solid foundation

Here on the cusp of a new year
a message to the world
I'm sorry
I find myself at a place in life
where I have to build more walls
I have to be colder , stronger
I have to be more selfish
I have to care less
It's safer
I am alone
I have to cultivate strength
It is in my best interest to grow more independent
I may spend the rest of my life alone
and need to be confident in who I am
and my abilities to perceiver
I have to prepare to endure this cold darkness I find myself in
I have to arm myself to battle the demons
I have to do what's needed for me , now

never be ashamed to cry

Ten Things You Can Do for Your Mental Health

Try these tips to help find the right balance in your life.

1. Value yourself:
Treat yourself with kindness and respect, and avoid self-criticism. Make time for your hobbies and favorite projects, or broaden your horizons. Do a daily crossword puzzle, plant a garden, take dance lessons, learn to play an instrument or become fluent in another language.

2. Take care of your body:
Taking care of yourself physically can improve your mental health. Be sure to:

• Eat nutritious meals
• Avoid cigarettes 
• Drink plenty of water
• Exercise, which helps decrease depression and anxiety and improve moods
• Get enough sleep. Researchers believe that lack of sleep contributes to a high rate of depression.

3. Surround yourself with good people:
People with strong family or social connections are generally healthier than those who lack a support network. Make plans with supportive family members and friends, or seek out activities where you can meet new people, such as a club, class or support group.

4. Give yourself:
Volunteer your time and energy to help someone else. You'll feel good about doing something tangible to help someone in need — and it's a great way to meet new people.

5. Learn how to deal with stress:
Like it or not, stress is a part of life. Practice good coping skills: Try One-Minute Stress Strategies, do Tai Chi, exercise, take a nature walk, play with your pet or try journal writing as a stress reducer. Also, remember to smile and see the humor in life. Research shows that laughter can boost your immune system, ease pain, relax your body and reduce stress.

6. Quiet your mind:
Try meditating, Mindfulness and/or prayer. Relaxation exercises and prayer can improve your state of mind and outlook on life. In fact, research shows that meditation may help you feel calm and enhance the effects of therapy.

7. Set realistic goals:
Decide what you want to achieve academically, professionally and personally, and write down the steps you need to realize your goals. Aim high, but be realistic and don't over-schedule. You'll enjoy a tremendous sense of accomplishment and self-worth as you progress toward your goal.

8. Break up the monotony:
Although our routines make us more efficient and enhance our feelings of security and safety, a little change of pace can perk up a tedious schedule. Alter your jogging route, plan a road-trip, take a walk in a different park, hang some new pictures or try a new restaurant.

9. Avoid alcohol and other drugs:
Keep alcohol use to a minimum and avoid other drugs. Sometimes people use alcohol and other drugs to "self-medicate" but in reality, alcohol and other drugs only aggravate problems.

10. Get help when you need it:
Seeking help is a sign of strength — not a weakness. And it is important to remember that treatment is effective. People who get appropriate care can recover from mental illness and addiction and lead full, rewarding lives.

*Adapted from the National Mental Health Association/National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare

source: https://uhs.umich.edu/tenthings

strength

fight through the bad days

thoughts

choices

talking about suicide

still here

suicide prevention month

observe your thoughts

darkness

endurance

better shape

train yourself to recognize overthinking

your current situation

everything is temporary

Strategies for Overcoming Depression

There are a lot of articles on the Internet about overcoming depression. They suggest things such as changing your thinking, changing your mood, and voilà! — changing your life. But overcoming depression is not something you do in the blink of an eye. And no article is going to tell you how you can simply “overcome” depression in a few minutes of reading.

Depression is a serious mood disorder that affects millions of people each year. Sadly, most people who suffer from depression never seek treatment for it, fearing about what others may think of them or not having the courage to face change on their own. There remain a lot of misconceptions about depression treatment, how long effective treatment takes, and whether it’s all worth it.

What this article will cover are common themes in effective depression treatment, and some theories on how you can speed the process of depression recovery.

What is Depression?

