Labels (the name of the particular condition) carry a lot of emotional significance for some people because they equate their mental illness condition to that of a medical condition. Fortunately, the labels of these disorders, while sounding quite official and medical, actually don’t mean what most people think they mean.

So if you’ve been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or depression condition, we encourage you to NOT be alarmed or concerned by the label of your condition. The label of your condition DOESN’T mean that you have a SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN medical condition. It simply means that your symptom set and characteristics have a name, and that name is used to describe a certain type of thoughts, actions, behaviors, and condition characteristics. It’s just a category with a name. It’s not a medical condition.

For more information about the differences between a medical condition and a mental health condition, members can read the “Does Being Diagnosed With An Anxiety Or Depression Condition Mean That I Have A Serious Mental Illness?” article in the members area of our web site.

New evidence shows that anxiety and most forms of depression are NOT a result of a chemical imbalance or biological problem with the brain. Sadly, a great many people have been duped by the claim that in order to fix their anxiety or depression conditions, they need to fix the chemical imbalance or biological brain problems first.

Thankfully, a number of recent studies have shown that anxiety and most forms of depression are cognitively based, not biologically based.

This is great news because it means that:

1. Full recovery is attainable by everyone.
2. There’s a lot we can do to return to and maintain normal health.
3. We have everything we need within ourselves to regain control of our health and life.

We don’t need medication to bring about full and lasting recovery. All we need to do is to learn about what anxiety and depression are, what causes them, what changes we need to make in order to recover, then follow through and make the necessary changes.

As we’ve said in earlier Tips, when you address the cause, you change the result.

These new findings should be great news to those who are struggling with anxiety and most forms of depression. We’re not saying that recovery is easy, but we are saying that it’s doable and that anyone can do it if they apply themselves.

For more information on these recent findings and what they mean, members can read “The Chemical Imbalance Or Biological Brain Problem Theories” article in the members area of our web site.

Have a great week!

For more information about anxiety symptoms, see our Anxiety Symptoms section.

NOTE: The Member's area of our website contains a more comprehensive section on anxiety symptoms, including completed descriptions, why they occur, and tips on how to get rid of them.