Carlee Myers Stress Less
My favorite way to cope with stress spiritually is through dreamwork. Ever since I was a young girl I had dreams good and bad.
Early in my life, I suffered from an early childhood trauma and as a result, developed PTSD and experienced terrifying nightmares.
As you can imagine when I was young my dreams scared me.
I didnt know what they meant, if anything, and felt overwhelmed by the narratives my subconscious would create. Over time I realized that my dreams were a gift.
My dreams were allowing me to shine a light on what Im feeling and what direction I need to head next in my life.
An alternative way to manage stress is to tune into your dreams. In the morning when you wake up, do your best to recall the previous nights dream and ask yourself what was the most powerful emotion I experienced in last nights dream?.
Usually, this highlighted emotion points to an unresolved past or present experience that could use your attention and work.
Once you identify that past or present experience that needs working through and take action to address them, you are sure to reduce deep anxieties and stress.
When Youre Depressed You Cant Just Will Yourself To Snap Out Of It But This Guide To Depression Help Can Put You On The Road To Recovery
Coronavirus update
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, many of us are dealing with social distancing, isolation, and lockdowns that make it even harder to cope with symptoms of depression. Whatever your circumstances, though, there are ways to overcome feelings of sadness and despair, improve your mood, and regain a sense of hope. In addition to the tips in this article, you can also find help for depression in our Coronavirus Mental Health Toolkit.
Take A Test To See How You Feel
If youre unsure about the way you feel, take our anonymous online test to check whether your levels of stress, anxiety, or depression are within a healthy range, and see if one of our online courses could help.
What Causes Depression?
No one knows exactly what causes depression. It is clear that genetic factors are important in many cases of depression. Depression seems to run in families , and about 30% of the predisposition for depression is due to genetic influences.
Stressful life events play a part in the onset or relapse of depression. Ongoing conflicts with others can take their toll on our well-being, as can other social and environmental stressors such as financial difficulties, retirement, unemployment, childbirth, loneliness, or loss of someone or something important. In vulnerable people, these unpleasant life events may be enough to cause or worsen a depressive illness.
A persons personality characteristics are an important factor. When people are depressed, they usually have a very negative view of themselves and the world. They do not appreciate good things, and bad things seem overwhelming. Some people have a tendency to view things this way even when they are not depressed. In other words, they may have a depressive personality style.
Did you know
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How Do I Use Emotional Expression To Overcome Stress
Emotional expression is key to a healthy life. It gets bad feelings out of our system. It prevents the fight-or-flight state that leads to so many health problems. And if we express our emotions, we can take back control of our minds from the stress that can often overwhelm it.
Here is a way to move uncomfortable emotions quickly:
When we take control from stress, we can put our minds at ease and focus on more important things that bring us joy and happiness. Here are some more emotional expression exercises and activities to help overcome stress.
Who Gets Anxiety And Depression
Children, adolescents, young adults, and adults of all ages can experience anxiety and depression. However, not everyone will. There are risk factors that make it more likely for someone to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Risk factors include genetics, having parents or other family members with anxiety, and depression. The genes associated with these conditions can be inherited, but that does not guarantee you will have symptoms. Genetics, combined with other risk factors, increase your risk.
For many, Serotonin and Norepinephrine chemicals in the brain are out of balance. Neurotransmitters like these are responsible for boosting mood. If they are low and the brain is not producing enough of them, you can experience anxiety and depression.
Misusing alcohol and drugs, underlying medical conditions, and the environment in which you were raised contribute to anxiety and depression. Also, traumatic events such as previous sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, war combat, surviving natural disasters, or suddenly losing a loved one.
Also Check: Does Stress Make You Tired
Enjoy The Emotional Benefits Of Exercise
Exercise offers physiological benefits that can help people going through depression. Physical activity relieves stress and can make you feel great. Plus, the satisfaction you get from finishing an engaging and challenging workout can boost your self-esteem as you get stronger and more physically fit. When you fight depression with a regular exercise routine, youll feel better emotionally and physically.
Damon Nailer Living Loving Leading
Because stress, anxiety, and depression are all negative emotions, for me the best, most effective practice is a combination of prayer, fasting, and meditation.
Beginning with prayer, this method invokes the supernatural and brings about divine assistance because it shows God that you acknowledge Him and that you are depending on Him for help.
Also, when praying you can release those troubling feelings to Him, allowing yourself to be freed from those burdens.
Next, the practice of fasting enables you to control/suppress your emotions while empowering you to spiritually detach from the sources that are causing them.
The result is that you overcome those negative feelings and feel peace within yourself.