Since you’re already reading this article, it’s likely you already suffer from depression or know someone who is, so we’ll keep this brief. Depression is just not the occasional feelings of sadness that we all experience from time to time. Instead, it’s a persistent feeling of overwhelming sadness for at least 2 weeks (and usually much longer). It’s the inability to take pleasure in almost any of life’s activities, and feeling run down or lacking the normal energy you had before depression set in. People with clinical depression also often suffer from problems with sleep and eating — physical symptoms that have been going on for as long as the depression itself. There is also an overwhelming sense of hopelessness for most people who experience depression — like this is not simply ever going to get better. Ever.

It’s no wonder a person with depression can’t see overcoming it. It seems hopeless. You talk negatively all the time, not just about yourself, but about others too. It’s not just the blues — it feels like someone has grayed out the world altogether.

Helping Yourself Overcome Depression

So what can you do about it?

In a very positive book about depression, Dr. Michael Yapko persuasively argues in Depression is Contagious that the cornerstone of the majority of people’s depression today is about relationships — or the lack of healthy, good, close relationships in our life. If we have many, close healthy relationships in our lives, it’s hard to be and stay depressed. (In the book, he also discusses the skills a person can learn to improve existing relationships, and find new healthy ones.)

Relationships just don’t fall into our laps, but when we’re depressed, we may specifically isolate ourselves from our existing and new relationships. This is a symptom of the depression. Relationships can help us pull ourselves out of the deepest throes of depression. Finding ways to build our relationship skills and engage with those around us who love us is one key way to overcome depression.

Our thoughts shape our behaviors, not the other way around. How and what we think directly impact how we behave, and many would argue, how we feel. If we feel depressed, it may be because we are often thinking depressing thoughts. You can’t just stop thinking such thoughts, but you can learn to identify the thoughts as they occur. As you track your thoughts throughout the day, you can also learn ways of evaluating them, and answering them back when they are unhealthy or irrational. This exercise forms the basis of cognitive-behavioral therapy, but the joy of this therapeutic technique in treating depression is that you can learn it all on your own, outside of a therapy relationship.

Skills building isn’t something you can do only with relationships. It’s something you can do with a lot of areas in your life. Such as combatting negative thinking or coping with stressful in more positive ways. Humans don’t come pre-built with these skills in place, and most of us never formally learn how to do these things successfully — such as enhancing our relationships and nurturing our positive emotions. That’s okay, because these things can be easily learned, as long as you open your mind up to the possibilities. Including the need for real change in your life.

Remember that there are a lot of ways you can learn these new skills. You can learn a lot by simply doing Internet searches on specific skills you want to enhance or learn anew, such as building a healthy relationship with a family member or loved one, finding new friends, or how to stop isolating yourself. You can find skills-building exercises in many self-help books written about depression as well. Online support groups offer a third simple and free option for finding and sharing skills with others like yourself.

Of course, some people who suffer from depression seek treatment, usually from their primary care physician or family doctor. That’s a good start, but it should only be the start. Family doctors and primary care physicians aren’t specialists in mental health treatment — psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are. Seek a referral to one immediately, before even starting medication. Why?

Because the choice of medication and dose should be decided by you in conjunction with a doctor specifically trained in psychiatric medication prescribing — psychiatrists. Some doctors and therapists might even recommend against medication as your initial treatment, as it might be more appropriate to start with psychotherapy instead.

Taking Baby Steps

There’s a reason that most therapists suggest taking it slow when trying to treat depression. If you feel good one day, and decide to try and start a new business or make a new friend and you fail, it could be a forceful setback in overcoming depression. Instead, try things out slowly, and experiment with change one step at a time (save the leaps for when you’re feeling fully recovered!).

As you do take steps into the future, trying out new behavior strategies or relationship skills, reward yourself for your successes. We all too often are quick to compliment others for doing something nice, but are loathe to compliment ourselves. Give yourself a compliment and a reward for accomplishing some goal you’ve set for yourself in your depression recovery.

All journeys are not a straight line forward. There will be setbacks in your journey recovering from depression, no matter if you focus on going it alone (e.g., without seeking formal treatment), or even if you are in treatment with an antidepressant or psychotherapy. Take the setbacks in stride, though, and keep them in perspective — it wouldn’t be work if it was simple to recover from depression. Depression recovery is a process that will take time, but as long as you stick with the goal of change, you can overcome depression in due time.

