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Re: Medications for Depression/Anxiety/Stress & other mental health problems.

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 8:29 pm
by llorona
For situational anxiety, nothing you put into your body, whether "natural" supplements or prescription drugs, is going to address the root cause of your symptoms. As others suggested, you might want to try Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and/or starting an exercise regimen. Exercise, especially cardio, can be a very powerful antidote against anxiety!

I come from the perspective of someone who has taken SSRIs for 20 years for major depression. The drugs have been a godsend in that they've allowed me to live a normal life. Without them, it's very likely that I would have offed myself by now. This said, there's a little bit of poison in every pill. The benefits far outweigh the risks for me, but I would caution others to carefully weigh the pros and cons of taking meds and only resort to them in circumstances where mental health symptoms cause significant impairment.

Re: Medications for Depression/Anxiety/Stress & other mental health problems.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 11:41 am
by Lemur
llorona wrote:
Sat Jul 21, 2018 8:29 pm
For situational anxiety, nothing you put into your body, whether "natural" supplements or prescription drugs, is going to address the root cause of your symptoms. As others suggested, you might want to try Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and/or starting an exercise regimen. Exercise, especially cardio, can be a very powerful antidote against anxiety!

I come from the perspective of someone who has taken SSRIs for 20 years for major depression. The drugs have been a godsend in that they've allowed me to live a normal life. Without them, it's very likely that I would have offed myself by now. This said, there's a little bit of poison in every pill. The benefits far outweigh the risks for me, but I would caution others to carefully weigh the pros and cons of taking meds and only resort to them in circumstances where mental health symptoms cause significant impairment.
Thanks IIorona. After reading this thread and doing some further research, I've pretty much arrived at the same conclusions. While I am still not against medication, I believe based on my past history with dealing with some mental roadblocks, I am much better off exhausting all options first. Medication is not required for my particular problems. Being that I am not depressed or anything like that and since my anxiety is largely situational, I should be able to target exactly what the problem is. The problem boils down to situational anxiety / public speaking anxiety / performance ; basically whenever I am being watched/judged (to say idgaf what anyone else thinks would certainly be a lie otherwise I would not have this problem lol).

Anyhow I had a presentation today that went a lot better. As per usual, I was nervous at the beginning with some jitters but I was much calmer then last time. I had no drugs/supps either; I did have a lot more sleep because the presentation came as a surprise and I only had 30 minutes to prepare. This actually worked a lot better because the anticipation did not drive me insane.

In any case, I am developing an action plan that I think would help a lot.

1.) Start exercising again. I used to be an avid runner. In fact, I remember one time in my early 20s I started running a lot after a bad-breakup and it went a long way towards helping with my short-term depression.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3632802/

2.) Exposure Therapy. This is part of CBT - if I have to overcome my issues, I simply need to be exposed to the situations that cause me anxiety more often. My job naturally induces this (especially a lot lately; they're trying to groove me into management or something ugh); however, there are many meetings/calls where I am just a participant. I am usually quite during these; however, I believe that by getting involved in these deliberately (speaking up); I can practice my skill in essentially a non-consequence environment.

Short story: Psychologists meets a young girl who is afraid of cars for whatever reason. He practices what you call "flood exposure." He takes the girl, puts her in a car, and drives around for 9 hours. She is terrified, screaming, crying, etc. for the first 30-45 minutes or so....but then she realizes that nothing bad is happening and her fear is completely irrational.

Side thought: Could virtual reality (like in a VR headset used for gaming) in front of 1000 people in a virtual public speaking environment / speech expose someone enough to help in real life? Can Virtual reality be used in CBT?

3.) Addressing physical symptoms and being in the present moment. I read some really good advice that stuck - Even if you appear nervous in a meeting; nobody cares. They are there for the message, not you, so stop thinking about yourself too much! Separate yourself. Instead of me presenting to a group of people think of yourself as an entity, a replaceable screw in the system, as just doing its part in the system. Also whenever I catch myself thinking about the future (part of my nature is to always plan) I really have to draw myself back in the present moment. A big part of anxiety is anticipation of a fear.

I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened - Mark Twain.

Bad: "Can they notice my hands are shaking? Oh god, I'm really shaking (anxiety induces more).
Good: "Its okay to be a little nervous. Happens to everyone. Focus on your message'.