Additionally, combining prayer/fasting creates a powerful momentum and energy within your mind, spirit, and soul that overpowers any toxic, discouraging thoughts and feelings.
Last, but not least, meditation helps you to elevate your mental state and focus on positive things, which will keep your mind from pondering and being preoccupied with negative thoughts.
All in all, during my spiritual journey, utilizing these three powerful practices together has proven to be effective and successful in causing me to be victorious over stress, anxiety, and depression.
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Laughing And Support Groups
While many believe that laughter is the best medicine, studies have already proven that laughing promotes many physical and mental health benefits. For instance, it can boost your immune system, can make your brain and muscles relax, can slow down the production of stress hormones, and can help the production of endorphins.
Plus, your support group may also provide their strategies in coping with such disturbing symptoms. Lastly, do not be afraid to talk to your doctor or mental health professional about what you are going through. They can provide or recommend therapy or medical intervention for your well-being.
Do Something You Enjoy
Depression can push you to give into your fatigue. It may feel more powerful than happy emotions.
Try to push back and do something you love something thats relaxing, but energizing. It could be playing an instrument, painting, hiking, or biking.
These activities can provide subtle lifts in your mood and energy, which may help you overcome your symptoms.
Research suggests people who spend time in nature have improved mental health.
Exposure to sunlight may offer some of the same benefits. It can increase your serotonin levels, which can provide a temporary mood boost .
Consider taking a walk at lunch among the trees or spending some time in your local park. Or plan a weekend hike. These activities can help you reconnect with nature and soak in some rays at the same time.
Also Check: What Can Chronic Stress Do To Your Body
How To Deal With Depression: Introduction
Dealing with depression takes action, yet it might be difficult to understand how to cope with depression. It can be hard to put into action merely thinking about the things you should do to feel better, such as exercising or spending time with friends. The things that seem difficult to do are the ones that help the most. The first step is always the most difficult. We have created a list of different coping techniques that can help you cope with depression and fight depression.
Also Read | Stress Management Techniques
Carine Vloemans Physio Alternative
I see difficulties as issues and challenges, that can be resolved and shall pass.
I lovingly accept myself as a human having both strengths as well as weaknesses, without self judgement or punishment.
My goal is not to identify with the issues, not to be blindly absorbed by them, though without losing my compassion.
I step back and observe what is going on, without judging. Insights come and I choose to release it.
Acceptance, trust in the universe and believe in something bigger are the basics for me.
Without that, living and being healed is nearly impossible. This is also what I see with my patients after 35 years of experience in the field.
I dont set fixed goals in life, because the outcomes that come with ease and grace are always better and more suitable.
What I use as techniques are easy meditation, breathing techniques, Reiki, acupuncture, homeopathy, Etheric Body Treatment and Rejuvance facial/ scalp/ decolleté massage.
Those techniques are based on holistic energy work, influencing body, mind, and soul. Some of them can be done remotely or taught online.
Also Check: Where To Get Help For Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Depression
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT is considered to be one of the leading psychological treatments for depression. All of our online courses use CBT strategies to help ease symptoms of anxiety and depression. Click below to see if CBT can help you tackle your symptoms to improve the way you feel.
Strategies for Dealing with Depression
Cognitive Strategies
People who are depressed generally have a negative thinking style.
They often think of themselves as worthless and of the world as being a bad or unfair place, and they find it hard to hope that their lives will improve in the future.
When something bad happens, they blame themselves, but when good things happen, they tell themselves they are just lucky.
Furthermore, people with depression are less likely to recognize and appreciate positive events when they happen rather, they tend to be more tuned into the bad things in their lives and brood over those events.
The aim of a cognitive approach is to help people identify and correct their distorted and negatively biased thoughts.
This approach identifies and challenges underlying assumptions and beliefs.
With encouragement to reframe the way they think about life, people are able to recover from failures more effectively and to recognise and take credit for the good things in their lives.
People learn that they have some control over what happens to them. As with behavioural strategies, having these skills reduces relapse and recurrence of depression.
Spiritual Ways To Manage Stress Anxiety And Depression
Modern life can feel exhausting. The frantic, always-on, always-connected aspects can leave you feeling frazzled, burnt out and unable to go on.
And sometimes its easy to forget that natural problems can be solved with simple natural solutions.
And the more you feel aligned with a particular solution the better it may work for you.
So to give you a wide range of possible ways to cope with stress, anxiety and depression I asked experts in a range of areas what their favourite spiritual methods are.