Remember, hope is one of the things that leaves when a person is depressed. But hope can be reignited through small successes along the way, reinvigorating the memory of better times — times that can be just around the corner as you begin to win the battle over depression.

By Jane Framingham, Ph.D.

source: http://psychcentral.com/lib/strategies-for-overcoming-depression/

don't believe everything that comes into your mind

be kind to yourself

life in recovery

be kind to yourself

sometimes you fall down

12 Mental Benefits of Exercise

don't give up

reach out - get help

 reach out - get help 

'Positive Activity’ as Effective as ‘Positive Thinking’ in Treating Depression

A simple and inexpensive therapy is equally as effective at treating depression as the ‘gold standard’ of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), scientists at the University of York have found.

Behavioural Activation (BA) encourages people to focus on meaningful activities driven by their own personal values as a way of overcoming depression. In contrast, CBT is an ‘inside out’ treatment where therapists focus on the way a person thinks.

BA can be delivered by more junior staff with less training, making it a cost-effective option. It is around 20% cheaper than CBT, meaning it could help ease current difficulties in accessing therapy, and could make it more realistic to deliver for countries worldwide.

The COBRA trial recruited one third of its participants in Yorkshire and was led by Dr Dean McMillan and Professor Simon Gilbody from the York Mental Health and Addictions Research Group (MHARG) at the University of York.

Dr McMillan said: “Depression is a very common and debilitating condition and we were pleased to be able to offer people from Yorkshire the opportunity to take part in this ground-breaking study.”

The wider COBRA study, led by the University of Exeter, is one of the largest in the world to assess psychological treatments of depression through a randomised controlled trial, by comparing different treatments between groups.

Professor Simon Gilbody, Director of the University of York’s MHARG, said: “This trial has the potential to change practice and could ensure that psychological therapy is more widely available, even within the financial constraints faced by the NHS.”

Clinical depression is the second largest cause of disability globally, affecting around 350 million people worldwide. The impact on economic output across the world is projected to be $5.36 trillion between 2011 and 2030. Although CBT is known to be effective, access is often restricted, with long waiting lists.

Until now, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), has said there is insufficient evidence to recommend behavioural activation as a first-line treatment in clinical guidelines, and has called for more robust research to investigate the benefits. The COBRA trial, one of the largest of its kind in the world, was designed to meet this need.

‘Cost and Outcome of Behavioural Activation versus Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Depression (COBRA): results of a non-inferiority randomised controlled trial’ is published in The Lancet

Further information:
The University of York Mental Health and Addictions Research Group (MHARG) conducts internationally-recognised research into common mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. MHARG is a joint enterprise between the University of York and the Hull York Medical School (HYMS) and was founded in 2005.

Contact details
Samantha Martin
Deputy Head of Media Relations
UK

source: www.healthcanal.com    23/07/2016

Nutrition Is The Most Overlooked Factor in Depression Recovery

Only relatively small changes in diet are needed to see benefits to depressive symptoms.

A healthy diet is one of the most overlooked factors in recovering from depression, recent research claims.

The Mediterranean diet in particular provides the vitamins and minerals the body and brain need.

Dr Vicent Balanzá, one of the study’s authors, explained that the brain…

“…needs an adequate intake of key nutrients, such as polyunsaturated fatty acids Omega-3, essential amino acids, B-group vitamins (B12 and folate), vitamin D and minerals like zinc, magnesium and iron.
A balanced and high-quality diet, such as the Mediterranean, provides all of these, but in cases of deficiencies, nutritional supplements are advisable.”

The Mediterranean diet is good for both the brain and the body, Dr Balanzá said:

“At the population level, we had scientific evidence that Mediterranean diet is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cognitive impairment.
Now we also know that it reduces the risk of depression.
These are strong arguments to preserve a cultural -and wholesome- treasure that has been transmitted over time,”

The study explains the best way of getting the required nutrients:

“A traditional whole-food diet, consisting of higher intakes of foods such as vegetables, fruits, seafood, whole grains, lean meat, nuts, and legumes, with avoidance of processed foods, is more likely to provide the nutrients that afford resiliency against the pathogenesis of mental disorders.”

This is far from the first study to highlight the importance of diet in treating depression.

