Author Topic: how to overcome anxiety and depression (Read 159 times)

Nigga_With_An_Additude · « **on:** January 29, 2008, 11:52:06 AM »

How to Overcome Anxiety and Depression and Start Living Life with Confidence, Joy and Peace of Mind.

Okay, let's begin...

Here's What You Can Expect in My FREE Course:

Session 1: Lucinda's Story: You're not Losing Your Mind.
Session 2: Where Does Your Anxiety and Depression Come From?
Session 3: How to Stop a Dreaded Attack Before it Starts.
Session 4: Self Sabotage: Are You Destroying Yourself from the Inside Out?
Session 5: How to Starve Your Anxiety & Depression of the Fuel it Needs to Thrive
Session 6: How to Take Control of Anger, Guilt, and other Toxic, Negative Emotions
Session 7: From Victim to Victor - Never Let Stress Rule Your Life Again
MEGGAN, remember to save this in your email folder named: 'Lucinda Bassett's Mini Life Makeover.' Also, print this information right now so you can read it when you are offline.

Session Two: Where Does Your Anxiety and Depression Come From?
Stop fighting the symptoms and start attacking the root cause of your pain and frustration.

Does your story sound like this?

"I have found in my experience with anxiety and depression that obsessive thinking is by far the hardest obstacle to overcome. Obsessive thinking is both anxiety producing as well as depressing. The emotions felt in this experience can leave you both physically and mentally drained. Mark Twain wrote, 'I've had a horrible life - most of which I've never lived.' Oh, how I can relate to this!

Lucinda points out in this program that we think in pictures, not in words and sentences. If you worry you are picturing life as you don't want it to be - vividly and with emotion. She goes on to say that our brain doesn't know the difference between a real happening and an imagined one. When we picture a catastrophe our mind pushes the same "buttons" as if it were really happening. We get to feel as if it really happened. We use the same amount of energy as if it really happened. We get used up. She also says that when we worry we are trying to control the uncontrollable.

This is the way it is for me. I would like to think that I didn't choose to go down that road of racing, circular, negative, worst case scenario, what-if type of obsessive thoughts. How do you jump out? How do you break the cycle? It becomes increasingly more difficult the farther into the cycle you get. You have to interrupt. You have to recognize that you are obsessing, accept that you are obsessing, and then choose to move away from it.

I tell myself, 'I see what you are doing and I know where this is going. And I don't want to go down that road, so I will choose to get busy and think about something else, something more positive and healthy.' The longer you can put distance between obsessive episodes the easier it becomes to break the bad habit."

Bob Bassett, WA

It's time to dig our heels in and get at the heart of the matter. Exactly where does your anxiety come from? What causes anxiety? What causes these frightening physical symptoms we experience?
It is genetic, it is biochemical, it is also part learned behavior - driven and enhanced by personality traits and life experiences.

Here are 4 of the 12 background traits (found in the complete Attacking Anxiety & Depression program) that contribute to the development of anxiety and depression in a typical person's life. Check those that apply to you:

• Strict religious upbringing/family philosophy
• Negative emotional environment
• Lack of praise and approval from one or more parent
• Nervous or anxious family members

Due to your family genetics and life experiences growing up you have adopted certain personality traits. Here are five of the eleven most common traits found in people suffering from anxiety. Again, check those that apply to you:

• Perfectionist
• Tendency to over-react much of the time
• Extremely sensitive to criticism
• Extremely high expectations
• Need to appear in control

Anxious people share these and other personality traits which are responsible for a good deal of their anxiety. People with anxiety and depression related issues are often intelligent, analytical worriers who dwell on things and obsess about their fears.

They want things to be a certain way and have extremely high expectations for themselves and others. As a result they are often disappointed and anxious. Winning the approval of others is important to them, and at all costs they must appear to be in control.

Anticipation and dread of negative events are a large part of their thought process, and at the smallest threat of a challenge, they tend to overreact.
It is this type of thinking and reacting that creates the biochemical response which in turn creates anxiety.

It is impossible to recover until you are willing to take a serious look at your specific personality traits and be willing to change them. When you change the way you think, you change the way you respond and react. As a result, you change the biochemical reaction which will minimize and eventually prevent anxiety.

