Understanding Feelings of Anxiety and Depression
One simple question, “How am I feeling?” can be confusing and difficult to decipher for many people. For people working through mental health challenges, questions like this can seem impossible and create a spiral of negative emotions.
Panic attacks, generalized or social anxiety disorder, depression, and other mental health problems are extremely common, yet learning more about your specific condition and using tools of emotional intelligence can help. There are times when things just don’t feel okay. You want to talk to a friend or a family member, but understanding your feelings may be difficult. You may think to yourself:
- Am I just having a bad day? Week?
- What’s happening in my life right now that could be making me feel this way?
- Will this feeling pass?
- Should I write down my thoughts?
- Should I exercise more?
- Is it time to make an appointment with a therapist? Or my doctor?
These questions may cause even more anxiety and make you want to bury the feelings deeper. It’s hard to get a grip on emotions and everyday life experiences.
Here at A Better Way Psychiatry and TMS Clinic, we use the Patient Health Questionnaire 9-item depression scale (PHQ-9) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale (GAD-7) to learn more about your feelings.
Learn More About The PHQ-9 And GAD-7
We use these two questionnaires to dig deeper into your depression and anxiety problems. This information allows us as mental health professionals to provide a more personalized plan of treatment for anxiety and depression.
The PHQ-9 consists of nine questions that ask about sleep, energy, appetite, and other symptoms of depression in the past two weeks. Scores are calculated based on how frequently a person experiences these feelings. Look up PHQ-9 to add more content.
The GAD-7 is 7 questions and is used to assess symptom categories associated with stress or anxiety over the past two weeks. Questions about how often you have felt bothered, nervous, anxious, worried, or stressed. Your response options include “not at all”, “several days”, “more than half the days” and “nearly every day”.
For example, a very busy professional was feeling overwhelmed. She asked herself, “How can I be anxious when I am getting so much work accomplished?” She took the GAD-7 test and was surprised by her score of moderate anxiety. She realized it was time to make her mental health a priority, started meditating, and scheduled an appointment with a therapist.
Get Help Understanding Your Emotions Today
The first step towards feeling better is giving us a call. We are committed to helping you from the very first moment you reach out to us. A few examples of frequent calls we get include: “I just don’t feel like myself” and “I talked to a therapist and I have taken medications and they aren’t working.”
We can help you begin your journey to regain the YOU that you want to be. We help people who experience symptoms of anxiety and depression every single day. Choose A Better Way to get psychiatric and TMS-related care and reach out now.