A recent study of 15,093 people who were followed over 10 years, found…

“A Mediterranean diet including fruits, vegetables and legumes can prevent depression, a large new study finds.
People only had to make relatively small changes to see the benefits.
The scientist think that depression could be partly down to a lack of essential nutrients.
People who reported eating more nuts, fruits and vegetables were considered to be following the Mediterranean diet more closely.
Those who ate more meats and sweets were considered to be moving away from the healthy diet.
The benefits of the diet are likely related to higher levels of omega 3 and other essential nutrients.”

The study was published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry (Sarris et al., 2015).

source: PsyBlog     14 JULY 2016

you are stronger

let go

it's different with many people

The New Psychiatry: Forget Everything You Think You Know About Mental Health

I felt this sensation in the pit of my stomach — it was a combination of sympathy and anger — listening to Annie tell me, through tears, about her postpartum journey into the world of psychiatry.

Three separate psychiatrists dismissed me when I expressed concerns about taking an addictive medication like Klonopin.  It’s been two years, I can’t get off it, I’m on four psych meds and I feel worse than I ever did before I started this treatment.

Annie was ushered into the promise-filled halls of psychiatry three months after the birth of her first baby when she began to experience racing heart, insomnia, vigilance, irritability, and a host of physical complaints including joint pain and hair loss.  No one did blood work, asked about her diet, or cared about any of the myriad observations about her body and its changes in functioning.  This was a “head-up” intervention. I believe women deserve better.  People deserve better.

Most patients who come to me for treatment of depression and anxiety do so because they want answers.  They want to know WHY they are struggling. The closest they will be offered by their prescribing psychiatrist or primary care doc is some reductionist hand waving about serotonin imbalances.  I think it is time to speak to these patients with respect, truthfulness, and to offer them more than a life-long relationship with a pill (or pills, as it will inevitably become over the years).  First, let’s review some basics:

Depression Is Not a Serotonin Deficiency

Thanks to direct-to-consumer advertising and complicit FDA endorsement of evidence-less claims, the public has been sold an insultingly oversimplified tale about the underlying driver of depression.  Here’s how we know depression is not a serotonin deficiency corrected by Zoloft:

• There has never been a single study, in humans, to validate the theory of low serotonin in depression.  Low levels are found in a minority of patients.
• An antidepressant marketed as Stablon, increases reuptake of serotonin (reducing serotonin activity) and appears to be equally effective as those that decrease it or have no effect on it at all.
• Manipulation of serotonin levels (tryptophan depletion or enhancement) do not consistently result in a depressive syndrome, and may promote future episodes.
• These medications are used to treat an impossibly non-specific and broad array of illnesses from obsessive compulsive disorder to anorexia to premenstrual dysphoria to bipolar depression to irritable bowel syndrome.
• Antidepressants of all categories seems to work about the same regardless of their presumed mechanism of action with about 73 percent of the response unrelated to pharmacologic activity, according to metanalyses by Dr. Irving Kirsch and Fournier, which suggest a powerful role for active placebo effect in all but the most severe depression. In those cases, significant benefit may be achieved by points on a rating scale attributed to side effects such as sedation or activation (improved sleep or energy, unrelated to primary pharmacologic action).

You might wonder: Well, then how is it that antidepressants are a billion dollar industry and I have all these friends who are so much better on them?  Some pioneering individuals have investigated the data supporting antidepressant efficacy and have made compelling arguments for what is called the “active placebo” effect accounting for “breaking blind” in placebo-controlled trials.  In short, the expectation of relief and subsequent change in symptoms experienced by “responders” is related to perception of side effects. This analysis suggests that antidepressants may only have 10 percent efficacy above and beyond the placebo effect.  When you also consider the suppression of negative studies (permission of sedatives in trials, replacement of non-responders, and allowance of placebo washout) by pharmaceutical companies, you may start to worry that you have been sold a bill of goods.  When inefficacy, long-term risks, increase in suicidality and violent behavior are taken into account, it is a marvel to observe the star-power of these medications.

What Is It Then? Inflammation!

