Stress and Anxiety

Stress and Anxiety
Can You Deal With It Alone?

Monday 1 March 2010

Why Alcohol And Depression Are So Popular Today

Alcohol and depression are very closely related. Depression is the cause while drinking alcohol is the effect. A major portion of the society is affected by alcohol dependency. According to a survey, up to 50 per cent of the people who drink heavily have symptoms that resemble a depressive illness, and there aren’t really many teetotalers in our society.

WHO estimates that nearly 62 million people worldwide suffer from alcohol dependency. It is seen that people who are introverts and are ill-treated are much more prone to be alcohol addicts than their counterparts. But the question arises why alcohol problems and depression occur together?

Alcohol when taken in small amounts is known to produce a soothing effect upon the mind as it slows  down the activities of the brain and the person who is reeling under clouds of depression feels greatly relaxed. However, when taken in larger quantities depressed thought processes start to come into play, thereby increasing the self-confidence for as long as the person is under the influence of alcohol.

All the guilty feelings, anxiety and the reason of their sufferings just melted away. With the passage of time while sadness takes the form of depression, drinking alcohol becomes a regular, addictive and very compelling habit. And when drugs like marijuana, hashish and other narcotics join hands with the alcohol, a person may risk landing themselves in a fatal situation like a coma or even death resulting out of it. So, as you can see, it is the depression that directs the alcohol consumer to take the next step and most of the times it happens to be more baneful.

Family history of depression or alcoholism puts a person at even greater risk for developing this compulsive habit of becoming an alcoholic. If a person doesn’t get out of this bad habit sooner, they may find it extremely difficult to live a healthy life again. Depression may have its roots arising from a number of causes. Some may be due to Psychological Influences. Many drinkers develop a psychological condition known as denial, in which they are unable to acknowledge that alcohol use is the root cause of all of their problems. Denial becomes a psychological response to negative feedback people receive about their drinking from their friends or their close ones who care for them.

One big reason that comes to mind for the deep popularity of alcohol and depression is right from the advertising media who are to be blamed heavily for this. Children and teenagers imitate their favorite heroes and their lifestyle. What they see is what they try to imitate in their real life. The advertisements promote smoking, drinking with such larger than life images that they feel tempted to imitate.

With the passage of time petty bad habits may turn into crime without the person having any inkling about the fact that it’s the alcohol, together with their prolonged depression, which finally took a toll. The cause is unhappiness or melancholy. When this sadness takes the form of depression, the habit turns into alcohol addiction.

What To Get From a Support Groups Depression Session

Depression nowadays has become one of the most dreadful health issues. Depression according to the psychological and psychiatric definition refers to a mental status of sadness, and the feeling that everything is lost from a person suffering from the disease. The most common symptom of depression is sleeplessness. More than 90 percent of the patients suffering from depression claim to not able to have a proper sleep. Various other major depression disorders involve dispirited moods accompanied by lower self-esteem, loss of interest about anything etc.

The best treatment for this disease is to share your heart out to someone who has the patience to listen to you and understand you. It is for this reason that recently support groups have evolved and especially online support groups are proving to be real boon to people who are suffering from the disease and are seeking someone to listen to them. In support groups members help themselves by understanding each other’s difficulties and with the support and cooperation of their peers, the people suffering from anxiety illness finally succeed in getting over it to lead a normal and happy life, which they always longed for.

These support group depression sessions are really helpful to these people, but still a major question remains in our mind about what we should expect from an ideal and genuine support group? One of the most common expectations which is usually required from the support group is primarily the privacy issue.

Whenever we join any support group we first of all demand privacy because in one way or the other the answer to the deep inner cause of the depression lies with actions of another human being. He/ she for instance may be their employer who has cheated them or may be their wife or husband or even some other personal close ties. So from an ideal support group we expect that privacy should be paramount from the outset and given by the support group leaders or counsellors so that the comments of the depressed person who has shared their heart out hopefully will get cured soon.

Another important thing that we get from support group depression sessions is that we can remain unknown to others and share our feelings. Though there have been a few fraudulent cases in the past you still can maintain anonymity and share your feelings with others online and remain anonymous to the other members. This is quite an interesting thing that you share your feelings to someone you hardly know.

It is a relatively new idea as 20-30 years ago you would never ever do such a thing. You even receive feedback or suggestions on your comments about a problem. Though the suggestions often don’t come from very experienced or talented persons it is still of great help to someone who is suffering from loads of frustration. You will get a wide variety of opinions from people across the globe. Online support group depression sessions are a great way to get rid of the stress and anxiety from the inner minds of people.

What Side Effects To Look Out For When Using Anxiety Treating Drugs

Sometimes using anxiety treating drugs might cause undesirable side effects along with its required effects. If these occur, you immediately need to consult your doctor. People suffering from anxiety disease are sometimes caught unaware of the fact that the unusual changes in their physical or mental state have been caused by the medication itself.

The drugs which are prescribed for the medication of anxiety treatment are known to produce unwanted side effects. Hence, it becomes exceedingly important that you identify those side effects which are associated with particular drugs, some of which could even be quite dangerous.

Given below are some of the very common side effects, associated with various drugs which you need to look out for, while using anxiety treating drugs to be on the safer side:

Aminophylline

People take Aminophylline to get cured of anxiety related problems like shortness of breath and to keep down asthma like symptoms in chronic bronchitis. However, in some cases it has been found that after a prolonged usage of this drug people start getting side effects like nervousness, palpitation and dizziness. If you feel, you have any such symptoms mentioned earlier, then it’s a thing to get alarmed and you must talk to your doctor.

Heterocyclic Antidepressants

Similarly Heterocyclic antidepressants are basically used in the treatment of depression and panic attacks. While the side effects which it can lead to are irregular heart beat and dizziness. The Antidyskinetics drugs are given when patient is suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Its side effects are intense anxiety and dizziness. The Anticholinergic drugs like Atropine are one of those anxiety treating drugs which produce an unusually high heartbeat.

beta-Z adrenergic agents

Inhaler forms of beta-Z adrenergic agents are prescribed to get relief from anxiety, coupled with bronchial asthma associated with chronic bronchitis. The side effects which arise due to its usage are shaky hands, increased anxiousness, rapid heartbeat and dizziness.

Cycloserine

Cycloserine is a popular anxiety treating drug, which is given to anxiety disorder patients and the side effects associated with it are restlessness, confusion and irritability.

Digitalis

A drug named Digitalis is used to enhance the strength of the heart or to regulate the irregular rate of heartbeat.
Individuals with anxiety disorder are particularly sensitive to the activating effects associated with initiation of SSRIs (Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and other antidepressants, such as insomnia, restlessness, jitteriness, and agitation. Should these adverse effects occur without prior patient preparation, early treatment discontinuation may result.

Clomipramine

Clomipramine is an effective anti-obsessive drug but still not been in use nowadays because of its sometime troubling side effects like nausea, agitation, insomnia, tremor, hyperkinesias and decreased appetite.

Fluoxetine

Another common anxiety treating drug Fluoxetine has side effects like tremor, nervousness, insomnia, nausea, anorexia, delayed orgasm and asthenia.

The sedative anti-anxiety drugs have quite distinct side effects from novel anti-anxiety drugs: including euphoriant, anticonvulsant and muscle relaxant action. The side effects profile varies from drug to drug but is qualitatively the same for all and it is of utmost importance for every anxiety disorder patient to look out for the above mentioned side effects when using any anxiety treating drug.