Self-help at home

[jiyanmi]

Last year, I was diagnosed with depression. According to the doctor, mine started at a young age. Because no one knew that I have this condition, we did not seek professional help until the symptoms affected my life in such a debilitating manner. Also, as I was browsing the web, I discovered that I may have GAD as well. Almost all symptoms that I experience point out to GAD.

Can anybody give me advice for some self-help that I can do at home? Some of you may ask if I have access to medical assistance. I have none. Here in my place, it is indeed very expensive to be treated for mental health. Doctor’s consultation fee for one session is almost the same as a week’s worth of medications and I have to get both. I have a stable job but I don’t have enough money to afford any of the mental health services.

I saw books categorized as self-help like ‘Wreck This Journal’ and ‘1 Page at A Time’ at a local bookstore. Do they really help in relieving anxiety symptoms? What do you do when anxiety hit you at unexpected times?

[dore13]

There isn't any charity or free clinic that can help you? Some large hospitals have free clinics in them, you spend a long time waiting but you get seen. Also, are you near any hospitals that are currently doing studies? Volunteer for them and you might come out with a working treatment plan. Some doctors have a sliding scale. The hard truth is this, self help without proper medicines and therapy to help you learn coping skills for depression and anxiety are more than likely not going to work. Some people work on their condition for years with doctors help and are still struggling. You really need to figure out how to see doctors and get the medicine needed to be treated.

[LadyO4]

I noticed that you wrote this post 2 days ago so hope you see this message. Over the past four years I have educated myself about the human body as it relates to anxiety and depression, and also, how it affects the brain and other organs. I can only share what has worked for me in the hopes it gives you a backdrop for what can be done without drugs and multiple trips to the doctors office.

I think the most important thing to remember is that anxiety and depression involve a lot of functions of your body, so it's imperative you understand how they all overlap and depend on each other to perform at optimal levels.

Since you feel that yours stared at a young age, it's very possible the sympathetic nervous system part of your brain triggered the fight-or-flight response every time you perceived any emotional or physical threat, and stored that pattern in the memory part of your brain, so that any time future threats (or perceived threats) get too close to you, your brain sends you into the same response because it's been programmed to do so.

In my own quest to break free from the problems that impaired my ability to feel normal, I created an online blog as a way to express my deep emotions, and noticed that getting them down on paper felt therapeutic because writing helps activate “relaxation response” of the parasympathetic nervous system, which stimulates the vagus nerve and acts as an antidepressant naturally. Writing also allows a person to use narrative expressive writing as a way to release fears, resentments, disappointments, and anguish, as it changes the beat-to-beat intervals in their heart rate, and helps them calm down.

Diet is crucial to feeling better. Since 70 % of serotonin your brain needs to make you feel good is made in the digestive tract, a diet filled with sugar, processed foods, alcohol, caffeine, chemicals, pesticides, the wrong kinds of fats, and basically junk food, will prevent the body from doing its job.

Enough can't be said about the importance of exercise - it release endorphins to make you feel better.

Certain supplements will help keep the adrenal glands in balance which effects the cortisol output which effects your stress levels.

Another way to reverse this pattern is to find techniques that will help you switch over to the parasympathetic nervous system's way of handling threats, which governs things like sleep, relaxation, digestion, and basically anything the body does that requires you to be calm. Deep breathing transitions a person over from threat-to-relaxation because the breathing stimulates the vagus nerve (the vagus nerve is the nerve that comes from the brain and controls the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls your relaxation response).

This is a very condensed version of an otherwise complex explanation - perhaps you will enjoy looking some of these up. I hope some of this helps.