, a true illness.

· Do not expect yourself to just wake up and the depression is gone. The fact is that even with the best anxiety and depression treatment, they can linger for a very long period of time.

· Avoid making life decisions that will affect you or your loved ones when you are feeling depressed. You should seek out the help of those that know and love you for additional help here or postpone decision making until after your depression is lessened.

· Practice depression self help treatments such as yoga and meditation. These can help the body to regain a tranquil feeling and will ultimately provide you with a bit of healing. Acupuncture is another traditional treatment of depression that you may find help from.

· Do not set goals for yourself that are too challenging or that provide you with a high level of responsibility. Putting too much pressure on yourself can lead to worsened symptoms of depression. Do not set yourself up for failure.

· Physical activity is good for the body and the soul. If you get outdoors and do the physical things that you used to enjoy, you will work on restoring your health. Depression self help can include putting yourself into situations that you are familiar with and once loved.

Depression self help can and does help. Remember that if you are in severe depression that you should seek out help from your doctor. Even if you do not want to take depression medicine, he or she will help you to find alternative treatments for depression that really will help you.

Jim Johnson
http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/steps-you-can-take-to-help-manage-depression-and-anxiety-30264.html

Asthma attacks can escalate into panic attacks especially in children, who are less aware of what is happening to them. And of course the fear of having an asthma attack can in itself bring on a panic attack. The key is to break the cycle.

What to do when a child has an asthma or panic attack

As their chest tightens, the child starts to get tense, this exacerbates the tightness and a full-blown panic attack can ensue. For a parent or carer, the key is to treat the attack as a normal event and keep calm yourself, reassure the child and to ‘pace’ their breathing.

Start by breathing more heavily than you normally do – but not as heavily as the child, while keeping relaxed. Talk them through their breathing, gradually slowing your speech and your own breathing so if you have developed sufficient rapport, their breathing will become more slow, matching yours. 

Learn or teach self awareness to break the cycle

Adults and older children can learn self-awareness, so they can start to control the symptoms themselves. It helps if they can develop the ability to become slightly detached and observe themselves and their behaviour, rather than wholly being caught up in an ‘inside out’ view. Then they can pace themselves, reduce their breathing rate and remain calm while they wait for the attack to subside.

Technorati Tags: asthma attacks, panic attack treatment, panic attacks

Panic and anxiety attacks are problems that affect a large number of people. They can be somewhat scary but for most people they are relatively mild and don’t occur all that often. A panic attack may happen a few times, but it is usually not a chronic problem.

Panic disorders, on the other hand, can be much more severe. People who suffer from these disorders live in constant fear and anxiety, for ongoing periods of time.

The symptoms of isolated panic attacks and chronic disorder are much the same. A disorder is more difficult to deal with because part of what makes it worse is the constant worrying about when the next attack will come. This makes the attack that much more severe, and the viscious cycle continues to get worse.

Panic disorder needs to be treated as quickly as possible. If it isn’t treated properly, it will continue to escalate and can lead to a condition called agoraphobia, where the sufferer remains housebound because of their fear of having an attack while in public situations.

These panic disorders affect a wide age group. They can show up in the teenage years right through adulthood. Major stresses or changes in a person’s life can sometimes trigger them. The effects of panic can range from mild to very serious, in some cases causing social withdrawal and the earlier mentioned agoraphobia.

Symptoms of both panic attacks and panic disorders include the following:

- Chest pains
- Dizziness and/or lightheadedness
- Elevated heartbeat
- Shortness of breath
- Nausea and other stomach problems
- Shaking or trembling
- Difficulty breathing
- Tingling sensation in your extremeties

Panic disorders also often include the following symptoms:

- Lingering worry
- Fear of the next panic attack
- Depression
- Social withdrawal

While the symptoms of panic attacks and disorders are similar, the effect they can have on a person’s life is vastly different. In either case, however, it is best to discuss the problem with your doctor. They will be able to give you a more thorough diagnosis and prescribe the appropriate treatment plan.

George Ferguson
http://www.articlesbase.com/medicine-articles/how-to-identify-the-symptoms-of-panic-attacks-and-panic-disorders-91094.html

Facing Depression and anxiety disorder head on with anxiety therapy.

People who may be suffering from depression, anxiety disorder or manic disorders actually exhibit or show every kind of symptom of depression that doctors will tell you that depressed people have.

