Dealing with Stress, Anxiety, and Depression
While this is by no means a comprehensive and complete explanation of the differences between stress, anxiety, and depression, it does give you some idea of how they relate.
One of the important discoveries I made that helped me a lot, was this …
Stress is usually a precursor to anxiety, and anxiety is usually a precursor to depression.
What that means is that if you are under stress, if you don’t find ways to release the feelings of stress after the event has passed or learn techniques to cope when under stress, then that underlying worry you carry around with you is likely to be ingrained as anxiety. And then if you suffer from constant anxiety for too long, chances are that you could slip into depression a lot easier. And this often becomes a vicious cycle that is hard to drag yourself out of.
What’s the answer? Learn how to deal with stress and anxiety early on in the cycle and find effective ways to release those feelings. If not, once they have a hold they can affect your happiness and enjoyment of life in very subtle but often destructive ways, just like an insidious virus.
There are quite a few ways to release stress, anxiety, and worry so you can get back to enjoying life, and we’ll explore as many as we can in future articles. There is no one-way that will suit everyone, however, as I found what works for me may not necessarily work for someone else. So that’s why I’ll try to cover as many as I can so you can choose what works for you and apply it.
Until then, as the song used to say … “Don’t worry, be happy now”
Jeff.