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When dealing with depression or anxiety or any other mental illness, oftentimes people will experience issues with sleep. Sleep is really important for our development and growth. Oftentimes people think, oh, when I'm sleeping, my brain turns off. It's actually the exact opposite. While you sleep, your brain processes everything you've learned over the course of the day. If you don't get that sleep, you haven't learned whatever it is happened during that day. Sleep can be restorative. It can provide you with energy as well as a clear mind to tackle the next day. One thing that can be difficult when dealing with mental illness is that either you get too much or too little sleep. Both of these can actually be difficult and problematic.
When dealing with depression or anxiety or any other mental illness, oftentimes people will experience issues with sleep. Sleep is really important for our development and growth. Oftentimes people think, oh, when I'm sleeping, my brain turns off. It's actually the exact opposite. While you sleep, your brain processes everything you've learned over the course of the day. If you don't get that sleep, you haven't learned whatever it is happened during that day. Sleep can be restorative. It can provide you with energy as well as a clear mind to tackle the next day. One thing that can be difficult when dealing with mental illness is that either you get too much or too little sleep. Both of these can actually be difficult and problematic.
Everyone worries from time to time: about that performance review coming up, that bill that you might have to pay next month or what it is that your unruly child might get into next and some amount of worry is actually helpful because we're worry causes us to take action to resolve problems and avoid problems that our lives. But when that worry starts to feel like it's too much, when it's taking up more space than you think it should in your life - if you're worried about a variety of things in your life more often than not, and that's lasting for six months or more and that worry feels like it's difficult to control and if you're also feeling some other symptoms, maybe even physical or emotional symptoms like irritability or restlessness or difficulty sleeping or concentrating, then you might be experiencing generalized anxiety disorder. This is becoming a more common problem in this country. In the US, the National Institute of Mental Health reports that almost 3% of adults will experience generalized anxiety disorder in a given year and almost 6% will experience it in their lifetime. Now, if we expand those statistics to include other anxiety disorders - things like social anxiety and panic disorder - then about 1 in 5 adults will be touched somehow by anxiety in their life. So if you're finding yourself experiencing worry to the extent that it's impairing your ability to function or meet your social obligations in life, then please seek help from a mental health professional who can help you understand what it is you're experiencing and then help you create a plan to feel better.
If you find yourself lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling when you're trying to go to sleep because you're worried about these problems that are headed your way, whether they're real or imagined, it's possible that you might be experiencing generalized anxiety disorder. But don't let that possibility be another worry for you because if you are, there are plenty of treatments available that can help you to feel better. Your first step will be to seek help from a mental health professional who will speak with you, learn about what you're experiencing, and then properly assess you to determine whether you're experiencing generalized anxiety disorder. Some of the things that they'll want to know include some of the symptoms that I mentioned just a second ago. Are you experiencing excessive worry about a variety of topics for an extended period of time, six months or more? That seems difficult to control. Also, they'll be asking about other symptoms you might be experiencing, including physical and emotional symptoms such as irritability or difficulty sleeping or concentrating, even muscle soreness. They'll also be asking about other factors in your life such as stressors that you're facing, ways that you cope with them and your use of substances - including alcohol, caffeine, and other drugs. With a proper assessment, a mental health professional can help you understand the feelings that you're experiencing, and if you end up being diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, then they can help you create a plan to feel better.
Anxiety can come from a number of causes or a combination of them. For one thing, you might be genetically predisposed to anxiety because it runs in families. It's also more likely to affect women, people who were shy as children, people who've experienced stressful events in their lives and people who are economically disadvantaged. Some behavioral choices that you make might also be influencing the extent to which you're experiencing anxiety too, because using alcohol or caffeine or other substances can cause or worsen anxiety. Our relationship to our environment can also play a role, which means that as we experience stressful situations or major obligations in our life that produce stress, that stress can mount and over time develop into an anxiety disorder - especially if we feel that we aren't up to the challenge that they pose to us. Now, if that happens and we develop anxiety, then there's an additional risk, which is that 60% of people who develop anxiety also then go on to experience a major depressive episode - a form of depression. It so happens that people who experience both anxiety and depression tend not to fair as well in the long run as people who experience just one or the other. So please: if you're experiencing any symptoms of anxiety (or depression for that matter) please contact a mental health professional so they can help you understand what it is you're experiencing and help you devise a plan to feel better.
As a rule of thumb, I would say that if you are wondering whether you need help, it's probably a sign that your intuition is kicking in and that it might be time to reach out. Therapy is an incredibly useful tool for, not only working through problems and dealing with symptoms, but also to deepen your understanding of yourself and get more in touch with your purpose and values that you can live a more meaningful, fulfilled life. Other than that, some signs that may show that it might be time to go to therapy would include finding that your old ways of coping with stress are no longer working. Seeing that you're developing some new unhealthy habits, getting feedback from important people in your life that they're worried about you, or lastly feeling that you're not able to function at school, work, at home, or in your relationships.
One of the most tragic outcomes of depression can be suicide. People oftentimes think, oh, the world would be better off without me, or I just can't go on anymore. If you're having those thoughts, it's important to immediately seek help from either a mental health professional or your doctor. If you are having current plans of wanting to hurt yourself, go to the emergency room. You can also call a suicide hotline to help you talk about all the things that are going on in your head. But this is not a substitute for therapy or treatment. It can be difficult to have thoughts of suicide or wanting to kill yourself, and it can be even more difficult to deal with them on your own. Find someone to help you deal with those thoughts and hopefully develop a plan to move forward.
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