Depression plays havoc with your body. It changes your body chemicals and affects your health in a number of ways. Weight gain is just one of them.

If you’re a person who heads to the fridge when you are under stress, are anxious or are just feeling rejected, ignored, or sad then dieting to combat your excess weight is only part of the answer.

It’s time to deal with the depression so that you can get back to a better quality of life.

There are a few things to consider about depression.

It runs in some families, so you are more likely to get it than someone who does not have a family history of depression.

Depression can be biological, which requires medication to put your body back to normal.

Depression can result from a long-standing sadness, ongoing stress, or multiple life crises.

First, look within yourself to see if you tend to eat more lately and under what circumstances. Are you upset about something? Do you feel down in the dumps? Keep in mind that there are other reasons for you to begin eating more than normal, conditions that might require medical attention. But let’s just go through the regular things first.

If you were under stress prior to becoming overweight, chances are you are depressed. This is good, because you can easily overcome this form of depression. It starts with getting past the stress. Find ways to relax that make you feel good both physically and mentally. This will help you to deal with the depression.

Next, check your family history to see if depression is a recurring illness. It might not be a genetic thing. You might have ‘learned’ to become depressed when things go wrong. Just because your descendants had depression, it still doesn’t necessarily mean it runs in the family. It can be passed down through learning from parent to child.

Visit your doctor to have him evaluate whether your condition is biological or genetic. If it is, you will most likely require medication and possibly a combination of drug and talk therapy to recover.

Once you find a cure for depression, you can begin to work on losing weight. Here’s an article that gives you more information on how to really lose weight.

It’s a little hard to believe that a bump on the head could cause a brain injury, but it’s true. What’s more, it can lead to anxiety attacks and depression even after recovery.

A cyclist recently reported that he suddenly developed anxiety attacks after a hit and run accident. He was thrown from his bike and must have hit his head because he was unconscious for awhile. He was lucky because he was able to walk away, but he began to suffer anxiety attacks for the first time in his life. This incident has made him afraid to ride his bicycle on the roadway.

Some accident victims aren’t so lucky. They end up in a coma and have various levels of paralysis that never go away. Unfortunately, doctors can add to the resulting anxiety attacks and depression because they tend to be negative in their prognosis. Their reasoning is that they don’t want the patient to be too disappointed if they don’t have a full recovery, or at least one they can live with. If they do recover, this would be great news. It’s important, therefore, to find a doctor who can be realistic but still leave the patient and family members with hope.

Fighting the injuries is a struggle in itself. Fighting the depression and anxiety attacks adds to that struggle.

It’s important to pay close attention to any head injury, no matter how slight. If you have an accident involving your head, be alert to any changes in your emotional well-being, and especially negativity, depression and anxiety attacks that did not exist prior to the event.

The sooner you seek help for the depression and anxiety, the more quickly and effectively you will recover.

Do you spent a lot of time surfing the internet? Do you wake in the morning and soon feel you just have to get online? Is it just an urge, or is it a craving? A craving is far more serious than an urge, as that is the element of addiction.

If you spend a lot of time online, it could be causing your anxiety disorder or depression. According to a Tel Aviv University psychiatrist and some of his colleagues, 10% of internet users have a condition that has been named, “internet addiction disorder” which is considered to be an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that can lead to anxiety disorder and depression.

The researchers have identified certain groups of people who are most susceptible to this recently discovered condition. Those most at risk are teenagers, men in their mid-50s and women. It is especially common in people who suffer from loneliness because the internet provides the element of human interaction that’s missing in their lives.

Internet Addiction Disorder can be recognized by its symptoms which can include feeling isolated, anxiety disorder, lack of sleep, and periods of deep depression.

Because of the potential problems this disorder can cause, people are advised to be more aware of their own potential internet addiction and that of their teens. If you suspect the condition exists, the obvious solution is to minimize internet use or seek professional help, as it can be considered as serious as other addictive behaviors such as gambling, theft, drug and alcohol abuse.

And as with other addictions, you might need to use similar treatments to break free of your craving. Anxiety disorder can be successfully treated with the right program, which might be talk therapy, drug therapy or a combination of the two.