So once you peel back all of the essential layers, the cause of your anxiety is the way you think.

Anxiety starts and stops between the ears. We think ourselves into anxiety. It then makes sense that we can think ourselves OUT of it as well.

Do you want to change your life? Do you want these symptoms to leave you alone? Do you want to feel happy and in control again?

Anxiety is an emotion. You can control it. We'll get into the specific 3-step process to controlling anxiety (Acceptance, Trust, and Change in Perspective) in the next session of your free course.

Everyone experiences anxiety to varying degrees. What you DO with your anxiety determines whether you will keep it under control or let it control you. Let's take a look at the stimulant response that anxiety causes in your brain to better understand how an anxious episode erupts.

It begins with a thought. Just a simple thought. A "what-if" thought that creates a chain of more scary thoughts. "What if my husband doesn't like what I said? What if he becomes so angry he won't forgive me? What if he leaves me? What if I'm all alone and can't take care of myself? What if I go crazy and there's no one there to help me? What if I cry until I can't breathe? What if I die?"

One upsetting thought creates the next.

Pretty soon you're like a hamster on a treadmill, going round and round in circles, getting nowhere, and feeling more frustrated all the time.
You can step off the wheel any time you want to. Anxiety is not a monster; it is not some severe illness that requires lifelong medication. It is self-induced. We think the worst and then our thoughts become the generator of this biochemical reaction in our bodies.

We'll talk about how to specifically respond to an ongoing attack in our next email session.

If you suffer from anxiety, you must change your thinking habits. Changing your thinking habits is so vital to recovery we've dedicated three separate sessions in the Attacking Anxiety & Depression Program to this topic alone (Sessions 3, 8, & 10).

You maybe wondering, "Lucinda, my physical symptoms are so intense there must be more to it than this. My heart races uncontrollably. I can't breathe. I feel dizzy and bewildered. These symptoms can't possibly be caused by my thoughts alone. I must have a biochemical imbalance or something."

To better understand the cause of your physical symptoms let's take a quick look at the adrenaline response, or the 'flight or fight' response; described in more detail in the Attacking Anxiety & Depression program.

Whatever the initial cause of anxiety, whether it comes from the inside or out, a sudden moment of anxiety automatically sends a signal to our brain.

An alarm system has been activated and a hormone called adrenaline is secreted. That's how it all starts.
Our nervous system has been warned that something is wrong, that danger is present or possible. Cortisol is secreted and both these stimulants rapidly course through the body. Simplified, these chemicals greatly increase our pain threshold, give us a powerful boost of energy and increases our blood and oxygen supply to vital organs and muscles.

Your heart pounds so hard you think, "What if I am having a heart attack?" The blood rushes out of your head causing dizziness and you think, "What if I have a brain tumor?" There is nothing to be done with your over-stimulated system (by either running or fighting), so it turns in on itself. You are now just a step away from a full-blown panic attack.

Do you see what we do to ourselves?

Remember the personality traits we talked about earlier. We're sensitive people. We're intelligent and imaginative. We're very analytical. We are so sensitive to our thoughts and environment we can trigger this natural defense mechanism AT WILL!You can just think about something scary or dangerous and BAM - have enough biochemical energy to sprint two-miles without stopping.

In short, the gates are down, the lights are flashing - but there's no train a com'n! The only train is the runaway freight train of our own obsessive scary thoughts.
When we feel our heart-rate accelerate, the throat tightens, the dizziness, we usually end up making things worse. We begin to obsess, "Why is this happening to me? Oh, no - here it comes again. I think I'm going to pass out. I'm dying... I'm going to lose control! What's wrong with me?"

More fear equals more biochemical fuel dumped on the already smoldering anxious fire.

This may be difficult for you to accept right now at face value. But as someone who has rowed this boat herself, trust me on this.

THE WAY OUT

When I decided to be responsible for myself I began having panic attacks on a daily basis. I was having attacks in the car, at work, and even in the safety of my own home. I definitely got worse before I got better.

My experience is not unique. Most people who have recovered from anxiety, panic disorder, and even obsessive compulsive disorder say that when they accepted their own part in their problems, a lot of pain came rushing out. They felt more anxious.