We\’ve heard about anxiety disorder often enough, yet are we really sure that we know enough about it for us to actually understand this illness in order for us to help ourselves as well as others? 5 percent of the American population actually suffer from this illness, however, not all of them get to be treated, thus, anxiety and its ill-effects continue to be a burden to some individuals.

Anxiety depression shouldn\’t be something that people fear, instead, people should just start taking charge of their lives and actually face Anxiety depression and fight it. Life is too beautiful a gift to waste and if one will spend the majority of his or her life just moping around about every single little thing then what kind of life would that be?

Anxiety can often change an individual\’s sunny disposition into a person who hates his or herself, have no self-confidence, trying to isolate one\’s self from the world and basically just not caring about life any more. More so, a person suffering from anxiety isn\’t the only one who\’s going to suffer from this destructive illness, his or her loved ones are sure to follow suit.

Anxiety shouldn\’t really pose a problem in the long run as people who suffer from depression these days are actually fortunate that there are lots anxiety therapy treatments that can be used to aid and help an individual to get well again Prolonged period of sadness or not feeling “up to it,” people who are always feeling not in the mood, who\’d rather mope around the house and feel sorry for them selves is the best example of symptoms of Anxiety depression.

Take for example generalized anxiety disorder or GAD, this kind of anxiety disorder is a lot more complicated than the average depression, in spite of possibly being a day-to-day habit for those who suffer this kind of Depression and anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder actually makes the individual quite more paranoid than usual, anxiety attacks are more frequent, even absurd at times. Some people do not mind the side effects from Depression and anxiety therapy medication, however it can become to much of a problem and can end up ruining one\’s ability to function properly, it\’s best to go to your doctor and report the side-effects as soon as possible.

You should always consult a professional therapist who\’ll help give you the anxiety therapy that is needed to help with Depression and anxiety disorder. Sometime prescribed medicines may be needed to help with the grapple with against Anxiety depression attacks.

Malc Moore
http://www.articlesbase.com/wellness-articles/anxiety-disorder-and-anxiety-therapy-benefits-742390.html

Most likely there will be medication involved…like Zoloft. It will all depend on what is causing the attacks. Talk to you doctor if you are having panic attacks. Good luck!

I have a friend who had panic attacks,followed treatment for a year and now he feels better but still has remnants of the disease.  He became very fatalistic about life in general,he is very careful about everything he feels organically and has sometimes with him some pills for anxiety…just in case….will these “symptoms” go away and will he be completely normal? Could he repeat at some point in life these panic attacks? He didn`t follow therapy counseling, just medication.

Yes!!! I was diagnosed in 1994 with a ” panic Disorder” and put on Paxil ( which helped in the beginning) and Buspar, along with Xanax, Valium, and Ativan. I have learned from this that you can’t live your life under the fear of having a panic disorder, it takes away from your quality of life. I would suggest going to therapy ( or trying one of the online courses ) because it really helps to talk this out with someone- you don’t feel all alone and you become less and less dependent on the drugs.

Everytime I get a panic attack, I not only have the overwhelming very scary feelings of panic and fear. But I also have very miserable physical symptoms that go along with the attacks these symptoms often include nausea, chills, shaking, stomach cramps, diarrhea, lightheadness, feeling disoriented. Does anyone else relate to this,and if you have ever had these physical symptoms as well what do you do make yourself feel better during the attacks? Or these physical symptoms all in our head, or are they our body’s way of reacting to being under such overwhelming fear and anxiety?

i suffer from panic attacks and i get several of these symptoms, some of this is due to to much adrenaline, and taking in too much oxygen, and yes partly in our heads too.

There are sources which say Zoloft is not only a medication used to treat people with emotional problems (panic, anxiety, depression, etc..), but there are dangers to it. Is there any other recommended medication prescription that helps with curing anxiety, panic, or other issues? Just as long as this prescription has NO DANGEROUS EFFECTS???
All I am asking is there any antidepressants that don’t destroy people’s lives? Any without dangerous side effects?

Sorry, but all prescription anti-depressants have side effects. Most will cause problems requiring additional prescription medications.

