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Many people confused spirituality with religion, but there is a major difference. Religion is defined by the dictionary as the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. Spirituality, on the other hand, is defined as being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. The New Hope Recovery Center provides a compelling look at the difference between the two. Some people find religion through their recovery, such as the 12 steps, to be beneficial in connecting them with a higher power to help them find more meaning for their lives. Spirituality, no matter if there is a religion involved or not, helps people discover themselves and their impact on the world. Lance Dodes, M.D., the Training and Supervising Analyst Emeritus for the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and a retired assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School noted in a 2015 article for Psychology Today that spirituality focuses on oneness and being in touch with one’s inner self, and has a focus on well-being, to be put simply. Spirituality can have a positive impact on a person’s life and recovery. Dr. Greg Jantz in 2014 for The Center, a place in Washington aimed at helping those with addictions or mental illness, listed several benefits of incorporating spirituality into recovery:

Dependent personality disorder is one of the most common types of personality disorders, and typically consists of feelings of helplessness, loneliness, and abandonment. Anxiety seems to be a major contributing factor to this, as all those feelings lead back to anxiety. A person who suffers from dependent personality disorder depends too much on others to meet their physical and emotional needs. They may feel very afraid of losing important people in their lives, and may appear to be “clingy”. They may also belittle themselves often, be pessimistic and filled with self-doubt, accept criticism and disapproval as proof of their worthlessness, and not have much faith in themselves. If you or a loved one suffer from dependent personality disorder, there are ways to better manage this. MD Robert London from Psychology Today has described a very workable plan to help people begin their road to recovery. The first step is to make a commitment to learn more about your disorder. Seek out a doctor and psychologist to help you learn more about the symptoms that you experience and what you are feeling. Psychotherapy is a terrific way to learn more about yourself and to even develop more tools to help you overcome your symptoms. Secondly, create a goal-oriented action plan. Write down some things that are really overwhelming to you. Write down activities that fill you with anxiety, dread, or helplessness, and focus on one item at a time. Next, remember that it will take time to improve your symptoms. Every worthwhile process takes time, and it will take you much challenging work and dedication to overcome your problems. That’s okay. Keep going! Once you have established your list and reminded yourself to be patient, establish a concrete goal for how you can solve one specific problem on your list. For example, if a manager at work has assigned you a big project, practice breaking that project down into manageable steps. Focus on the first step that you need to complete to move on. In doing this, you are lessening the chances that you will feel overwhelmed because you have a small, concrete step that you only need to focus on for now. Continue this process each day until you have all the steps that you need complete. The symptoms of dependent personality disorder can feel overwhelming, and you may feel as though you will never get better. Do not believe this – it is simply your anxiety causing you to feel this way. Utilize this plan of action and contact a doctor and therapist to begin working through your problems. There is an entire team of support ready to help you get through this.

We’ve all experienced the moment where we forgot our keys, missed a deadline at school or work, and argued with a family member.  These moments can be challenging, especially when we have a lot of other responsibilities on our plate. We may feel our heart racing fast, sweaty palms, back and neck aching, racing thoughts, and more. While many of these symptoms are shared by both stress and anxiety, it is important to understand the difference between the two because they each have distinct causes, which will make it easier to identify what is happening. If we can easily tell what we are suffering from now, we will be able to take preventative measures to ensure that we do not develop worse symptoms or an anxiety disorder.

Benzodiazepines are a category of drugs including diazepam (Valium) and alprazolam (Xanax), both of which are very well-known. Benzodiazepines have been prescribed to treat anxiety, alcohol withdrawal, panic attacks, insomnia, and other conditions. While helpful, these drugs can be incredibly addictive. Benzodiazepines are not typically prescribed for long-term use because of this reason, but many people have used these drugs for longer than intended to continue feeling less harsh effects of their condition. As an individual begins taking what are otherwise known as tranquilizers, their muscles tend to relax and their anxiety levels tend to lower. The person taking these drugs may feel as though the drugs greatly reduce their pain or anxiety, and may begin to abuse them over time, thus leading them to physical and psychological dependency. There are certain forms of benzodiazepines that are intended to last either a short or longer dosage period. Ensure that the person taking them knows the prescribed time length and amount to be taken to avoid overdose or abuse of the drug. There have been over 2,000 version of benzodiazepines created, but only 15 of those are FDA-approved. Individuals who pair this drug with alcohol or other medications are at serious risk – the effects can be extremely damaging, even lethal. When paired with alcohol, the person may risk shutting down their nervous system, as both alcohol and benzodiazepines are depressants. Signs that an individual is abusing benzodiazepines:

