Depression and anxiety at same time

[Judie]

Canyonlad66, Try Fish Oil ( Omega 3 ) 2,000 mg a day. They are the brain function vitamins, work incredibly well as they are excellent for anxiety, depression , ADHD, Alzheimer's. This is the only thing I take for anxiety. They work as well, if not better then SSRI's ( Celexa, Paxil, Zoloft etc..) When my Panic Attacks first surfaced The most prominent symptom for me was also breathing ,caused by hyperventilation syndrome aka shallow breathing. Just begin to do deep breathing..count to 4 slowly inhaling through your nose , deep and rhythmic , hold for a second and then exhale to the same count of 4 slowly through your mouth...continue this, focus. Now the key is not only doing this when you feel anxious. Retrain your breathing, stop and consciously do this during the day at random times. Now I know how scary it feels to be short of breath but the fact is nothing will happen to you. You are throwing the Carbon Dioxide / Oxygen ratio off and that is what is making you light headed and short of breath.The absolute worst thing that would happen is you would faint, YOU WON'T because your brain will send a message to take in more oxygen and regulate your breathing ( hence the grasping that you think is your inability to breathe) So make it easier on yourself and retrain yourself to breathe correctly with the above exercises. Trust me , I not only have hyperventilated and shallow breathe regularly but I actually " hold my breath". So I too practice taking deep cleansing breaths. You will be fine. The Irony of Anxiety is that because of the hyperventilation scaring me sooooo much I quit smoking 30 years ago....SILVER LININGS there are always silver linings in life. You will get better, time and deep breaths that's all. Be Kind To Yourself.

[Judie]

For years I believed my Panic Attacks were a result of a physiological response to stress until I was informed that Panic Attacks are indeed a symptom of depression or in fact go hand in hand with depression. It is very difficult to understand this but I personally equate it to the Chicken and the Egg. Which came first, did debilitating anxiety that altered your life cause a depression or did your mind attempt to make you take notice of an underlying depression by producing bodily symptoms. Just like the Chicken and the Egg it truly does not matter what came first. The reality is they do co-exist, I think through my own experience anxiety people have a hard time accepting there may be a depression involved. The reality is that both anxiety and clinical depression are treatable with Positive Conditioning and or meds if clinical depression is beyond a mild depression. Stress is often the catalyst to anxiety and or depression. Stress is relentless and alters eating, sleeping, emotional and intellectual patterns that our body is accustomed to. Think in terms of a vacation, how many of you sleep well that first night ? Most do not because their biological and emotional routine has been thrown off. Be kind to yourself, figure out what stresses have perhaps upset your balance. Work at fixing the imbalance. Deep breathe, relax and know and accept in life the things we can change and the things we simply can't. Anxiety is transient, it will ease up but you must accept that it is caused by thought procces. Depression is treatable and so is Anxiety.

[Lin]

My clinical depression starts first and then the panic attacks and anxiety. Sometimes the wrong medication has caused my anxiety and panic attacks so changed meds many times, and on 16gm of diazepam to control the anxiety. New anti depressant started to work but then drugs for hormonal imbalance made me take a nose dive. Have now had a gynae operation and can only hope that this will work to help sort my hormone imbalance and will allow new anti depressant tablets to work, plus have doubled the dose of these.
Panic attacks and anxiety are completely irrational but feel real at the time and are hard to deal with. Everyone has their individual way of dealing with them, but I like to get as much advice as possible, try them all and then decide what works for me. Some days different things work than other days depending on sleep, whether pressure of work too etc.
We can only try to find our own solution to them and hope that we can stop them or depression goes away for a while and we get a break from them for a while.