So, I always put myself down. I do try to stop…I try so hard. I like just start screaming at my brain to shutup..which sounds like I’m crazy…I don’t think I’m crazy. ha I do seem to look at the positive in situations, but only for a short while, then I over think the situation and turn it around to be a negative situation with no positive. I sometimes get so stressed I make myself sick. My family says that I always stress about the small stuff. I always have to tell myself everything I did wrong and put myself down. I feel so dumb sometimes, but I know that I’m not. I know I’m not happy…how can I be when I can’t seem to stop over thinking things and crying. I’m sixteen and it doesn’t seem like any of my friends go through this…Do i need to get help or is just a phase?

Or you might just be a teenager!
If your really concerned talk to a Doc. There’s no harm or shame in seeing one!
Good luck!

I’m almost 16 years old, and my life has changed very dramatically in the past year. For me it’s a very long story. It started off with me just worried about school, and then basically everything. Too the extent that I was completely terrified and couldn’t sleep at all. I was just in this constant state of fear, that never stopped. This was about 2 years ago when I started having these acute symptoms and they just kept building on. But I knew that ongoing worry was a problem I’ve had for years, just not this bad. Basically after a while, I decided just to see a psychiatrist, and was prescribed meds (prozac), which was maybe 13-14 months ago. I was diagnosed with ocd/ anxiety at the time. Later on I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression along with the anxiety, approximately 1 year ago, and my doctor raised my dosage of prozac to 40mg, which helped with depression, but not very much with anxiety. Anyway, I started school in sept 09, as a completely different person, with all I had to deal with, and i didn’t want to see/talk to anyone anymore. I then started failing in school, when before, I was an top student. I was placed in the psychiatric hospital 3 times last year, once in sept, once in oct, then from nov 2009, to jan 2010. It was for anxiety, depression, suicide, and I guess other problems. I felt like I didn’t want to live in this world and i was thinking about substance abuse to cope with, but i decided not to do any of it. One time, or twice, I cut myself, because the anxiety was so bad, along with the depression back in december. At the hospital, I was diagnosed their with asperger’s syndrome ( a very mild form of autism), clinical anxiety, and depression. I was given meds zyprexa, risperdal, seroquel, prozac, inderal, and klonopin, but nothing helped me in terms of anxiety/ some depression. Anyways, I continued living life after being released from psychiatric hospital in jan, and used an excuse i made up in school, saying that I had some pain problems or cancer,and had test done, because I didn’t want everyone else to know what was going on with me. The only people that knew were the staff, and one of my really close friends. I started CBT in early feb for generalized anxiety/ depression, and so far it’s been helpful in reducing anxiety, when facing new situations, which cause more distress and stuff. I also started CBT for OCD specifically just a few days ago. During my time at the psychiatric hospital, I failed a course, which I’m now taking in summer school. Recently, I also switched meds. I was on seroquel, prozac, and ativan (when needed). Now, I’m almost completely off prozac, and switching to zoloft, which I started taking 2 weeks ago, and am still taking seroquel, and ativan. Ativan helps me when I’m having severe anxiety/ panic attack, but i try to avoid taking it. I’m wondering, how long does it take for zoloft to kick in. I’m still on prozac, but i’m weaning off. I feel strange, like the world doesn’t really exist, and it feels bad. I feel like I’ve been through so much, and still suffering a lot, and I won’t get better, but i try really hard to stay positive. I also have lots of mood swings throughout the day, like i could be really happy, then angry etc, and it happens a lot. Also, my social worker called me yesterday, and said that the last time I went their (tuesday), she thought that i should see the psychologist to fill out a questionnaire, and stuff like that. What do you think it’s regarding? Do you think I’ll get better? Any of you people here have similar problems?

I have suffered with severe depression in the past and have developed anxiety problems. When I was suffering with the depression I too had suicidal thoughts and everything felt strange and surreal, I felt and believed I was not meant to be alive.

What I will say is that was a few years ago now and other than the anxiety (which is improving all the time) I am feeling a lot better and you will too so please stay strong.

Likewise too the above comments I would see the psychologist to check for signs of certain illness. You say you have mood swings and can feel happy and then angry all in the same day. To me it sounds very similar to Bi-Polar (also known as manic depression) but this is only a guess and only a true professional will be able to diagnose this. Check the link for manic depression symptoms>>>> http://www.allaboutlifechallenges.org/ma…

Well done for not slipping in to substance abuse and please stay strong, things will get better for you!