Anxiety can be debilitating, and can make a person question everything, from relationships to future events. When someone suffers from anxiety, they often feel unsure of the cause for it. This can cause the person to build on another layer of anxiety just because they do not know why they are feeling that way! There are several powerful ways for a person to manage their anxiety without the use of drugs. These may include therapy, support groups, meditation, yoga, and self-care activities, just to name a few. Therapy can be very beneficial because it allows the person to work through any deep-rooted fears with their therapist. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a common technique the therapists will use to assist the individual with finding healthy ways to manage their anxiety and relax more, as well as to help the person change their thought patterns. One example of a CBT exercise would be for the person to rewrite their fear in a more rational way when they are feeling anxious. This helps the person break down their worry into a more realistic point of view. Support groups can help an individual relax if they have anxiety, primarily because they can share their worries and concerns with others who understand what they are going through. By voicing one’s fear out loud, oftentimes individuals recognize that their worries are not as “big” as their anxiety makes them seem. Meditation provides yet another way for an individual to relax. Meditation can be practiced formally or informally, and allows the person to ground themselves. By staying grounded, the person can more clearly see what is happening and can watch the anxious thoughts come and go, without giving special attention to any one thought. Yoga strengthens and relaxes the body, and its primary use it to harmonize the body with the mind and breath through breathing exercises, yoga poses, and meditation.

“Your baby seems so happy one minute and is crying the next…are they bipolar?” Most people have heard something to the extent of this phrase before. Whether the term was used to describe another person or the weather, our culture tends to use these words casually, as if they are simply an adjective to describe how something or someone is. Those words may seem harmless in the moment, but the way those words are used truly shape the way individuals perceive one another and mental illnesses. When someone uses “bipolar” to describe something other than a serious health concern, they are lessening the effect of the seriousness and giving it meaning elsewhere. Such as in the phrase first listed, using “bipolar” in that context does three things: 1) gives the impression that it is not typical for a baby to be happy one minute and crying the next, and 2) places a serious stigma around “bipolar” and what it really means to have bipolar disorder, and 3) labels the person instead of viewing them as someone who suffers from an illness. Bipolar disorder is much more than crying one minute and smiling the next – it disrupts sleep patterns, relationships, and causes mood swings, but to a much higher extent. According to Dr. Matt Goldenberg, these mood swings typically involve the person experiencing extreme highs and lows over the course of a few days or weeks – not typically over the course of a single day. Misconceptions of what bipolar disorder involves provides a tendency for people to misdiagnose themselves. In addition to the stigma of bipolar disorder, calling someone “bipolar” doesn’t give that person room to be themselves. Just as someone may not like to be labelled as “mean” or “annoying”, no one enjoys being placed in a category, because each person has so many things to offer and is more than their illness. By understanding the meaning behind the language that is used, one can develop a sense of unity and can help uplift others by portraying mental illness for what it is – an illness that deeply affects the individual. Remembering the appropriate usage of these words and gently correcting our loved ones is a great start to changing the way our culture perceives mental illnesses. Here are some tips on combating incorrect use of mental illness terms:

Yoga essentially means, “that which brings you to reality”. According to a study conducted in 2016, approximately 37 million Americans practice yoga. Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual practice that promotes health and relaxation through controlled breathing, meditation, and the implementation of certain postures. Thus, yoga can benefit mental health in several wonderful ways:

According to the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI), borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a condition characterized by difficulties in regulating emotion. This leads to severe and unstable mood swings, impulsivity and instability, poor self-image and rocky personal relationships. With borderline personality disorder, people make several attempts to avoid real or imagined events of abandonment. Self-harm and suicide are two destructive behaviors that could result from someone having BPD. People who have BPD typically experience periods of depressed mood, anxiety, or irritability that can last for days, disassociation, chronic boredom or emptiness, and more. These individuals may seem as manipulative or over-dramatic, but researchers have found that they behave this way to cope with the overwhelming fear and emotional pain. For people who suffer from BPD, they are even higher at risk for adding addiction/alcoholism to the mix. Almost 9 million people who have an addiction also suffer from a mental illness. There are several symptoms of BPD that overlap with addiction/alcoholism, making it hard to diagnose at times:

