Emotions are part of the human experience, but sometimes the weight of daily living or past trauma is too heavy. This can lead to feelings of unease, restlessness, or sadness.
Both endings and beginnings can spark such emotions, while at other times they can come on without warning. If you’ve been feeling sad, anxious, or lonely, the cause may be an underlying issue like depression or anxiety. Learn more about what signs and symptoms to look for and what to do to get support.
1. Assess Your Current State
If you suspect that anxiety of depression is a factor in how you’re feeling, document your observations. Keep a notebook with you for a week, logging your schedule, challenges, and responses to those challenges. A sense of unease, being on edge, or overall muscle tension may be signs of anxiety. Avoidance of specific situations or activities, like driving on the highway or participating in social settings, can also be a signal.
Conversely, prolonged sadness or a lack of interest in activities that once energized you may actually be depression. Changes in appetite or weight — either increased or decreased — can be a depression symptom, too. Experiencing fatigue when your activity doesn’t warrant it, ruminating over your lack of self-worth, and even having suicidal thoughts are further red flags.
Both depression and anxiety can occur simultaneously, leading you to feel thoroughly drained. This blending of symptoms can be especially challenging to overcome, and many people seek out mental health rehab to heal. This immersive approach can allow individuals to get focused treatment for their dynamic mental health conditions. Participants learn coping skills, strategies, and develop methods to continue treatment after attending rehab.
2. Consider How You Handle Change and Adversity
Change is part of life, but if you have a hard time handling typical changes, it may mean something else. Anxiety is often associated with uncertainties, specifically how you anticipate and handle them once they arrive. This can lead to dark, scary thoughts and coping mechanisms that negatively impact your daily life. Long-term, unmanaged anxiety can cut you off from the life you want to live.
Depression can hide quietly under the surface, especially if you’re prone to masking your symptoms. Masking — where you “put on a happy face” for work, life, and family settings — is exhausting. Doing so can worsen your symptoms after you remove the mask, further deepening your depression. You may take on excessive guilt, believing things about yourself that are untrue. Without managing these symptoms, you detract from your life and your ability to participate in it fully.
3. Review Your Lifestyle Factors
How you go about your day can drive your emotional state, often in ways you might not realize. First, think about your sleep schedule. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, adults should aim for seven to nine hours of sleep nightly. If you’re getting less than that, it can push your emotions to the extreme. A lack of sleep makes your body run less efficiently and can even contribute to mental health disorders.
Poor nutrition can also worsen your symptoms and add to feelings of lethargy and lack of concentration. If you aren’t fueling your body well, you can’t expect it to run in top condition. Caring for your mental health goes hand in hand with caring for your physical health.
Exercise is often used to release pent-up energy and emotions. If you’re not currently physically active, consider how you can incorporate movement. Physical activity can lessen the muscle tension experienced with anxiety and can improve the sleep issues associated with depression.
4. Determine What Changes You Can and Cannot Make
You may not be able to remove all stressors from your daily life, but there are boundaries you can set. Sit down with those in your household at a designated time to discuss your needs. Treat this conversation as a formal meeting, ensuring everyone in attendance understands your motivations. Your loved ones want you to be well and for you to thrive, so enter this conversation assuming their good intentions.
If one challenge is the level of responsibilities you take on, discuss what can be reallocated. Maybe your family has a bad habit of staying up late, making the morning rush especially stressful. Give lunch-making duty to someone else, or enlist your partner to ensure you’re not the only adult keeping an eye on the school bus. In addition, make a commitment together to create and maintain a schedule that doesn’t add unnecessary stress and anxiety.
Some things you can’t change — at least not completely — like the world around you. However, you can adjust how you expose yourself to stressful situations. Monitor your response to things like the news, social media, and technology. Even among individuals without mental health conditions, the constant pressure and demands of modern life can be distressing. Limit your contact with such stressors when you can, how you can, while still participating in daily life.
Seek Out Professional Help
The state of your mental health determines nearly every facet of your existence. If you’re riddled with anxiety, you can’t enjoy your work or family life. If you’re depressed and reclusive, you might cheat yourself out of new, fun, and exciting experiences.
Don’t hold yourself back. If you’re experiencing either condition, reach out to a mental health expert and speak with your loved ones about your needs. When you get the support, guidance, and treatment for your specific diagnosis, you can improve your mental well-being and your life.