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Articles
- Anxiety, Depression &
Other Disorders
If you're reading
this, chances are you're either dealing with some kind of anxiety or
depression yourself, or concerned about someone who is. I don't want to
bore you with a lot of statistics, but consider this:
- One out of five
people will experience a severe clinical depression at some point in
their lives.
- An estimated 10%
of the U.S. population suffers from panic
attacks, phobias or
other
anxiety disorders each year.
- More than a
third of us will experience at least one panic attack in our lifetime.
Add all of the
people who have mild to moderate depression, or some
form of bipolar disorder, plus
everyone affected by someone else's
depression or anxiety (friends, spouses, kids, coworkers), and we're
talking about a major issue. Yet as common as these
problems are, most people don't really understand much about them. So
keep reading!
My approach to treating
these problems is based on Cognitive-Behavioral
Therapy (CBT), though
I'm not a strict CBT therapist. I use CBT because I've found that it
works, at least for most people most of the time. Its basic premise,
that you can change your mood and
feelings by changing your thoughts
and behavior, has been proven to be one of the most effective
ways to
treat both anxiety and depression.
Because these are "whole
body" disorders, the best treatment practices address sleep, nutrition
and exercise habits. Medication can be a useful tool in treating some
of the most distressing symptoms, but is rarely a complete solution.
Recent neuroscience research has demonstrated that mind-body practices like meditation, yoga, and Tai Chi can not only relieve symptoms of
stress, anxiety and depression, but may also be able to prevent their
re-occurrence.
I've included Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) here because it tends to occur in
people with bipolar or unipolar depression.
Understanding
and Overcoming
Depression
Anxiety
and Panic Attacks
Social
Anxiety
Bipolar
Disorder
Winter
Blues
Attention
Deficit Disorder in Adults
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