Fighting Anxiety and Depression symptoms & How to Win

How to handle Anxiety and Depression by Temple obike.
“Fighting Anxiety and Depression symptoms & How to Win” is my topic for discussion. Quite a lot of things seem to be going wrong rather than right in the world we find ourselves in. We were battling the economy and now had to add a “Pandemic” to the list. The casualties, slow responses, suffering and all has told us one thing. The economic, health and political systems are not as strong as we thought they were. This gives us cause to worry on a larger scale about our family, our financial future, our health and longevity among many other things.
Asides from these reasons above, you and your partner may be going through a rough period, business may not be as good as you want it to be or your friends and career are all acting up on you. This is the write-up to help you learn to manage all of that. It’s 5 minutes well spent for you. Let’s begin.

ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION

It is quite normal to be bothered about things or go through the vicissitudes of life but when it robs you of your peace of mind, it becomes a condition. A lot of my clients over the past two months seem to have one problem at the root of all their concerns. ANXIETY. Anxiety is wrapping itself around depression and causing suicide attempts, risky sexual behavior, demotivated living, domestic violence, fear, crime pedophilia, adultery. If you’ve noticed that;

A) Things that used to be fun for you no longer appeal to you

B)You have been feeling hopeless

C) You notice feelings of sadness that tend to linger

D) You’re constantly questioning yourself on where you took the wrong turn.

THE SOLUTION

You may just be battling anxiety. The fact remains that anxiety and depression often co-exist as conditions 85% of the time. Here are things you can do when fighting anxiety and depression symptoms & win this condition.

Do NOT make a permanent decision based on a temporary situation you are going through. Crises are a must if we are to grow.

Get Creative

When you channel your energy into something that allows your creative energy flow, you tend to focus. The amazing thing about focus is that it is a one thing at a time street. This helps you re-assess your strengths. It shows you that this creative energy can be applied to anything even your life.

Begin Exercising

Part of the reason you get anxious is because you feel things are getting out of your control. Exercise is one activity that shows you how in-control of yourself you really are. This helps boost your self-confidence. Nothing kicks depression in the guy like a good exercise routine. Frequently exercising can release large doses of endorphins (feel-good chemicals in our brain). My suggestion is that you start out with a routine you can easily achieve like 2 days a week. Then build up to a 5 days a week routine. The more you achieve your exercising goals the less time you have to wallow in anxiety or depression.

Problems are mobile, they come to pass. – Temple Obike

Programmed Concentration

Many people opt for Yoga but i personally do not subscribe to this for personal reasons. Therefore my alternative routine for clients in my psychotherapy class is what i call “Programmed Focus”. Choose a time of day with little or no interference from people (I like 4:50 am). Think of what success means to you and hold that image in your mind. Then slowly start focusing on yourself working towards becoming that image. Say these words to yourself adding your name to the phrases. “I am becoming better, I am working towards a thought that has already happened and I refuse to let daily issues lie to me about my journey to fulfillment”.

Your Eating Matters

Anxiety intertwined with depression will force you to start eating lazy. Comfort foods start looking like better alternatives. Research has shown that anxiety and depression can trigger incessant cravings for carbohydrates. So watch your diet. Let your diet contain lots of lean protein (white fish, plain greek yoghurt,beans, groundnut powder, low fat milk, chicken) and good fats (Avocado, nuts, fatty fish,dark chocolate and whole cheese). You can also include lots of fruits to your diet and try to reduce your intake of caffeine, alcohol and sugar. These do not help.

Seek Out Support

This is not the time for you to be alone. Sometimes i notice that clients battling anxiety tend to over-estimate their own strengths. There is no shame in reaching out to someone you trust to support you through this period. Another great way to solve this is to look for people battling this same issue and join this support group. If you have none at the moment, you can reach us to help include you in one of our groups.

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Challenge/Motivate Yourself

You never know how strong you are until the only option you have is to be strong. Having said this, my other suggestion is that you motivate/challenge yourself. Do something creative, start something you have always wanted to do but keep procrastinating, write down new goals for yourself to stick to.

These are all targeted towards making you understand how much in-control you are.

Talk Therapy (Counseling)

You can always talk to me. I’ve treated over 50 anxiety and depression cases since inception using techniques such as Cognitive behavioral (teaching you to adjust your thoughts and actions), Interpersonal (showing you how to communicate better) and Problem-solving (gives you skills to manage your symptoms). Results are usually achieved within 2 to 6 months of dedicated therapy.

Get Medication

There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking medication as treatment for anxiety and depression but this is what i would consider a last resort because if you rush to get medication for anxiety and depresion bouts, you will have sub-consciously wired yourself to be dependent on those. If at any time you decide to do something else, it would still be one of the other points mentioned above. So i always try to advise clients to attempt doing something that builds their confidence towards fighting anxiety and depression and resort to medication IF all fails (which it rarely does). There are a lot of great anti-depressants available with your local pharmacy. They treat both depression and anxiety symptoms.  I advice you contact your medical doctor for the best prescription for you or contact us for options on the best specialists to visit for this.
Please note: it usually takes between 2 weeks to months for your medicine to fully kick in as some cases may need to try a few different kinds before a best fit is arrived at. So please be patient with the process.
As always, i hope this piece on “Fighting Anxiety and Depression symptoms & How to Win” helped someone somewhere. Do not allow life get you to a point of anxiety and depression because things always turn out for good if you actually believe good things are meant to happen to you. Knowledge they say is power but i say in it’s right application lies real mastery.Written by Obike Temple.Temple Obike is a licensed marriage and family therapist, speaker, author and psychotherapist who has counseled over one thousand, two hundred clients comprising of couples, individuals, abuse victims (substance, physical, emotional and sexual) and grief-stricken clients. With over 70,000 in-counseling minutes (1,000+ hours) accrued in practice. He runs his private psychotherapy & counseling practice out of Lagos, Nigeria and has counseling centers in Abuja and Port-Harcourt. His practice also provides options for both online and on-site services.

His private practice has positively empowered lives through his online counseling, podcasts, free advisory services and free online materials.  Readership of his articles also receive a growing number of visitors alongside subscriptions to his email newsletter at templeobike.com. His passion for empowering and uncovering the secrets to lifelong marriages and personal development led to his new book titled “Soul Bodega” available on amazon and across other online and traditional stores.

Never give up on yourself! You are a journey happening through various destinations.

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