Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. The only expertise I have on the subject is from personal experience. If you believe that you are suffering from depression or an anxiety disorder, I strongly suggest that you get professional help.

Clinical Depression is more than just the blues that we all feel from time to time. It is when the feeling of melancholy remains for weeks or months and causes sometimes serious interruptions in your life. Some of these may be:

• sleep disruptions (insomnia or constant sleepiness)
• eating disruptions (over-eating or lack of appetite)
• feeling of apathy, dispair or even suicide
• difficulty concentrating

If you or someone you know may be suffering from clinical depression, please get professional help. Check below for more resources.

Anxiety Disorders are more common than you might think. We all experience stress and anxiety in our daily lives, but sometimes some of us become overwhelmed by the anxiety and stress. This may result in

• becoming inordently anxious about stressful situations
• becoming phobic of potentially stressful situations
• responding with anxiety to normally non-stressful situations
• having panic attacks
• a constant aggitated state
• a hyper-emotional state
• difficulty sleeping
• generally difficulty in functioning

Both depression and anxiety disorders will, over time, affect your brain chemestry. For this reason, it is beneficial to disrupt the cycle of depression or anxiety early if possible.

I know quite a few people who in recent years have suffered from depression and/or anxiety disorders. Many of them are, fortunately, receiving professional help and are managing well. I am currently being treated for an anxiety disorder with depression and looking back can see that I have suffered from these disorders on and off at least since adolescence. In the past, I was always able to ride out the difficult times (sometimes lasting for months at a time) by relying on various coping strategies I've learned over the years, such as exercise, prayer, writing, support from friends, avoidance, shopping. Some of these are, naturally, more effective. In the last few years I've had a more difficult time dealing with these problems. Some of this, I firmly believe, has to do with the nature of the graduate school environment. I don't think that it is coincidental that so many graduate students suffer from depression and extreme anxiety. In many fields of study graduate school is a long drawn out trial with nearly all rewards looming far off in the distance. This is especially difficult for those of us brought up in this culture of immediate rewards. To work on a doctoral degree often means a stunted development in that one remains in the limbo between "student-hood" (with a lifestyle of poverty and relative transience) and "professional" (i.e. "adult" -- with chance to set-down-roots and be counted as independent) for a decade or so longer than our highschool peers who did not pursue the advanced degree. I would not be at all surprised to find that among graduate students (and predominately those who go into fields like German literature) there is a natural tendency toward depression (i.e. that "depressive-types" tend to go into these sorts of fields of study / that Graduate Students who study German literature tend to have "depressive" personalities). In any case, over the past year I fell into the deepest depression of my life combined with the worst case I've ever suffered of extreme anxiety. This is the first time, that I'm aware of, that I suffered so badly from both at the same time. The result was that I could barely leave the house or function normally. I fluctuated between a hyper-aggitated state and a depressed state of total apathy and fatigue. What did I do to get through this?

I was already exercising (aerobics every day; yoga several times a week), eating well, sleeping well. I tried several herbal remedies (**see below for more information). Finally, I went to student health and saw a counselor who recommended a psychiatrist. I was prescribed Paxil because the anxiety disorder was the most disruptive complaint. I've been regularly seeing the counselor and psychiatrist and have started taking a regular yoga class to work my yoga practice. Now I am doing much better than I have in a couple of years and plan to be able to stop taking the medication after a 6 month period.

• try to be aware of your feelings. sometimes if you catch yourself in the earlier stages of depression or an anxiety disorder, it's much easier to pull yourself back out. being in a depressed or anxious state changes your brain chemistry and after a while you are more likely to need medication to help you snap out of it.
• respect yourself: eat well, get enough rest, exercise.
• Make sure to do something fun / something that makes you feel good. Sing, dance, laugh, play. Treat yourself to a movie, new nailpolish, a good book.....Do something creative....whatever usually makes you feel better.
• Build and tap into a support group. Family, friends, God, pets, internet-discussion boards, community support groups....wherever you can get support and encouragement.
• I'd recommend yoga as a good practice for anyone, but especially for people who have problems with stress. Yoga practice helps to calm the mind while stretching and toning the body. Yoga teachings promote a positive attitude, self awareness and daily practice.

Links and resources

Anxiety Disorders Education Program -- campaign developed by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to increase awareness among the public
and health care professionals that anxiety disorders are real medical illnesses that can be effectively diagnosed and treated.

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