Are you looking for help with your anxiety disorder? Read my review of Panic Away, one of the top-selling anxiety relief treatment programs available.

Many of you know how it feels to have a depressive episode. In fact, everyone probably has experienced an inkling of what they’re like when they felt sad. Severe grief is a perfect example of what depression feels like – except depression doesn’t always go away.

The thing is, when you reach the depths of depression, it’s difficult to rise above it. Everything around you is dark – from your thoughts to how you see things around you. Colors have drained from your surroundings and any shades that remain are dimmed.

What triggers such depression?

We’ve heard of the chemical imbalance in the brain, lack of light (seasonal affective disorder), sad thoughts and events that can have a significant impact on us mentally. Anyone who has had depression to any extent in all likelihood will have repeat episodes, even after they appear to have recovered.

It happened to me the last few days. The weather was terrible – we’d had overcast skies, snow and general dullness for several weeks or more. And if that weren’t enough, I suddenly faced an extreme financial reality that scared the pants off me.

My first response was anxiety – fear of what this all meant and no apparent way out. Then a few days ago depression descended like a black curtain. I felt myself slipping into that dark hole. Walking the dog, cleaning the house, doing my work was not important. There was no motivation or energy to do them.

The longer I sat, the worse it got. It was imperative I find solutions to why I was in this mess and how I’d get out of it. The road to breaking this depression meant getting right into my brain for some deep soul-searching.

Who was I? How was I thinking? Why was I thinking that way? What did it mean?

I tried imagery to envision a good outcome and a happy life, but I couldn’t even do that. This was unusual, because I have a very active imagination for this sort of thing. But it just wasn’t happening.

Then, I turned to a book I purchased recently called, “The Midas Method”. It discussed what you need to do in order to turn your life around and become successful, not just monetarily, but in getting anything you want.

What I like about this book is it forces you to take a look at your own actions and rethink your situation. Perhaps more helpful was the bonus that came with it… an audio by Anthony Robbins, the famous personal motivator and speaker.

These two products gave me the direction to start me thinking correctly to find the real problem behind my depression.

What specifically caught my attention was the reasons they give for why people fail… they’re either afraid to succeed or afraid to fail. So I wondered why those were the only reasons and how they could possibly relate to me. I’ve failed in the past and I’ve also succeeded, and in neither case do I recall feeling afraid of the outcome.

The important thing is, it got me thinking. I came up with several possible fears – fear of handling money because my math skills are so bad, and fear that my efforts wouldn’t solve my predicament.

This last one was important – and a surprise, because I suddenly realized that as long as I took no action, I always had ‘that’ action to take if things didn’t improve. Once that action had been taken and I failed, there would be no more answers. I wasn’t ready to deal with that reality.

Of course, failure of any kind would be a threat to my self esteem and confidence and I knew that as they were threatened, my depression would be magnified.

So my solution was to hope someone would solve the situation for me.

This exercise made me anxious to write this post because I believe there is very valid help there for the rest of you.

Through my recovery initially 25+ years ago and the mini-recoveries I face now and again, I learned that how I felt about myself was at the root of much of the depression, if not all.

We all have thoughts we developed during our early years, based on how we were treated, how events made us feel, and how we chose to respond.

I took a very close look at the way I think and respond to situations. This internal investigation was very revealing. I learned that I have adopted my father’s thought patterns – the way he spoke that I didn’t understand. Now, I understand exactly what he was getting at.

Like me, he was looking for attention in whatever way he could get it. Not by being aggressive or repulsive, but by making certain statements that would trigger the hopefully desired effect. This is not a healthy way to live your life, as I’ve now discovered.

I said I felt this realization can help you. By that I meant that by looking inside, taking a critical look at your thinking processes, your background, and how you react to things you’ll make discoveries that can be very revealing.

You are apt to find this difficult to do because our thoughts are so fleeting and so well-disguised sometimes. I see now that it takes practice to learn how to do this.

Once you do, however, you can grasp the reason for your depression and start working on that element to turn it around. For instance, in my case rather than taking my father’s approach, I can take my life into my own hands and stop looking for sympathy – for someone else to solve my predicament – because it isn’t going to happen.

