10 Steps to Overcoming Anxiety and Depression
President Gordon B Hinckley once said:
As each man or woman walks the way of life there come dark seasons of doubt, of discouragement, of disillusionment…(April 2002 General Conference)
It was a dark day for me when I found out I was suffering from depression. I had heard of depression and heard of others in my family suffering from depression, but I had always considered it a sign of weakness and proudly thought I would never have to deal with it. But dealing with it was the only option in this dark season of my life.
After I found out I was suffering, I attacked it like I would a research paper. I studied about various ways to overcome depression and asked doctors, others who had depression and listened to tons of self help CDs and read many books as well. As I peeled the layers back to discover why I had depression and anxiety (I was suffering from panic attacks as well) I found out the type of issues I had happen fairly often with people who as young children came from broken homes. I started dealing with overcoming those issues.
To make a long story short, it was about a 2 year qwest before I figured out how to control my anxiety and depression. There are way more details to this story, but the main purpose for this post was to offer some tips to those who may be suffering from anxiety and depression that have helped me be able to overcome anxiety and depression either as a supplement to medication or without using medication at all.
Steps to Overcoming Anxiety and Depression
1. Desire to Overcome
I had an intense desire to overcome anxiety and depression. I wanted my normal life back and held an image of that in my mind. This desire led me to complete the other steps.
2. Faith in God
Alma Chapter 34: 32-34 was what kept me moving ahead. It reads:
32 For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.
33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.
34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.
When I had serious depression and thoughts of life being better if I weren’t alive, I remembered this scripture. I believe that the same spirit we posess now will be with us even after we die, so if I don’t deal with it now I’ll be dealing with worse things later.
3. Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety
A friend of mine told me about this program and how they had been able to overcome anxiety and depression without medication. I had tried taking medication, but it didn’t feel right to me so I quit. This program was a very useful tool for me and I still refer to it often. I highly recommend it to anyone dealing with anxiety and/or depression.
4. Talking with a coach or mentor.
Many people who deal with certain issues from their childhood such as I did with abandonment develop negative addictions. For me, talking with clergy was somewhat helpful, but bishops aren’t usually trained to handle these issues. I was referred to a different program that helped me overcome my addictions and also train my thoughts. Bishops know where these resources are. If you are not a member of the LDS church, you can also look up various agencies such as: Alchoholics Anonomous, sex addicts annonomous, etc. I think they have organizations for people who use drugs, have eating addictions, etc. I believe that most of these programs will have a 12-step approach. I found these to be very, very helpful.
5. Prayer
Again in Alma 34, it talks about praying for everything important in one’s life. This links back to step #2, but I can’t emphasize enough how important faith in God and prayer are. Through this experience I learned how God cares about me personally…especially when I’m at my “worst”. I say this in quotes because we are never bad in God’s sight, no matter how good or bad our behaviors are he views us and loves us the same.
In addition, I found that through prayer, God led me to other steps to overcome anxiety and depression.
I am very grateful to God for the gift of prayer and know that miracles happen as a resulf of sincere, humble, faithful prayers and patience.
6. Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP)
NLP is another tool I used to clear my subconcious mind. I worked with two coaches who used NLP on me to clear negative experiences I had seared into my subconcious mind that were affecting my behaviors. This is another highly recommended tool. To find an NLP specialist, you can do a google search in your area. That’s how I found mine. I worked with Tony Husted, a Christian Coach from a non-denominational church and his biblical approach was very helpful.
7. Learning to control thoughts
Proverbs 23:7 says: “as he (or she) thinks in his (or her) heart, so is he (or she)”. This is very true. I think this is something all of us will be working on throughout our lives. However, learning to control our thoughts is essential. I wrote another post a couple months ago on how to overcome negative thoughts and provided a few techniques I use. The post is called “The Gifts of the Spirit: Overcoming Negative Thoughts and Speaking with the Tongue of Angels”
8. Have a daily routine
Having a daily routine helps me a lot. I notice that I do much better when in a familiar environment surrounded with postive things. For me, this is my daily routine: Wake up, pray, excersize, read scriptures, make breakfast for my wife, think about daily goals, work, come home and either relax or do house chores, etc., read scriptures with wife, pray, go to bed. Sticking to this schedule keeps me focused and my attitude stays much more positive.
8. Eat Right
Eating a lot of healthy breads, fruits, protein, and some meat has helped me a lot. Staying away from sugar and caffeine is essential as well. I’ve found that the promise in the Word of Wisdom is true in that I receive more health by following it’s counsel.
9. Keep a Gratitude Journal
I keep track of all the positive things that happened to me and at the end of the day I write them down. This keeps me in a positive state and away from dwelling on the negative.
10. Listen to Relaxing Music
I have a lot of relaxation music and when I find myself getting anxious I listen to it, even if it’s in the middle of the day. Taking 10-20 minutes to pause and unwind is very helpful. Going to sleep with it also helps me completely relax and I’ve found I sleep much more soundly.
In conclusion, I know that if you are struggling with anxiety and/or depression how hard it can be. Some of you may be on medication and that might be necessary or even mandatory for you, which is fine. My main purpose is to share some things that have helped me and I encourage you to incorporate any of these things, if you haven’t already. Also, please feel free to share any additional things that have helped you so other readers can benefit from it.
I also want my readers to know that I know that God hears your prayers and will answer them in due time. I’ve learned to be grateful for my experiences with anxiety and depression because I’ve learned how dependant I truly am on God and have see how great His hand can be in my life if I stay close to Him. I pray that we can all stay close to our Father in Heaven and know that if we do, he’ll lead us through the dark and discouraging times on our lives.