Inflammation is a buzzword, and a 41 million+ Google hit for a reason: It appears to underlie just about every chronic disease plaguing Americans today.  A contribution of genetic vulnerabilities likely determines who develops heart disease or cancer or obsessive compulsive disorder, but many researchers are convinced that depression may have a significant inflammatory component.  Just as a fever is one of your immune system’s mechanism for eradicating intruders, suppressing a fever, in no way, serves to resolve the underlying infection or to support the body’s return to balance. Similarly, suppressing symptoms of depression does not achieve rebalancing, and will likely result in the Whack-a-Mole phenomenon of shifting symptoms, and protracted resolution.

There appears to be a specific subset of non-responders to medication who have measurable markers of inflammation as explored in this study. We know that medications such as interferon given to patients with Hepatitis result in significant levels of depression and even suicide, and we know that anti-inflammatory agents such as infliximab or even aspirin can result in resolution of symptoms.  Investigators like Miller and Raison have discussed, in a series of wonderful papers, the conceptualization of depression as “sickness behavior” with accompanying social withdrawal, fatigue, loss of appetite, decreased mobility.  Recent meta-analyses have identified at least 24 studies that have correlated levels of inflammatory cytokines like CRP, IL6, and TNFalpha with states of depression.

What Drives Inflammation?

What causes inflammation in the body that can affect the brain?  This is the subject of an excellent book and it turns out the list is long, but these are the contributors that I see most commonly in my practice:

Sugar

It’s in almost every packaged food.  Seriously.  Look for it and you will find it. It may come with different labels — cane sugar, crystalline fructose, high fructose corn syrup — but it’s all sugar.  The way the body handles fructose and glucose is different, however, which may account for why fructose is seven times more likely to result in glycation end products or sticky protein clumps that cause inflammation. In addition to the above mood and anxiety roller coaster, sugar causes changes in our cell membranes, in our arteries, our immune systems, our hormones, and our gut, as I discuss here.

Food Intolerances

Gluten, soy, and corn have been identified as allergenic foods and a leading speculation as to how these foods became and are becoming more allergenic is the nature of their processing, hybridization, and genetic modification rendering them unrecognizable to our immune systems and vehicles of unwelcome information.  Gluten (and processed dairy), when incompletely digested, result in peptides that, once through the gut barrier, can stimulate the brain and immune system in inflammatory ways.

Autoimmunity

The epidemic incidence of autoimmune disorders in this country is a direct reflection of environmental assault on our system.  The body’s ability to determine self from other starts with the gut and our host defenses there.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there, because autoimmune disorders typically have psychiatric manifestations.  This makes sense — the body’s immune system is misfiring, and the immune cells of the brain (called microglia) are following suit.  Beyond rampant inflammation, autoimmune disorders such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (more here) also result in symptoms related to damage to tissues.  Low or erratic thyroid function can cause anxiety, depression, flattened mood, cloudy thinking, metabolism changes, and fatigue.  Sometimes even the presence of immune system misfiring can predict depression as was noted in this recent study where women with thyroid autoantibodies in pregnancy went on to develop postpartum depression.

Before You See a Psychiatrist

Diet

Do a 30-day diet overhaul.  If you feel committed to the cure, eliminate these provocative foods: corn, soy, legumes, dairy, grains.  What do you eat?  You’ll eat pastured/organic meats, wild fish, eggs, fruit, vegetables, and nuts/seeds.  If this is not revolutionary, then you may be someone for whom nightshade vegetables, nuts, or eggs are inflammatory.  If that seems entirely overwhelming, then start with dairy and gluten.  If that is too much, then gluten is my top pick.

Here are some top therapeutic foods:

Coconut Oil

Introduce 1-2 tablespoons of virgin coconut oil to give your brain an easy source of fuel that does not require significant digestion.  When your brain is inflamed and your sugar is out of balance, your brain cells end up starving for nutrients to make energy.  This can be an effective shortcut.

Turmeric

I use this spice in therapeutic doses, but it has recently been demonstrated to be as effective as Prozac. If you cook with it, use pepper and oil (red palm, coconut, olive oil, ghee) for enhanced absorption.

Fermented Foods

Naturally fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, and pickles as well as kefir and yogurt if you are dairy tolerant are a source of beneficial bacteria that can retrain the gut to protect you from unwanted pathogens.  A recent study demonstrated that these bacteria can, indeed, affect brain function.

