Depression And Anxiety: Symptoms To Be Able To Recognize Them Easily
The seat of emotions is located in the brainand not in the heart, as some literature and art in general proclaim. Specifically, in a series of neuronal circuits, mostly buried deep in the brain, commonly known as the limbic or paleomammal system.
In fact, all psychological pathologies known to man are characterized by an emotional deficit or excess. That is, mental illnesses can basically be defined as affective states that, for some reason, escape their normal range.
In turn, this emotional deficit or excess is caused by different chemical imbalances and dysfunctions in the regions of the limbic system and other adjacent areas that participate in the supervision and regulation of the mood. Next We will see the symptoms associated with depression and anxietytwo of the emotional states that are most associated with disorders.
Depression is characterized by the exacerbation of some emotions that, in the right measure, are beneficial to the person, such as sadness, guilt and shame. Who suffers from this problem, enters a state of deep sadness that leads him to cry or feel distressed for much of the day. As a corollary, he begins to blame himself for what happens to him, and feels distressed for worrying his friends and loved ones.
Convinced that he has become a heavy burden for his family, the feeling of shame increases and many times the depressed patient begins to think that the best thing that could happen to him is to die, since the illness prevents him from seeing a more or less horizon. promissory.
Of course, usually none of this is true. What happens is that the disruption of these emotions, which deviate from their normal channel, end up clouding the normal reasoning process of the sick patientaltering his belief system, completely coloring his perception, pushing him to think that he is a useless, reprehensible being, incapable of taking care of himself, and that consequently it is expected that he will end up mired in the most absolute social and economic ruin, abandoned. for all those whom he loves, and left to the fate of his inexorable and disastrous destiny.
Symptoms of anxiety
Another psychiatric condition marked by uncontrolled emotions is what is known as generalized anxiety disorder. In this case, the predominant feeling is concern derived from fear, and the false certainty that something irremediably bad is about to happen.
As its name indicates, The person with generalized anxiety worries about everything, and what is worse, all the time; From the moment you get up until you go to bed, you can’t stop thinking about family, health, household finances, work and endless mundane and day-to-day issues, such as, for example, that the weekend should going to the supermarket for your weekly grocery shopping, the possibility (without any proof) that your partner is unfaithful, or what the neighbor who lives next door may have thought, whom you carelessly forgot to say hello to when you last week crossed in the shopping center.
The constant, omnipresent worry leads the person to a state of continuous vigilance, and it is easy to identify someone afflicted with this condition: They are individuals who have become impatient, distrustful, complaining, fast-pacedand who live permanently on the defensive, because they believe that they must always be alert to prevent and avoid the imminent misfortunes that they believe life has in store for them.
Since they can never relax, they can’t enjoy anything either. Even activities that should be pleasurable such as going to the movies, going out to eat, or a close cousin’s birthday party become a nuisance, a source of stress rather than satisfaction.
While the person with anxiety does not understand that most of their fears are unfounded, The condition tends to become chronic, and often enters what I call the “exhaustion phase.”which is nothing other than a state of depression, a consequence of the frustration felt at the impossibility of controlling everything, and the physical and mental fatigue that comes with constantly monitoring the many but improbable threats, risks and dangers that the world offers. world.
Expanding the repertoire of emotions
Now, What can we do to get rid of some diseases such as depression and pathological anxiety? Well, a natural way to counteract the problem is by trying to minimize the sources of stress and maximize the range of pleasant emotions that we are capable of experiencing.
The efforts of psychologists and psychiatrists are aimed in these cases at restoring the normal emotional functioning of the patient plagued by the disease. In this sense, It helps you to productively manage your negative emotionsand to identify your positive emotions, so that you can enhance them and get the most out of them.
As soon as this is achieved, the way the individual perceives the world begins to improve. The environment is no longer a cold and threatening place; His reality transforms, he becomes more affable. The combination of both strategies gives shape to the best recipe to get rid of the disease and move towards personal well-being and happiness.