Our thoughts are very subtle sometimes. We often don’t hear how we think. Until I did this exercise, I hadn’t known that I have that negative thinking pattern, although I recognized it all too well in my father.

I truly hope you can gain some benefit from this information. It certainly helped me tremendously. I can now work towards changing that unproductive and self-limiting thinking pattern.

Now that my depression has lifted (and it’s still gloomy outside) I can move on again.

If you have any thoughts or questions on this, I welcome your comments. Simply hit the ‘comments’ link below this post and add your feedback. I’ll read them as soon as possible.

Relaxation has played a significant role in my recovery from depression and anxiety. Here are some programs I discovered that are excellent. Read the reviews: http://www.book-titles.ca/selfhelp.htm . I highly recommend the Wild Divine Biofeedback Therapy. It’s not only a great way to achieve full overall relaxation – it’s fun to do.

If you are pregnant and feeling depressed, realize that this is normal. Unfortunately, many mothers-to-be find it difficult to accept the fact that they are depressed at a time when they should be full of happiness and expectation. Their ‘shame’ causes them not to seek help.

The reluctance to believe pregnant women can be depressed filters over to the medical profession, which means fewer women will be referred for depression treatment.

Recent studies have revealed that stress and depression is a major cause of premature birth, most likely triggered by the increased levels of hormones in the mother. The link between stress hormones and birth are simple – these same hormones help to bring on labor when the time is right. Which means they can also activate the birth too early.

The dangers of increased stress and depression in the mother carry over to the unborn infant. When hormones cause early premature birth, babies are more likely to die in their first few weeks of birth. They are also at risk for extremely serious health problems including lung disease, cerebral palsy, blindness and deafness.

Another concern is the belief that the increased stress hormone levels in the womb can negatively affect the child’s IQ later on. Children born under these circumstances can also develop behavior and emotional problems as well as depression later.

Considering the threat stress and depression pose to an unborn child, it is imperative the mother seek help as soon as possible. Insist that your doctor evaluate your condition and provide appropriate treatment to prevent such possible dire consequences.

Get help from one of the excellent products available at http://www.book-titles.ca/selfhelp.htm and http://www.book-titles.ca/mental_self_help.htm

Being depressed makes it terribly difficult to “snap out of it” as many people think is possible to do. Yet anyone with depression will tell you it’s not that easy.

In my experience, depression was directly linked to my lack of self confidence and self esteem. My thoughts always focused on what others thought of me and how useless I felt around them and in anything I tried. This was especially prominent when I tried something and failed. Without the self esteem to support me, I was a prime target for depression – and bullying, but that’s another topic.

How can a person not be depressed when you don’t seem to fit into the world the way others do? The thing is, we often don’t even know we are thinking this way. My therapist had to tell me that I was depressed.

He soon had me on anti-depressants, and that lasted about 4 years. It was only 4 of the 25 or so years that I suffered because I was not diagnosed for the longest time and therefore didn’t seek treatment.

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about people being at higher risk of suicide while on anti-depressants. That’s why I want to give you all the help I can to find non-drug treatments.

I’ll never forget the time it happened to me. My doctor had just changed my medication, so I was taking 2 different ones at once. After a few weeks, I was frantic. I had a powerful obsession that I was going to throw myself off the balcony of our 6th floor apartment. I called his office while huddled in the corner of my sofa afraid to move or look at the window. He told me to take one more of the blue pill, and that seemed to resolve it. On my next visit, however, he switched me to something else.

At that time, I didn’t track what medications I was on. I just did as I was told, so unfortunately I can’t tell you what worked and what didn’t. I do remember asking him to put me back on a yellow pill that looked like a Smartie because they made me feel wonderful.

I didn’t rely solely on therapy and medications, however. I studied a great deal and found one tremendous book that made a huge difference in my recovery. It’s an old book that I purchased back in the mid-70s so I’m not sure if it’s even available today, but I do highly recommend it if you can find it.

It’s called “Cultivate Confidence & Promote Personality” by E. Gilbert Oakley. By reading, highlighting and practicing what it teaches, I was soon able to begin moving away from low self esteem and depression and toward confidence. Although I haven’t needed that book for many years, I keep it around like an old friend that it has become.