The experts featured include psychologists, stress management counsellors, priests, pastors, tarot readers, yoga teachers, meditation experts, and more
Here are 43 simple ways to cope with stress, anxiety, and depression
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Reduce Caffeine And Alcohol
Caffeine is a great stimulant, and many nonprofessionals believe that it is good for fighting depression. For this, you need to be careful, as Caffeine being a stimulant may worsen anxiety.
On the other hand, alcohol is a depressant. While you may seem to notice that alcohol is helpful in making you fall asleep during the night, it does not automatically mean that you get quality sleep. Instead, it can harm you even more, as alcohol and depression have a reciprocal need and interaction.
For instance, alcohol intake can worsen the symptoms of depression, and depression makes a person attracted to alcohol use.
Kat Courtney After Life Coach
I work with the massive intensity of stress and anxiety through a process I call radical permission.
These emotions do not take over us when we learn to completely accept and trust that experiencing them is part of being human.
To create this permission, I play a game I call Shadow to Light. If Im feeling anxiety, I ask myself What is the opposite of anxiety? For me, the answer is serenity.
I trust that everything is in balance, so if Im feeling a wild bout of fear, I know a deeply profound experience of peacefulness is waiting.
I start by accepting the anxietygiving myself full permission to feel it, writing it down, singing it out, doing whatever action grounded in self-care I need to do for it to be in motion, and to release.
Then I call in the energy of peacefulness. I meditate on this with strong intention.
Like a true alchemist, I will eventually transmute the shadow energy into something I deeply appreciate and enjoy.
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Effects Of Stress On Depression
While stress can generally have negative effects on your physical and mental health, it can be especially harmful if you have depression.
Stress can make you feel less able to maintain positive habits or coping strategies, which are important to managing depression. This can make symptoms of depression feel more intense. Interrupting a healthy routine can result in negative coping strategies, such as drinking or withdrawing from social relationships. These actions can result in further stress, which can then make depression symptoms worse.
Stress can also affect your mood, as anxiety and irritability are both common responses to stress. When a stressor causes you to feel anxious, the anxiety may result in more negative feelings or frustration, even if the stressor is only temporary.
Stress management techniques are useful in coping with depression. Stress relief can also help prevent depressive symptoms from developing. Some helpful stress management techniques include:
- getting enough sleep
- consuming less caffeine or alcohol
- doing breathing exercises to lower your heart rate
If lifestyle choices are causing you stress, you may consider changing the way you approach your personal or professional life. Some ways you can help decrease this kind of stress include:
Dealing With The Winter Blues
For some people, the reduced daylight hours of winter lead to a form of depression known as seasonal affective disorder . SAD can make you feel like a completely different person to who you are in the summer: hopeless, sad, tense, or stressed, with no interest in friends or activities you normally love. No matter how hopeless you feel, though, there are plenty of things you can do to keep your mood stable throughout the year.
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Overcoming Teen Depression Tip : Talk To An Adult You Trust
Depression is not your fault, and you didnt do anything to cause it. However, you do have some control over feeling better. The first step is to ask for help.
Need to talk to someone?
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Tips On Managing Stress
Stress Management Techniques Are Useful In Coping With Depression. Stress Relief Can Also Help Prevent Depressive Symptoms From Developing. Some Helpful Stress Management Techniques Include:
- 1. Getting Enough Sleep
- 2. Eating A Healthy Diet
- 3. Finding A Relaxing Hobby, Such As Gardening Or Woodworking
- 4. Doing Breathing Exercises To Lower Your Heart Rate
Also Check: How Does Stress Affect Pregnancy
The Reality Is That We Cannot Overcome It We Can Accept It Treat It And Heal
Authors note: This is not an article about how to practice self-care and take a bubble bath until your anxiety goes away. This is not going to be a quick and easy how-to guide for feeling better. But this post will be real, and thats what we all need.
One of my favorite lectures to present at work is about emotional wellness. While vague and all-encompassing, the topics that continuously come up are relationships, self-worth, and dealing with depression and/or anxiety.
Toward the end of my lecture a few weeks ago, one of the audience members asked, But how do you overcome depression?
I was taken off guard by his question, which seemed almost impossible to answer in the moment. But then I realized how significant the wording that he used was. The semantics of the word choice overcome, especially when used in a sentence about something as severe as depression or anxiety, was incredibly significant here.
The etymology of the word overcome goes back to Old English times. It is synonymous with prevail over and defeat.
But we dont defeat depression. We dont defeat anxiety. We dont prevail over addiction or any other co-occurring disorder. We dont power our way through it to not have to deal with it anymore. Before we do anything, we need to accept that we have it.