What has been shown to help:
- Cold water on your face. Can't find resource on this one
- Breathing techniques to calm nervous system. 3 seconds in, hold, 3 seconds exhale. I did this for 5 minutes before my call today and it really helped
- Mental imaging. My younger bro told me about this one. He says that athletes sometimes use it while working out or performing (imaging yourself benching the weight or scoring that goal). It also helps to mental image the worst possible scenario and realize, even still, afterwards- you're okay!

4.) Good nights sleep, healthy diet, consider green-tea which has natural levels of Theanine (shown to reduce anxiety in some studies)

Re: Medications for Depression/Anxiety/Stress & other mental health problems.

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 2:41 pm
by Lemur
I made this thread in July. Its been about 5-6 months. I can say I've come a long way. This week I had about 3 interviews, a phone interview, and a presentation at work in front of some clients. While I was still anxious before them, my physical symptoms were very manageable and I did not lose sleep the night before. I even enjoyed my presentation about 5 minutes in after the nerves had calmed down.

I'm not sure what kind of place I was mentally in back in July but what has really helped is exercising consistently. I lift weights 3 times a week (very consistently) and added cardio on the weekend. I also started practicing some psychological exercises...one exercise I learned is to ask myself "What is the absolute worse that can happen in this situation?" and then remind myself that it still doesn't matter. This is works really well when you have savings to cover your expenses for years...I had almost forgotten about the security I had in my bank account.

Now...how to prevent myself from slipping into a depressive episode to begin with. I have thought deeply about my past and I can distinctively remember a few times where I went through some real bad depressive periods usually followed by feeling okay and happy with life:

19 years old - 20 years old (Vaguely remember just having no social life, still a virgin, hated my job)
22 years old for a few months (Came back from Afghanistan, Got heartbroken from someone I was dating at the time, lack of dating/social skills in this department probably made this a lot worse than it should have been in hindsight)
25 years old for a few months (Moved back to United States, Had an extremely long commute, Unable to save any money at the time)
27 years old (starting last summer lasting until about November or so...)

All of these depressive episodes were triggered by the same psychological phenomena: the feeling of no control over one's life. "In personality psychology, locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they have control over the outcome of events in their lives, as opposed to external forces beyond their control." At 19, I felt like there was nothing I can do I will always be a virgin and have no friends (I'm married with a kid now and have some good friends). At 22 years old, I felt like I would never have a long-term relationship that worked out (Again I'm married and love my spouse). At 25 years old, I thought I could never get a good paying job to save money (I've increased my salary by 100% since than and reduced commute from 6 hours a day to 1 hour a day). Yes...I was commuting 3 hours to work because it was the only job I could find!

I think what happened to me in July was I convinced myself that "I'm just this way" and I'm always going to be a nervous wreck with having to conduct job presentations and conference calls. I got out of that mindset and learned that I can do better at this with practice. The locus of control is within me....Self-efficacy is a person's belief that he or she can accomplish a particular activity. Another definition to study up on.

Re: Medications for Depression/Anxiety/Stress & other mental health problems.

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 8:55 pm
by Gilberto de Piento
I'm glad you are doing better. Your explanation of locus of control is spot on in my opinion.

Re: Medications for Depression/Anxiety/Stress & other mental health problems.

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 3:33 am
by classical_Liberal
Excellent job! The fact you were able to do the right things when so down is a testament to you.

My experience with a lifetime of similar episodes has been:
1)Exercise
2)Get out and do things that need doing
3)Sense of control over destiny
4)Stoic negative visualization
5)Create a sense of purpose (at least an exciting goal for the short term)

It seems like you have touched on most of those in your recent journey.

Re: Medications for Depression/Anxiety/Stress & other mental health problems.

Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 9:46 am
by Papers of Indenture
Anyone have any recommendations for books on depression and or anxiety/stress that they have found interesting?

Re: Medications for Depression/Anxiety/Stress & other mental health problems.

Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2019 12:34 pm
by Lemur
Papers of Indenture wrote:
Fri Mar 22, 2019 9:46 am
Anyone have any recommendations for books on depression and or anxiety/stress that they have found interesting?
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and in general reading up on psychological states, managing stress. Exercising on a regulat basis again and understanding the concept of 'Locus of Control' were two big ones for me that got me out of my slump last year. Also experessing gratitude just helps with daily mood.

Re: Medications for Depression/Anxiety/Stress & other mental health problems.

Posted: Fri May 29, 2020 2:47 pm
by Stahlmann