Detox Your Environment

Here’s an important way to call off the dogs of your immune system.  Give it less stimulation.

• Filter air and water
• Purchase products free of known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors such as parabens, TEA, fragrance (pthalates), sodium lauryl/laureth sulfate, triclosan
• Eat organic produce, pastured meat/dairy
• Make your own cleaning products from household vinegar, baking soda, tea tree oil, or purchase similarly simple products
• Avoid eating or drinking from heated plastics
• Avoid cell phone use
• Avoid processed foods and sugar, consume low-mercury fish
• Carefully consider risks and benefits of any elective medical interventions

Promote Healing Messages

I have developed an appreciation of the body’s ability to work towards balance when obstacles are removed.  An important obstacle is the stress response that is activated by many of the above factors as well as perceptions of busy-ness, lack of downtime and community support, and trauma.  Take 10-20 minutes a day (or even two!) to promote the relaxation response by breathing in with a count of six and breathing out with a count of six.  Imagine the air flowing in and out through your heart and cultivate a feeling of gratitude.  The benefits of this practice have been well-studied by Heartmath Institute.

Psychiatry has long suffered from pseudoscience and propaganda.  From an embarrassing history of pathologizing human behavior, applying crude “treatments,” and imposing beliefs about societal welfare on vulnerable populations, we haven’t come very far in the past century.  Incidence of mental illness is rising, partly from changes in diagnostic criteria, commercializing mental illness, collusion between doctors and patients around the “quick fix,” and partly because our bodies and minds are crying out in protest about this toxic world we live in.  Take control of your body to heal your mind — take back your health and bear witness to the power of a lifestyle renaissance.

Jan 23, 2014       Kelly Brogan, M.D.        Holistic Women’s Health Psychiatry, NYC       www.kellybroganmd.com

Follow Kelly Brogan, M.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kellybroganmd

source: www.huffingtonpost.com

weathering the storm

thoughts

tomorrow

Nothing lasts forever

battles

Negativity

never give up

Fear Keeps Depression in Place

Overcome fear and you are on your way out of depression ... ?

Fear of success is sometimes a bigger obstacle than fear of failure. 

In my previous blog, I was advocating asking others to help you move out of depression, drawing on their creativity, problem solving and their optimism to help you get energized. Whether you want to or not, you probably have to rely on other people to help you get out of depression. All that "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" stuff is fine in theory, but the depressed person usually needs someone to help tug them along. That is because depression sucks the energy right out of you and robs you of the creativity to find a solution to the problem you are in.

One major reason you may not get out of the depressed spot you are in is that you are afraid: Afraid of asking for help and afraid that asking would make you look foolish. You may be afraid that trying and failing PROVES you are no good.

Another aspect of the fear that keeps depression in place, is the fear of what will happen if you succeed in your goals. Uncertainty about life after success can make the process a challenge. The willingness to succeed is necessary, but surprisingly hard. For some, succeeding may make all their previous beliefs about themselves wrong.

So if a person is certain that no love will ever come her way, then she does not have to be anxious and she can remain depressed as an unloveable person. That is better for some than knowing they are lovable and have not as yet achieved the romantic partnership they desire. (In the meantime they overlook all the other ways they can experience love - which might decrease their depression!)

Why is uncertainty such an issue? Anxiety is what we feel in the face of uncertainty: and in depression, uncertainty about how you will accomplish a success or about what it will feel like to succeed can create reluctance to try. Anticipating failure ironically diminishes anxiety if you are stuck in the depressed point of view that you are not the kind of person who gets to have love or money or success.

Keeping fear in place can keep isolation in place too. "No one cares enough," is a typical depressed way of thinking, and sticking to the notion that no one can help maintains self-fulfilling isolation. And isolation increases depression that robs you of creative problem solving and of optimism that a new solution could work. So if you are ready to draw on another person's aid, you still have to face the possibility of failure and the possibility of success.

Take a look at your fear specifically. Make some cognitive changes to deal with it and use the input of others to help you find better thought processes.

