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By
Dr. Ben Lerner
The challenges of surviving on this wonderful Earth of ours can
be numerous and often overwhelming. When this condition becomes
chronic, and the coping gets more and more challenging, it's
common to seek the help of a physician.
When faced with hopelessness and despair, nothing could be more
appealing than a quick diagnosis, soon followed by an even quicker
chemical solution. Millions of anxious, chronically unhappy people
have found sanctuary in anti-depressant medications. So much so,
to even suggest to someone who believes his or her life was "saved"
by anti-depressants -- Zoloft, Paxil, Wellbutrin or Prozac -- that these
drugs are dangerous or there are potent alternatives available is
to take your life in your own hands.
This is completely understandable for someone who feels past miseries
have been finally pacified due to the miracles of modern medicine
and what has been labeled a "chemical imbalance." No one
wants their life preserver questioned when it's keeping them
afloat in rough waters.
Roughly 28 million Americans -- one out of every 10 -- have taken Prozac,
Zoloft, Paxil or a similar antidepressant. Very few of these patients
are aware of the dangers these drugs cause as a result of the brain's
reaction to artificially boosting serotonin levels. These side effects
can include:
- Neurological disorders, such as disfiguring facial and whole-body
tics that can indicate brain damage.
- Sexual dysfunction in up to 60 percent of patients.
- Debilitating withdrawal symptoms, including visual hallucinations,
electric shock-like sensations in the brain, dizziness, nausea
and anxiety.
- A decreasing degree of effectiveness in about 35 percent of
long-term users.
Additionally, more and more investigating is being done to shed
more light on the direct link between these drugs and suicide and
violence, particularly among children.
Beyond My Control
Like all drugs, the use of antidepressants by some people is justified.
Yet, as famed psychoanalyst Elio Frattaroli explains, "What
biological psychiatry says is that, 'If my neurotransmitters
(brain chemicals) made me do it, then everything I don't like
about myself has a solution that lies outside myself."
This may be the most dangerous kind of thinking that exists in
our culture today. When you're labeled as someone with chemical
imbalance, you're perceived to be damaged goods with no hope
of ever being normal. Because your personality and character are
"permanently flawed," mind-altering drugs are your only
way out. What's worse, it sends a message opposing the most
noble of human efforts: Overcoming your problems by the strength
of the human will which always seeks higher ground and an improved
mental and spiritual outlook on life.
In the last decade, awareness campaigns and the over-prescribing
of these medications have taken the number of scripts written for
antidepressants from 30 million to 40 million to more than 20 billion.
Harvard psychiatrist Stephen Bergman says, "When you line up
all of the forces that act in psychiatry today, it's pretty
scary. It is not in the patients' best interest."
In the past, no doctor would treat the kind of common anxiety and
depression we see today with medication. Counseling from a mental
health profession or clergy was the first and only option. According
to psychiatrist Peter Kramer who wrote the bestseller "Listening
to Prozac," since the advent of Prozac and Prozac-like drugs,
"The bar has been lowered for what constitutes and emotional
disorder that needs drugs and it has been raised for what constitutes
successful treatment. Where the measure of successful treatment
was once alleviation of debilitating pain, today patients want to
be, as Kramer phrases it, to feel 'better than well.'"
Antidepressants are another case of medical science using a simple
quick-fix solution to cover the symptoms of a complex problem. A
healthy nervous system, exercise, sound nutrition and supplementation
geared towards these concerns works the vast majority of the time
and at the very least, should certainly be the a primary consideration
over the use of drugs with this kind of track record.
Incidentally, studies have shown counseling is as at least effective
than antidepressants, if not more, but it doesn't pack the
"quick fix" for which doctors and patients are looking.
Managing Stress Management
The term, "stress management," really implies an outside-in,
mechanistic mindset. In other words, this concept of managing stress
is exactly the same as managing or treating symptoms and illness.
This outside-in, mechanistic, disease model says when unwanted health
or disease rears its ugly head, you treat it with pills, vitamins,
weight loss, surgery, magic potions, leeches or whatever is the
current "flavor of the month." Similarly, when the stress
comes, you treat it with positive thinking or Prozac.
Real wellness is never disease treatment. Rather, it means building
health and correcting "dis-ease" as the best way to overcome
and prevent disease. With stress management, real wellness doesn't
look to fight stress but to build and manage peace so as to overcome
or prevent it. Peace is built and managed through:
- A healthy body
- New perceptions and stronger relationships made possible through
getting control of time management
Peace is not something you find when your latest crisis is over.
In a stressful life, what usually follows stress is the next stress.
On the other hand, when you manage your life better, stress or peace
is more likely to be followed by even more peace.
Creating peace and strong relationships does not begin by changing
everyone and every circumstance surrounding you. Changing locations,
jobs or spouses is typically not the answer. While the grass always
seems greener (more peaceful) in someone else's yard, occupation
or relationship, once you get over there, over there becomes over
here again.
As the adage says, "Wherever you go, there you are."
Peace of mind and better associations start (and end) with you.
If you change, the atmosphere changes.
To recognize that it's you who must take responsibility for
transforming your life should not be depressing. Although it's
easy to blame outside influences for your anxiety and stress, that
philosophy is self-defeating because your core belief is that there's
nothing you can do. You're handing power over to the things
going on around you instead of what's going on inside of you,
where the real power is!
The fact that you are responsible for your mind, your relationships,
and your emotions is good news. The easiest thing in the world to
change is you. People can be tough to change, and family, jobs and
situations may even be impossible to change.
But you can change right here, right now. It all starts with changing
or reprogramming some of your outlook on life.
Dr.
Ben Lerner, along with Dr. Greg Loman, owns Teach The World
About Chiropractic, a Chiropractic training company. They have
helped build the largest spinal correction clinics in the history
of Chiropractic.
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