Anxiety, Stress and Depression

Are you finding yourself overly anxious over small things? Feeling sad so often that it is hard to get the energy to do anything? Have you tried other medications and found that nothing really brings you full relief?

This is when an alternative approach to treating emotional distress can help. Conventional medicines sometimes alleviate the symptoms of the disease, but don’t usually address the real underlying cause. Also, you often have to deal with the unwanted side effects of the medications. Homeopathic remedies enhance your overall wellbeing while at the same time reducing the symptoms of your illness. 

Stress is a natural part of life; it is your body’s reaction to difficult situations or events, either in the past or the present. It can manifest in physical symptoms, such as:

• chest pain
• muscle tightness
• ulcers

psychological symptoms, such as:

• anxiety attacks
• depression

or behavioral symptoms, such as:

• weight loss/gain
• crying
• social isolation

Each of these illnesses can look quite different in each of us. A person with anxiety may experience any of the following:  panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and phobias.

Depression can affect each of us both physically and emotionally and in quite differing levels of severity. Symptoms may include: poor appetite, insomnia, low self-esteem, lack of motivation and wishing to escape life by watching too much television or sleeping a great deal.

These differences, or characteristics, are what lead the homeopath to the best remedy for you.  There are many homeopathic remedies for anxiety and depression, it is the skill of the homeopath to choose the one that will work for you. In the below example this concept is well illustrated. Each of the characteristic symptoms of the patient was useful in choosing the remedy for the deep level of anxiety.

Case of Anxiety:
45 year old woman with anxiety whenever she drives, especially over bridges. Also anxiety about her children, whenever they are not with her. She dreams of them every night and is always anxious when she awakens from the dreams. She has terrible flatulence after eating dinner and she feels the worst between 4 and 7 p.m. She says that people are never aware that she is anxious, that she does not show it at all.

Treatment:
Two doses of Lycopodium were given over a 6 month period and her anxiety greatly reduced; she could even drive over bridges! Her dreams were less and less frequent and even sometimes had happy ones. The digestion improved as did her energy.