Of course this sounds scary, but if the payoff is independence, healthy self-esteem, and freedom from fear - isn't it worth it?
The only way out is IN.

If you want to take control of your anxiety you will have to face yourself head on. But there are things you can do to soften the process. One of the most important parts of recovery is setting up a solid support system. Make sure you have a comfortable group of people, close friends or family, who will support your strengths and disempower your weaknesses. If you're lacking in this department, there's a whole community waiting to support you in the Forum on my website (www.stresscenter.com).

About the Author:
Lucinda Bassett
Founder, CEO of the Midwest Center for
Stress & Anxiety.
For more than 1 million anxiety sufferers, Lucinda Bassett is a symbol of hope and strength. Severely affected by anxiety, panic, and depression in her 20s, she found the help she needed to overcome anxiety and depression. Determined to help others do the same, she founded the acclaimed Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety.

Lucinda is also a nationally renowned motivational speaker and presenter. Her techniques have been shared with a variety of major corporations, professional associations and medical and educational institutions.

She has appeared on hundreds of local and national radio and television programs including Oprah, The View, Montel and Robert Schuller's Hour of Power. Plus, Lucinda and her work have been featured in a variety of high-profile publications, including Health, FamilyCircle®, Cosmopolitan and even the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Most important, Lucinda is dedicated to helping those who are needlessly suffering from anxiety and depression. It is her life's work and her solemn commitment.

I told you last week about that fateful morning when I turned the television on and heard someone talking about agoraphobia. That was the day when my life really began to change. I automatically began my first positive dialogue with myself, completely oblivious that I was actually using a tool of recovery.

"There's a solution to this anxiety problem and I'm going to find it! I'm going to have to do the work. I may even have to research it myself. I have to want to get better, I have to find the answers, and then I have to do it myself."

That was when the work really began. I did the research, did the work, and made the decision to change my life. I had finally accepted an important truth:

I couldn't control the world around me. I could only control myself and my reactions to it.

Up until that point I seemed to be spending time with people who tried to help me to justify my misery and why I couldn't do the things I wanted to do. Now, I began to look for different types of people to fill my life, people who would say, "You can be anything you want to be," opposed to, "You can't do it. It's impossible.

I looked for men and women who were positive, more spiritually inclined, with the drive and desire to accomplish great things in life. And I found them. They were all around me; probably always had been too, but I had never tried to meet people who supported my strength.

In short, I used to have relationships with negative people who didn't believe in themselves and spent all their time complaining. I began choosing my friends more carefully, spending time with people who were happy and positive, who were going places and doing things to fulfill their lives.

Let's recap what we've learned today:

• You have developed certain personality characteristics due to your upbringing and life experiences.
• These personality characteristics are responsible for a good deal of your anxiety
• You are sensitive, perfectionist, analytical, etc.
• The frightening physical symptoms you experience are a result of the 'flight or fight' response.
• You are so sensitive that you can trigger the adrenaline response with your thoughts.
• If you change the way you think you will change your life
• You will have to be willing to face your anxiety head on.

I want you to practice these two sample Attack-Busting Tips from my Attacking Anxiety & Depression program over the next few days. These tips go hand-in-hand with next weeks' session and how you can change the way you feel simply by changing the way you think.

Use this tip immediately at the first sign of an anxiety attack to weaken its intensity and dramatically shorten its lifecycle.
Attack-Busting Tip: First, don't make things worse by scaring yourself with negative thoughts like, "Oh no - here it comes again. Why is this happening to me? What if I do something foolish...?"

Instead of fighting and analyzing your symptoms just accept them. For example, "I know what this is. It's only anxiety and I'm OK. It always passes. I am in no immediate danger."

Next - distract yourself by doing something to burn and release this energy. Go for a walk, work on a puzzle, clean out the garage - just DO something to distract yourself from the way you are feeling.

I promise you; with some positive, constructive action on your part - instead of negative, obsessive inaction - you'll feel better. Faster.

Here's to the new you,

P.S. MEGGAN, if you're looking for a little more on today's session paste the following link into your browser for a quick video presentation: http://www.stresscenter.com/sessionprg/session2.htm