The Anxiety/Panic Attack Journal

It’s not unusual for anxiety sufferers to also experienced periodic bouts of depression.  Anxiety and depression are different psychological problems, but they sometimes overlap.  For example, dealing with an ongoing or chronic anxiety situation can easily lead someone to feel depressed. 

But technically, anxiety and depression affect the mind and body in very different ways.  Anxiety is normally associated with the fight or flight response and a heightened sense of awareness.  It’s as if the sufferer is on high alert all the time — unnecessarily.

Depression, on the other hand, is more commonly associated with an extreme feeling of hopelessness and lack of motivation. And rather than feeling that they are on high alert all the time, depressed people can often feel a numbness of the senses, resulting in the inability to experience normal emotions like joy or anger, or even everyday contentment.

But sometimes an individual can experience both the depths of depression and the fight or flight response of anxiety within a single day, or even within the span of an hour. These types of extreme mood swings can sometimes be caused by a physical condition such as a thyroid disorder or diabetes, to name two common examples.

But just as often, extreme mood swings resulting in anxiety and depression can be the result of unproductive” thinking habits.”  In the same way that we all have our daily routine and behavioral habits, over the years we also develop specific “thinking habits.”  And it is clear that certain thinking habits tend to be strongly correlated with anxiety and/or depression, while other habits discourage these problems.

This is why the EasyCalm series focuses on recognizing unproductive thinking habits, and then initiating a new set of habits to counteract them.  What the series DOESN’T do is ask you to change your old habits.

Trying to change or eliminate a well-established habit can be difficult. Anyone who has ever tried to quit smoking, quit over-eating, or quit anything can attest to this. But developing a NEW habit is much, much easier.  In fact most experts agree it only takes about three weeks of daily repetition to firmly establish a new habit.

That’s why the EasyCalm series deals with establishing new thinking habits, not trying to quit the ones you already have that cause anxiety or depression. The goal is to create new habits that are not conducive to anxiety, panic attacks, depression, obsessive thinking or other emotional issues. Once these habits are in place, they effectively block the old unproductive habits, and the result is a significant increase in quality-of-life.

While the series has proven very effective at this, is important to remember that anyone experiencing severe or ongoing depression (not just the occasional case of the blues) should see their doctor right away. While self-help techniques can be beneficial to people dealing with depression, it is always critically important to see a doctor first — especially if the depression is severe or in any way life-threatening.

Learn More about the EasyCalm Anxiety Series

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 21st, 2009 at 6:38 am and is filed under Anxiety and Depression. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.