How I Keep My Anxiety from Becoming Depression

When you struggle with anxiety, it is sometimes inevitable that you will also cope with depression. The constant worry, the feelings of insecurity, the fears, feeling overwhelmed, and most noticeable for me, the feelings of exhaustion from the anxiety -- all of these things can lead to suddenly feeling down. What has concerned me about this in the past has been that if I feel down and continue to feel this way, the depression may become severe to the point that it is difficult to pull myself out. So I've had to be mindful of taking care of myself in order to avoid anxiety becoming depression.

What Prevents My Anxiety from Becoming Depression

There are days that I feel like myself most of the day, and then suddenly, I feel down and melancholy, and it is hard to pinpoint where this is coming from. But, when I think about it, I know what I feel is on the tail end of the anxious feelings I've been facing throughout the day.

Or, sometimes, I simply feel emotionally exhausted and sad, and I realize this is connected to needing to manage my emotions to keep from experiencing overwhelming anxiety. When this has happened in the past, I know I've unknowingly ended up associating those feelings of depression with circumstances around me, even if they weren't to blame. But the brain looks for an explanation, and sometimes, in my experience, those explanations are mistakenly found in the wrong places.

So, to keep this from happening and depression at bay, I've relied heavily on self-care. I've discovered that boosting my resilience has been key. This includes exercise, eating well, and sleeping. Making sure that I am sustaining my health in these areas has helped set me up for a mindset where I am able to bounce back effectively when I start feeling down.

Also, I have noticed that it is important to make sense of my emotions. Experiencing emotions without identifying them sometimes leads to succumbing to them, which I certainly do not want to do if they are feelings of depression. This may also be what leads to attributing them to the wrong circumstance, person, or object in my surroundings. So, organizing them through visualization, journaling, or talking to someone helps me to see what I am feeling and how I can cope. 

How do you prevent anxiety from becoming depression? Share your coping strategies in the comments below.