1. Take a good hard look at the question, "So what?" (...if I fail?) "What would be different?" Probably nothing. But nothing will be different if you don't try either. You can fee less fearful of failing if you know what to expect by facing the possibility head on. A new solution might NOT work, but, then "So what?" If you were going to live without love, you still don't have it- nothing new. If you were afraid you would not succeed and did not try, then you did not succeed. Same difference.
2. Dial down your assumptions about how bad it will be. Start by changing statements that are 'all or nothing'. For example, "If he does not want to go out with me a second time it will prove that no one will ever love me," could be said less extremely, "If he doesn't want a second date, that is one less bad date I have to go on!" Or, "If I apply for that promotion, even if I do not get it, the boss knows I am interested and may think of me for another position."
3. Deal with your fear of success by first assessing what it might look like if something works out for you. Have your friend, colleague or family member help you make a list of the positives that could come of trying something different. You cannot guarantee success, but you can guarantee trying. "If I ask for help and get myself down to dinner, I may not get stronger, but at least I will enjoy my meal more if I eat with company." "If I do get someone interested in a second date, that will be fun, and I can take my time to know if it is a good relationship developing."
4. Healthy skepticism about success may help us form realistic plans that we can achieve, but healthy optimism about success is often hard to come by. Ask someone to give you a reason why you will succeed. Write it down and read it daily.

Your courage develops from small steps, not from leaps.

Here is where courage really comes in. It can be easier to leave things as they are, and trying something new takes courage. And to get that first bit of courage you might need to be en-couraged. It takes courage to tell a friend or mentor or therapist that you are going to do something new. And when you do, their enthusiasm for you to try, and their implicit promise to respect you for trying (not for succeeding) can help you take that next courageous step into the uncertain territory where you can defeat fear and thus diminish depression.

Using that helping person you have chosen is in itself an act of courage that is like planting a seed. In a fairly short period of time it will grow into a strong enough courage to try, knowing you might succeed in changing your outcomes!

Posted Jul 20, 2016     Margaret Wehrenberg Psy.D.     Depression Management Techniques

Margaret Wehrenberg, Psy.D., is a licensed psychologist in private practice and a popular public speaker.
Her latest book is The 10 Best-Ever Depression Management Techniques.

source: www.psychologytoday.com

unguarded thoughts

holding on and letting go

overthinking

leave the past behind

It will get better

courage

walk

Stressed? Walking activates soothing neurons in the brain
which reduces stress, anxiety & even depression #healing

make it happen ~ force yourself

so much more

hang in there

7 Things That Happen When You Stop Taking Antidepressants

By SARAH KLEIN APRIL 28, 2016

What Happens When You Stop Taking Antidepressants

For some people with depression or anxiety, treatment with antidepressants can be a literal lifesaver. But others, depending on any number of reasons—like insurance coverage, unpleasant side effects, or personal preference—may decide to stop taking the drugs.

Teri Biebel, 48, decided to stop venlafaxine (Effexor) with the help of her doctor when she felt like she didn't need it anymore. "I had severe anxiety, trouble catching my breath, and felt really overwhelmed when I went on Effexor, and it seemed to do the trick," she says. But 10 years later, "I didn't feel anxious, I didn't have depression, I didn't feel like I needed it."

But, she says, no one could have prepared her for what it would feel like to stop taking the meds. "It felt like the world's worst hangover," she says. "It was painful to lift my head. I would curl up into a ball and stay in bed. I don't remember feeling that bad before I was on an antidepressant."

Rather unbelievably, we still don't entirely understand how antidepressants work, but they do work. "They can be incredibly effective, depending on how severe the depression is," says Renée Binder, MD, president of the American Psychiatric Association. "Sometimes we'll see symptoms go away entirely."

But, like with any medication, when you feel better, it's natural to wonder if you still need it. If you and your doctor decide you're a good candidate for stopping antidepressants, here's what to expect.

You'll want to work closely with your doctor.

This is not an undertaking to do alone, experts stress. "Discontinuing antidepressants should never be done by anyone by themselves," Binder says. "It's always important to work with a psychiatrist or whoever is prescribing the medication." That doc will dutifully reduce your medication dose and keep a careful eye on whether your depression or anxiety symptoms are coming back. "People think, 'I'm feeling better, and I want to get off these,' but you may start feeling worse again," she says, and you'll benefit from your physician's support if you do.

