What About Drugs for Anxiety and Depression?

As a counselor, I was often asked, "Do medications help with anxiety and depression?" The answers I say are "yes" and "no." Yes, medications can be helpful in the short term. No, medications are not a good long-term solution. Anxiety and depression do not occur due to lack of medication. Medications do not cure the underlying causes of anxiety and depression. However, when medications are used temporarily to provide a window of relief for a person to perform the internal work necessary to correct the underlying cause, they can be useful. Anxiety and depression usually have two main causes - emotional and physical. Physical Causes of Anxiety and Depression Our body goes into an imbalance when we do not eat properly or exercise enough healthy. Our bodies are not built to handle the unnatural substances found in processed food. When we fill our body with chemicals, pesticides, sugar and junk food, our body lacks important nutrients and suffers from stress. Anxiety and depression can be the result of this physical deficit and consequent stress. The food and water that God has given us - pure, clean, organic, unchanging food and water - are designed to help our bodies grow. If you take medication for anxiety and depression and do not keep your diet clean and exercise properly, you are only using Band Aid for injury. Emotional Causes of Anxiety and Depression Psychologically, anxiety is caused by dysfunctional thoughts - untrue thoughts. For example, if you tell yourself you are not fit or you want to be perfect, you are probably worried. Thoughts of not being good enough and being perfect usually focus on our outward qualities and appearance rather than inward qualities like kindness, compassion and gratitude. When we choose to be kind, loving and compassionate towards ourselves and others, we feel good about ourselves. When we choose to be grateful for what we have instead of thinking about what we do not have, we create inner peace. Kindness and gratitude are a wonderful antidote to anxiety! Anxiety is always a sign that we are lying to ourselves. Truth creates inner peace, untruth creates fear and anxiety. This is the perfect way to find out what is true and what is not! Mental depression is caused by not taking good care of yourself. When we neglect our needs, without talking about ourselves, when we judge ourselves and make others responsible for our feelings, it leads to frustration. If you have children who ignore and judge, that child will become depressed. The same thing happens internally when we neglect and judge our inner child. Putting yourself last and looking after everyone else except yourself can make you feel unworthy and frustrated. There is no point in taking medication for anxiety and depression without paying attention to your passive thinking and how you are being treated. However, they can help if you take medications for a while and give yourself a chance to do your internal work. As soon as most people who work with me start taking good care of themselves, they find that they do not like the effects of drugs. They do not like drugs to alienate their emotions. Instead of being numb, they want to feel all their emotions deeper, higher and lower. The more they learn to be responsible for their feelings by paying attention to their thoughts and needs, the more likely they are to experience all of their feelings. They find that medications can reduce pain and even rob them of happiness. Most people I work with can completely avoid drugs by learning to love themselves physically and mentally. Most people who practice the Inner Bonding process we teach are far more powerful at curing anxiety and depression than Inner Bonding medications. If you are a person who does not want to learn to take personal responsibility for your pain and happiness, medications may be the way for you. But if you want to experience true peace and happiness, drugs are not the answer.