As each man or woman walks the way of life there come dark seasons of doubt, of discouragement, of disillusionment…(April 2002 General Conference)
It was a dark day for me when I found out I was suffering from depression. I had heard of depression and heard of others in my family suffering from depression, but I had always considered it a sign of weakness and proudly thought I would never have to deal with it. But dealing with it was the only option in this dark season of my life.
After I found out I was suffering, I attacked it like I would a research paper. I studied about various ways to overcome depression and asked doctors, others who had depression and listened to tons of self help CDs and read many books as well. As I peeled the layers back to discover why I had depression and anxiety (I was suffering from panic attacks as well) I found out the type of issues I had happen fairly often with people who as young children came from broken homes. I started dealing with overcoming those issues.
To make a long story short, it was about a 2 year qwest before I figured out how to control my anxiety and depression. There are way more details to this story, but the main purpose for this post was to offer some tips to those who may be suffering from anxiety and depression that have helped me be able to overcome anxiety and depression either as a supplement to medication or without using medication at all.
Steps to Overcoming Anxiety and Depression
1. Desire to Overcome
I had an intense desire to overcome anxiety and depression. I wanted my normal life back and held an image of that in my mind. This desire led me to complete the other steps.
2. Faith in God
Alma Chapter 34: 32-34 was what kept me moving ahead. It reads:
32 For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.
33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.
34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.
When I had serious depression and thoughts of life being better if I weren’t alive, I remembered this scripture. I believe that the same spirit we posess now will be with us even after we die, so if I don’t deal with it now I’ll be dealing with worse things later.
3. Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety
A friend of mine told me about this program and how they had been able to overcome anxiety and depression without medication. I had tried taking medication, but it didn’t feel right to me so I quit. This program was a very useful tool for me and I still refer to it often. I highly recommend it to anyone dealing with anxiety and/or depression.
4. Talking with a coach or mentor.
Many people who deal with certain issues from their childhood such as I did with abandonment develop negative addictions. For me, talking with clergy was somewhat helpful, but bishops aren’t usually trained to handle these issues. I was referred to a different program that helped me overcome my addictions and also train my thoughts. Bishops know where these resources are. If you are not a member of the LDS church, you can also look up various agencies such as: Alchoholics Anonomous, sex addicts annonomous, etc. I think they have organizations for people who use drugs, have eating addictions, etc. I believe that most of these programs will have a 12-step approach. I found these to be very, very helpful.
5. Prayer
Again in Alma 34, it talks about praying for everything important in one’s life. This links back to step #2, but I can’t emphasize enough how important faith in God and prayer are. Through this experience I learned how God cares about me personally…especially when I’m at my “worst”. I say this in quotes because we are never bad in God’s sight, no matter how good or bad our behaviors are he views us and loves us the same.
In addition, I found that through prayer, God led me to other steps to overcome anxiety and depression.
I am very grateful to God for the gift of prayer and know that miracles happen as a resulf of sincere, humble, faithful prayers and patience.
6. Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP)
NLP is another tool I used to clear my subconcious mind. I worked with two coaches who used NLP on me to clear negative experiences I had seared into my subconcious mind that were affecting my behaviors. This is another highly recommended tool. To find an NLP specialist, you can do a google search in your area. That’s how I found mine. I worked with Tony Husted, a Christian Coach from a non-denominational church and his biblical approach was very helpful.
7. Learning to control thoughts
Proverbs 23:7 says: “as he (or she) thinks in his (or her) heart, so is he (or she)”. This is very true. I think this is something all of us will be working on throughout our lives. However, learning to control our thoughts is essential. I wrote another post a couple months ago on how to overcome negative thoughts and provided a few techniques I use. The post is called “The Gifts of the Spirit: Overcoming Negative Thoughts and Speaking with the Tongue of Angels”
8. Have a daily routine
Having a daily routine helps me a lot. I notice that I do much better when in a familiar environment surrounded with postive things. For me, this is my daily routine: Wake up, pray, excersize, read scriptures, make breakfast for my wife, think about daily goals, work, come home and either relax or do house chores, etc., read scriptures with wife, pray, go to bed. Sticking to this schedule keeps me focused and my attitude stays much more positive.
8. Eat Right
Eating a lot of healthy breads, fruits, protein, and some meat has helped me a lot. Staying away from sugar and caffeine is essential as well. I’ve found that the promise in the Word of Wisdom is true in that I receive more health by following it’s counsel.
9. Keep a Gratitude Journal
I keep track of all the positive things that happened to me and at the end of the day I write them down. This keeps me in a positive state and away from dwelling on the negative.
10. Listen to Relaxing Music
I have a lot of relaxation music and when I find myself getting anxious I listen to it, even if it’s in the middle of the day. Taking 10-20 minutes to pause and unwind is very helpful. Going to sleep with it also helps me completely relax and I’ve found I sleep much more soundly.
In conclusion, I know that if you are struggling with anxiety and/or depression how hard it can be. Some of you may be on medication and that might be necessary or even mandatory for you, which is fine. My main purpose is to share some things that have helped me and I encourage you to incorporate any of these things, if you haven’t already. Also, please feel free to share any additional things that have helped you so other readers can benefit from it.
I also want my readers to know that I know that God hears your prayers and will answer them in due time. I’ve learned to be grateful for my experiences with anxiety and depression because I’ve learned how dependant I truly am on God and have see how great His hand can be in my life if I stay close to Him. I pray that we can all stay close to our Father in Heaven and know that if we do, he’ll lead us through the dark and discouraging times on our lives.
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