You'll cut back slowly on meds.

To help you avoid as many unpleasant side effects as possible, your doctor will carefully taper you off of the medications. The weaning protocol for each drug is different, Binder says, but typically adjustments will be made 2 to 3 weeks apart to give your doc a good sense of how your symptoms change as you taper. "Stopping suddenly can be very difficult to tolerate," Binder says. "Never stop cold turkey."

Doctors usually accomplish this by either cutting your dose or cutting back on how frequently you take it. "Either way, it's like landing a plane," says Robert Valuck, PhD, a professor in the department of clinical pharmacy at the University of Colorado. "You don't want to drop from 35,000 feet to the runway; you want a nice, slow glide path." Some people can handle a steeper glide path, says Valuck, but both approaches gradually reduce the dose in your system so that your body can adjust in baby steps.

It can take more time than you think.

We weren't kidding about the slowly part. Many people expect to feel back to normal in a couple of days after quitting meds—much like people expect starting antidepressants to make them feel better in a flash—when really it can take several weeks. Typically, the drug is out of your system 2 weeks after stopping, but effects can linger for 2 months. It depends on how long you were on the meds to begin with, Valuck says.

Your brain might feel...strange.

Stopping too quickly or even cold turkey has been anecdotally linked with what many people (especially in online forums) refer to as brain zaps. "I had a patient who stopped Paxil [paroxetine] without tapering and described electricity going through her," Binder says. The phenomenon really isn't understood by experts, Valuck says, and there's not enough evidence to prove discontinuing antidepressants can cause these zaps, but it's still something to be aware of.

Tammy Mohney, 31, was on escitalopram (Lexapro) for about 6 months for anxiety before she had to stop taking it due to a change in her insurance. She tried to wean herself off by cutting her pills in half before stopping entirely, but she only had enough for about a week and wasn't able to continue working with her doctor. "For about a month, I would blink my eyes and get super-dizzy, almost like an electric shock went through my brain," she says. "I'd have to sit down or I'd almost fall over." It made even the simplest daily tasks nearly impossible, she says, as it happened all day long. "I might have weaned off of it a little too fast," she says now. "I would definitely tell someone to consult a doctor or a pharmacist."

Your mood will probably change, but maybe only temporarily.

The most common antidepressants are a class called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which block the reabsorption of the brain chemical serotonin, leaving it free-floating, Valuck explains. Take the drugs away and that serotonin gets absorbed again, which can result in minor or "rather pronounced" mood changes, he says. Some research suggests that when people stop antidepressants, they might face an increased risk of suicidal thoughts, although there's been no link to actually acting on those ideas, he says.

This is particularly alarming, obviously, because we don't really know when those thoughts are depression coming back and when they're a fleeting side effect of stopping treatment. Biebel says she would cry at the drop of a hat while coming off of Effexor. Her friends started to worry it was not a good time for her to try to transition off meds after all, she says. "Maybe I should have stayed on it a bit longer, but I just didn't want to be on it any more."

You might feel it in your gut.

Believe it or not, we've got the same neurotransmitters that send around chemical messages in our brains in our guts, too. Other serotonin-mediated processes throughout the body can temporarily feel out of whack as your body readjusts, Valuck says. Many people discontinuing SSRIs report GI symptoms like nausea, vomiting, and changes in appetite.

You should have some other coping mechanisms in place already.

We know some of the most straightforward healthy habits can alleviate some of the pain of depression, like getting adequate exercise and sleep and taking up a relaxing, centering practice like meditation. But don't assume this safety net is there for you if you haven't strung it up yourself. "I would hope someone would already be trying these, if they're stopping medication," Binder says.

"I'm a runner, and I think that helped clear my head a little bit," Biebel says. "In the few months it took to come off the antidepressants, I never really felt 100% when I would run, but it was a distraction from the intense lethargy and overwhelming hangover feeling."

Friends and family can also provide support while you're tapering off of meds. "They can notice symptoms maybe you don't notice yourself," Binder says. "Depending on the patient's relationship with those people, maybe they can say they've noticed you might be getting a little irritable again or you're not sleeping as well. You can get help from your support system if you trust them."

source: www.prevention.com