Medication for Anxiety and

Depression: Pros and Cons

Why anxiety can’t be treated by injecting serotonin into the

bloodstream?

The answer to this is that serotonin has a complicated

relationship with the nerves and while it makes you feel peaceful

when it’s in the brain,

if it gets into the skin nerves, it hurts – serotonin is what makes

nettle stings hurt. Eating serotonin doesn’t work either, as your brain cleverly keeps it

out.

Can you increase the body’s levels of serotonin?

Many people argue that you can. Serotonin is naturally produced by the

body and diet can indeed help the body produce more of it, with bananas, dates and papayas being thought to be good for increasing the body’s production of

serotonin.

Another intriguing finding by one researcher also suggests that people with a larger muscle mass have more serotonin in their systems because of the way that muscles (as opposed to

other body tissues) use amino acids to get moving.

(These facts make this writer think that if you munch a

banana and go for a nice long walk, you’ll start feeling better –

sounds like something my mother would have said.)

One of the advantages of taking medications such as SSRIs to combat anxiety is that they do

work.

That is, they do increase the levels of serotonin in the brain

and help the person taking them feel more peaceful.

However, like many other medications, especially those that tinker with the

hormones, SSRIs have side effects (the only hormone-related medication that doesn’t seem to is insulin, which

Type 1 diabetics have to inject because their body doesn’t produce this

hormone).

Some of the side effects of SSRIs are seen when beginning to take these medications and

include dizziness, fatigue, weight gain, reduced bone

mass, headaches, very peculiar dreams, diarrhoea, insomnia

and more.

Later on, SSRIs can interfere with sexuality, usually loss of

libido, impotence and inability to reach orgasm (spoilsport!).

And if you have been taking SSRIs for some time, you can get dependent on them and

have trouble coming off them – which would be called an

addiction for a non-prescribed substance.

What’s more, for low-grade depression and anxiety, SSRIs don’t actually do that much –

the place where they work best is when treating people with very severe depression or

anxiety.

If general low-grade anxiety or just feeling “blue” is your

problem, then other avenues such as hypnosis might be a

better option than medication – but your doctor will be able to

give you more advice and help you explore your options.

Other drugs are used to treat anxiety disorder but SSRIs are

by far the most common.

Other physical forms of therapy can be used that don’t involve

prescription medications – these include the sort of thing your

mother told you, like increasing aerobic exercise, getting good

sleep and cutting back on coffee.

And there are the forms of therapy that deal with the

mental/emotional side of things, such as counselling,

hypnotherapy and cognitive-behavioural therapy.

These aim to deal with harmful thinking patterns and give

people the inner strength to cope with stress and the

problems of life from the inside out.

Are you in the verge of anxeity and depression?

This can be a debilitating condition and this can ruin your

normal life.

But there is a SOLUTION…

Get the answer fromHypnosis Brisbane…

call Mike at

(07) 5576 6410