No Stress Ever

All of the Voices in My Head (getting organized)

by I Trust When Dark My Road

“The whole process…has really gotten me thinking about the process of managing information, and what that means for mental health. If you’re like me, there are a thousand things going through your brain at any given time. I run around putting out fires, trying to stay one step ahead of disaster in all of the spheres or realms that I operate. Church, home, school, opera, DOXOLOGY, Higher Things, and who knows what else.”

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Even More About Morning Anxiety: Its All About Your Attitude

photo by babblingdweeb

Morning anxiety fascinates me. It also haunts me and I hate it with a passion, but its a curious thing. How is it that the moment you open your eyes you can go from peaceful sleep to out of control fear and panic?!? And how is it that sometimes its in my life on a daily basis and other times its nowhere to be seen for long periods of time?

I’ve done a lot of research on this topic not only because I struggle with it often, but its also the number one search that brings people to this site, so I know that a lot of you are struggling with it too.

Usually when the morning anxiety sets in, it takes me about a week or so to really remove it from my morning routine. Every time it comes one of two things happen. I either fear the morning anxiety and feel guilty and ashamed when it shows up, or I expect it to be there and tell myself its not a big deal and I can handle it. There are lots of little tips I have spoken of before but I have learned over time that for me, the best medicine for my morning anxiety is my attitude towards how I approach it each morning.

When I feel guilty and embarrassed about my morning anxiety, and when I give into the fear thinking that its too much to bare, a funny thing happens. My anxiety gets even worse and I am usually sick all day long until right before bedtime when I can finally eat something and relax. This can continue for a few days where I hardly eat anything because I feel so sick.

It gets so bad that I am forced to change my attitude. I tell myself the night before that I don’t need to get upset if I wake up with anxiety. In fact I tell myself I should expect it to be there and stop worrying about if it comes again. I say, when I wake up and the anxiety hits, this is what I am going to do. I am going to tell myself that its ok that I feel this way, its not a big deal, and I can handle it. I CAN handle it! I can do whatever I need to throughout the day with the anxiety.

Then I will get out of bed and do something to distract my mind. Just start my day. Lately if my little girl is still sleeping I will get out my iPhone and play this app that I am addicted to called Scramble. Really, I am pretty addicted to it, and the sad thing is I am not even that good! But its an easy distraction. I have observed that when I can stay positive and treat my anxiety this way instead of as such a horrible thing to dread, it is much less severe throughout the day and eventually after a couple days of thinking positively about it, I will wake up anxiety free.

The positive affirmations stuck around my house really help to reinforce the positive thinking. I have one on my light on my nightstand so its the first thing I see when I wake up. I have one in my closet so when I get dressed I see and read it. You get the idea.

Sure there are some days as I have chronicled where I don’t want to work at being positive. Its too draining and I just want to vent because I am annoyed that I even have to deal with this in the first place. But I find that I have more strength and have more positive days than the days I just want to vent and have a pity party for myself.

I hope you find this useful for your own morning anxiety because it really is an awful thing that if you let it, can effect your whole day. But waking up with anxiety doesn’t have to set the tone for your day. You can accept it instead of fearing it and in doing so, you are controlling it and not letting it control you.

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The Myths and Science of Comfort Food

by The McGill Tribune

From the executive director of USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion: “People tend to use food to maintain a good mood, or to regain a good mood if they’re in a bad mood. They use different foods to do this…Now what we’ve found is if they’re in a positive mood, they’ll tend to eat things that are more meal-related, and there’s generally more nutrient depth…but in negative moods, they tend to be more caloric and convenient snack foods.”

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Depression Help: A Complete Information About Depression

If you’re currently feeling out of your normal system and just hating and ignoring everything and anyone that comes along, try to get yourself checked by a psychiatrist because that actually may be the symptoms of depression.