We live in a world with people of different shapes and sizes as well as society telling us to look a certain way. When we feel pressures from family, friends, and the media, we feel the need to change our bodies so that we do not face bullying or being different for looking the way we do. This causes us to take drastic measures to change our bodies the way we think society wants us to look which can cause body dysmorphia or eating disorders if we are not careful. There are a number of reasons as to why we feel the need to change the way we look and they are all around us. According to a study in Peer, Parent, and Media Influences (p.54-60), in youth from ages 9-14, the media plays a strong role as an influence to change your body. Your favorite model or actress can be skinny with no flab, acne, or blemishes to show. The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders says 69% of female youth from grades 5th-12th grade feel images in magazines can affect their perception of what they wished their bodies looked like. According to a study done in Teens, Social Media, and Body Image, 47% of them want to lose weight because of those images. Boys want to have a muscular, toned look and girls want low body weight. Magazines that encourage a healthy lifestyle like yoga or natural living use models that have a ‘perfect’ physique and are unnaturally thin. In other careers such as law, medical, and the military, use models for their ads who all look flawless and skinny. The best ways to help accept yourself for who you are is to change the way you look at these influencers. When you are at the grocery store and you see all of these magazines of "beautiful people," you can either choose to ignore them or go to a checkout lane with no magazines. Remember that not everything you see in the magazines are even real. Many magazine publishing companies use Photoshop to retouch photos to make these women look skinnier with shiny skin. It also helps to make a list of all of the great things about yourself that make you beautiful as we all have a list of qualities that make us stand out from the rest. It is also important to tell yourself that we were all created differently and that looking like a model is not what the general population looks like.

There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to recovery – each person has their own unique history, genetic makeup, preferences, support, feelings, circumstance, etc. Due to this, it’s incredibly important that a person construct a recovery plan that will serve to be most beneficial to their overall health and recovery goals. Oftentimes, individuals may feel that since someone they know is managing their lifestyle a certain way, they should do the same thing. This isn’t necessarily true, because what may work for one person doesn’t mean that it will work for another, and that doesn’t always mean that the person is making the best choices towards recovery. Here are some crucial steps to consider when developing a recovery lifestyle:

Panic attacks can be very debilitating, with symptoms of racing heart, feeling weak or faint, tingling or numbness in hands/fingers, sense of terror, feeling sweaty/having chills, chest pains, breathing difficulty, and more. For a person amid a panic attack, perceptions or worries of dying are likely a common thought. The good news, is that a person cannot simply die from solely having a panic attack. Although panic attacks alone are not deadly, they can be dangerous if paired with an illness such as a heart condition, for example, because the stress may make the condition worse. However, heart conditions develop over time, and those who suffer from a heart condition can be evaluated by a doctor for symptoms of stress and to rule out any problems they may have. Hyperventilation, a condition in which the person breathes very fast, upsetting the balance of their breath, may happen during a panic attack. While not deadly, this condition may make the person feel like fainting or passing out because hyperventilation blocks blood flow to the brain. If someone experiences this, they can recover quickly by belly-breathing. Belly-breathing is when the individual places their hand on their stomach, just below their ribs. They place the other hand on their chest, taking a deep breath in through the nose, and out through pursed lips, moving their hand down with each breath. After the individual does this 3-10 times they should feel their breath resuming normal breathing patterns. Another technique is for the person to breathe into a brown paper bag – this causes the person to re-inhale the carbon dioxide that they exhaled, restoring that lost gas. If someone is suffering from a panic attack, there are several effective ways to work through this:

Ambien (also known as zolpidem) is a sedative/hypnotic used to treat insomnia. This type of drug affects chemicals in the brain that may be unbalanced in people who have sleep issues. Zolpidem and other sedative medications have been used as an alternative to benzodiazepines because they are considered more appropriate for short-term use and are supposed to be “safer” than benzodiazepines. Other brand names consisting of zolpidem are: Edluar (a single tablet), Intermezzo (a single tablet with various dosages), and ZolpiMist (an oral spray medication). Ambien is fast-acting, and is composed of two layers: one layer that assist the person with falling asleep, and another layer that assists the person with staying asleep. However, Ambien can be highly addictive if taken for extended periods of time and with improper dosages. For example, someone can become addicted to Ambien within a span of 2 weeks - they may not realize it until they stop taking the drug and find that they have trouble sleeping without it. This may cause the individual to want to take more as their body continues to increase its tolerance to the drug. If a loved one is concerned that someone is addicted to Ambien, here are some initial warning signs that they should look out for: