Depression and Anxiety

QUESTION: How are depression and anxiety related?

ANSWER:

Although many physicians knew there was a link between depression and anxiety, the exact reasons for this phenomenon was not known. However, recent research has shown that there is a link between depression and anxiety as well as the reasons behind it.

A study conducted by psychologist Joe Griffin has shed new light on the link between depression and anxiety. He discovered that people who suffer from anxiety frequently ruminate - think long and deeply about topics that cause them to worry or feel anxious. This in turn causes the anxious person to dream about their worries.

It is a known fact that people suffering from depression dream about three times as much as people without depression. This dreaming aspect of depression, however, is not a healthy symptom. Excess dreaming, caused by anxiety and depression, leaves the person feeling exhausted, unable to face the day ahead, and overwhelmed by the day's upcoming activities.

In addition, one study conducted found as many as 85% of those suffering from depression also suffered from some type of anxiety disorder. Sometimes this link between depression and anxiety results in a generalized anxious feeling, or generalized anxiety. This is a feeling that something terrible is about to happen, and what exactly that might be is never verbalized. It is just a constant feeling of being in danger or about to be in danger that never leaves the sufferer. Physicians believe that this generalized anxiety is caused by a brain chemical malfunction. One in which the brain's fight-or-flight mechanism turns itself on without being stimulated by a real danger.

Because of the link between depression and anxiety, most people are treated for both diseases with the same anti-depressant medications.