You should get yourself diagnosed by a reputable psychiatrist and answer all the possible questions that you may have as provide you with the best available to depression treatment that’ll make you give yourself some extremely effective depression help. All it need is the right approach.

Manic or Bipolar depression is characterized by sudden and extreme changes in one’s mood. In one minute he or she is in an eminent state of euphoria while the next minute he or she is feeling to be in a personal hell, Postpartum depression, sadness and a feeling of emptiness. The depression is affected the new mother wherein physical stress during child birth, an uncertain sense of responsibility towards the new born baby. Dysthimia is other type of depression and is proved as a lot less severe. Cyclothemia is just like a Manic or Bipolar depression. Seasonal Affective Disorder is characterized by falling in a groove only during specific seasons (i.e. winter, spring, summer or fall).In this case person mood swings from happy to sad to angry in just a short time. If you’re willing to take in some of that depression help, may it be from your family, friends, there really is a lot of depression help to go around.

You should consult to your doctor and take a proper treatment and can also help from therapy sessions. While being treated, the patient as well as his or her family and other loved ones are advised to make sensible goals concerning depression. You can help the depressed person to understand the patient’s situation because depression help is not at all easy nor is the depression treatment itself. So believe that you are good and strong enough to achieve your goals but only one step at a time.

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Depression Help: Helps to Come Out of the Vicious Circle

There are many people who can be treated successfully with anti depressant medications and the possibility of this illness to relapse is very strong and it may return in up to 70%. The young generation is a victim of this problem as compared to their grand parents. So in that case it becomes necessary to bring about a solution to this problem and dig out the root cause of it. You can search for a depression support group in your area and searches on the internet for your local area may produce some results. While searching through the net, you can also come across the depression forums, help and support groups where you can meet people who are going through a similar black patch.

These forums also have sections on alternative depression medications, such as herbal depression remedies and what you can realistically expect from them. Usually the sites and forums have a hidden agenda to promote some medicines while not really providing valid and objective depression help. To get rid of depression it is very important for you to make sure that you examine your lifestyle critically and see if you could make a world of difference. According to the experts by doing an aerobic or sports one can burn up to 350 calories each time you do it. Actually it could produce the same effects as anti depressant medicines. Even walking briskly can bring about certain signs of improvement and the so called ‘happy chemicals’ can lift your mood.

Seeking out alternative depression medications which can range from homeopathy, acupuncture, natural light therapy for the treatment of SAD, Bach flower remedies and herbal remedies can also help you to get rid of depression. It has saved millions of patients from years of treatment with the SSRI type medications that can have damaging side effects. There are many depressed patients who seek help of cognitive behavior therapy. It aims to adjust all that by changing thinking patterns into more positive and balanced ones. The outcome of this would be a complete change in attitude and outlook.

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Online Mental Health Journalism Awards: 2009

from Psych Central

“We thought we’d acknowledge some examples of outstanding online mental health and psychiatry journalism in 2008. You might argue with our broad interpretation of “journalism,” but we believe that writers or producers who can bring new insight, analysis or understanding about mental health concerns or significant issues in the fields of psychology and psychiatry are worthy of inclusion.”

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Atypical Depression: Reasons and Symptoms

Atypical Depression is a small part of Major Depression. People will sense severely depressed or sometime confident depending on the most recent. Their mood will good considerably when gossiping with friends or enjoying a good movie but when they are alone, their mood will fall back into the way of depression. Atypical depression is a distinction of depression such as happy mood and sometime sad. Symptoms of this type depression are fatigue, oversleeping, weight gain and overeating. The person should know that they are not alone and a number of treatment to aid in their resist.

Atypical depression is defined by the capability to feel better to a positive life event, any two of the following condition: excessive sleep, overeating, a feeling of heaviness in the limbs and sensitivity to rejection. Depression is actually the most common of depression up to 40% population may be suffered atypical depression. Some researches show that an older class of drugs, monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) may be more efficient in treatment than newer drugs, including tricyclic antidepressants and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Atypical depression is more affected in women than in men. The cause of depression is genetics and environmental factors.

