What is the Relationship Between Anxiety and Depression?

The body reacting to stress is the cause of an anxiety attack. The stress is usually an event or happening that is directly related to the individual who is suffering the attack. Depression plays a major role in anxiety attacks by being a precursor to anxiety. Before the onset of a full-blown anxiety or panic attack, the individual almost always feels a sense of depressed or When an individual is depressed, there is a sense of foreboding and doom that seems to follow.

The majority of people who have a true anxiety attack suffer from anxiety disorder or panic disorder. This broad term - anxiety disorder - includes general anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder and panic disorder. In the rare case where the sufferer doesn feel depressed before the attack, the attack itself usually brings on depression. It is a rare individual who suffers from anxiety disorder but has no depression.

Most doctors who are treating a patient for anxiety disorder with medication will not only prescribe an anti-anxiety drug but also an anti-depressant. The doctor usually justifies this as a means of minimizing the time the patient spends on anti-anxiety medication such as Xanax or Klonopin or other newer drugs, all which have a range of relatively sever side effects and can be very addicting. These drugs and others are used to the edge off of anxiety attacks. Basically, they are designed to mask the symptoms and ndo not cure the disease itself. Conceivably, an anxiety sufferer could be on medication for their entire life if no progress was made towards getting to the root of the problem and working towards curing it.

As we said in the pargraph above, very rarely does anxiety manifest without depression. As mentioned before, the depression may very well aggrevate the cause of the anxiety attacks. This is also why patients will get a prescription for anti-depressant drugs. Doctors believe that a chemical imbalance is the major factor in why people have anxiety attacks. When you take the anti-depression medication, you will start to balance out the chemical imbalance that causes the anxiety or panic attacks.

The most common anti-depression medications are Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac and other SSRI (selectice serotonin reuptake inhibitors). These are strong chemicals that help regulate the amount of serotonin in the patients brain. One of the beneficial effects of these SSRI is to minimize the mood swings that can be common in anxiety sufferers. Individuals suffering from anxiety and panic disorders report feeling much better in just a few days to a week after beginning SSRI therapy. These medications allow the patient to feel less depressed, feel better about themselves and focus on tasks that were previously elusive.

While there are those who may experience only one or two anxiety attacks in the span of a year or two, there are those who experience these attacks often, as much as 2 to 3 times a week or more. Many sufferers find that these frequent attacks interfere with their ability to hold a job, maintain a relationship with family and friends and even to function at a minimal level in general society. This is why it so important for sufferers to seek a true cure, not just medicate the symptoms away for a short period of time. If certain treatment options aren working for a sufferer, he or she must seek out other therapies and modalities, even if that means completely changing doctors and therapy sources.

While anxiety and panic disorders are classified as mental health problems, most physicians will often try to determine if there are underlying physiological conditions such as a thyroid condition or chemical imbalances in the brain such as those caused by menopause. If tests determine a lack of physical reasons, the doctor will refer the patient to a psychologist or psychiatrist to get at the root of the emotional problem for the anxiety. This is where the health professional seeks to classify the disorder into one of the sub-categories we discussed earlier. Although, after specific diagnisis, an appropriate counseling coupled with psychiatric drugs can be effective in the short term, it still carries with it the inherent risk of serious side effects that begin to diminish and even negate any of the positive benefits of the therapy. The bottom line is: There is no Size Fits All approach to anxiety attack treatment. The patient must take responsibility to seek out and find that therapy that most fits the benefits they seek.