Reasons of Atypical Depression

1. Certain medications, including those for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or irregular heartbeat.

2. Sleep instability.

3. Amount of disclosure to light.

4. Genetics.

5. Constant stress (such as from loss, abuse, or dispossession in early childhood).

6. Food deficiencies.

7. Current or past alcohol or drug abuse

Symptoms of Atypical Depression

1. Female sex was connected with all of the atypical symptoms except rejection sensitivity.

2. A duration of illness of greater than 3 months was positively associated with hyperphagia, leaden paralysis, and rejection sensitivity.

3. Tiredness, loss of energy and feelings of hopelessness.

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Top Ways to Reduce Depression

Major depression is categorized to as major depressive disorder, unipolar depression, clinical depression and unipolar disorder. Mental disorder is characterized by a continuing and insisting low mood, self-esteem, and loss of interest in daily activities. It is grim medical illness affecting about 15 million American adults.

Most probability, it is started during the ages between 30 and 40 years and may reach max out at around the age of 50 to 60 years. Women are often struck by major depression and twice the frequency as that of men, although men are usually at a higher risk of suicide.

Major depression’s analysis is based on the reports of a patient regarding his or her thinking. It is not considered through laboratory tests but physicians will advice patients to endure physical conditions tests to know causes of symptoms. Most frequent treatment is with the regulation of antidepressant medicine. There are a number of medicines available in the market that has been diagnosed with depression. The most commonly used is Tricyclic antidepressants. Medication, electro-convulsive therapy, and psychotherapy are the three most common ways of treating major depression.

MAOIs or monoamine oxidase inhibitors are also a common type of antidepressant, usually given for those who exhibit “out of the ordinary” depression with symptoms of oversleeping, anxiety and panic attacks.

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Benefits of Pet Ownership

No sooner did I link to the New Scientist article yesterday than Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, posted his own hypothesis on the benefits of pet ownership. Scott Adams is my favorite “thinker”, even though I rarely agree with his viewpoint. But this article is an interesting, probably valid, partly tongue in cheek, take on the relative benefits of cats and dogs and the relevance of age.

From Scott Adams:
“One of my mental hobbies is concocting hypotheses that I hope someone else will test. Today’s hypothesis involves the health benefits of pet ownership.

It is common wisdom that owning a pet makes you healthier. Interestingly, the group that does NOT get health benefits from pet ownership is older people “in a community”, according to one study.”

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How Depression Consume Your Energy?

Depression is a most common mental problem. It’s generally assumed that twenty percent of adults in UK are disheartened. Though it is not a large percentage in tens of millions of generation, it is increased high and stretch to refer to depression as an epidemic.

The reality of the situation of depression typically responds quite well to treatment and that depression is often reduce once treatment is initiated. It’s true that some people don’t take action to certain types treatments. There are a lot of depression treatments, among them talk counseling and treatment with medications are fine for person.

The problem with depression treatment is that people don’t get any sort of treatment. There are a numerous potential reasons for this, as well as the dishonor that still exists about admitting to being unhappy. Another reason for lack of treatment for depression is likely due to a lack of inspiration. People think that depression is completely psychological in nature, but the truth is that depression also has physical characteristics. People, who become sad, can become so lethargic that physical activity may seem almost devastating.

The initial reaction may be measured a lethargic person who’s depressed as being in a bad temper and perhaps even laziness but the correlation between a depressed state and lack of energy states that inactivity is an actual indication of depression. A lack of motivation and will is an indication of depression is one thing, but dealing with the reality of such a state is something else. A depression can be a source of great frustration to people who care for him or her, and also himself or herself. The person who feels depressed should just will him or herself into action.

It’s important to keep in mind that a lack of energy and physical action is a symptom of depression. The positive news is that energy comes back in a person once they’ve started treatment for their depressed state.

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