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Are Eating Disorders a Mental Health Issue?

It’s unfortunate that there is such a stigma associated with eating disorders in this country. Most of the time where there is a stigma with an issue, it’s due to ignorance, and that’s the same case when it comes to eating disorders. Many people don’t know how to deal with eating disorders and some don’t even if their issues are due to mental illness or not. Let’s cut through some of this misinformation by looking at the link between eating disorders and mental illness. So, Are Eating Disorders a Mental Health Issue? If you feel like symptoms associated with your health, weight, and food are having a negative impact on your life, then yes, you may be dealing with a mental health issue presenting itself in the form of an eating disorder. Symptoms such as severely limiting your intake of food and nutrients, binging, binging, and purging, obsession with weight loss, inducing vomiting, and extreme amounts of exercise are not normal for a healthy individual. These types of symptoms cannot be attributed to other parts of the body. When you suffer from cirrhosis of the liver, you treat the liver. When you have a broken toe, you put the toe in a split. In the case of eating disorders and symptoms of eating disorders, the issue is coming from your brain. Since this is where the issues are coming from, this is the area you must treat. When you have a mental illness, you must treat the body and the mind. While there are several different causes of eating disorders, it is a certainty that all eating disorders become better under professional treatment. Because there are many different causes behind eating disorders, there are several forms of treatment. Treatment of eating disorders may come in the form of one-on-one counseling or therapy, group therapy, and in some cases outpatient and inpatient treatments depending on the severity of the eating disorder. If you feel you or someone you know is dealing with an eating disorder, it’s best to act before something too damaging happens. A good place to start are mental health support lines and calling local therapy and offices around your area. The sooner you start taking care of an eating disorder, the better the outcome is likely to be.

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3 Ways to Tell If You Suffer from Anxiety

If you’ve never been close to mental illness, or have never experienced symptoms of mental illnesses yourself, it may be difficult to recognize the signs. Anxiety is one of the more common mental illnesses found around the country and can affect people in a variety of ways. There is a difference between general nervousness or hesitancy, and life-altering anxiety. It may be difficult to tell the difference between just having a nervous mindset and diagnosable anxiety, so how can you tell? Let’s review three common signs of anxiety to give you more information about this common and notorious condition. How to Tell If You Suffer from Anxiety Are You Having Daily Troubles Dealing with Fears? It’s normal to worry, it’s even normal to fret over something, but a constant fear that something is wrong, that you didn’t do something right, or that something bad is about to happen is not normal. If fears and worrying thoughts are constantly bombarding you to the point of disrupting your daily life, you may have anxiety that is considered a real issue. Have You Noticed Changes Physiologically? It’s hard to pinpoint when diagnosable anxiety begins, but physiological signs are often a signal. Some physiological signs of anxiety include insomnia or trouble falling to sleep, upset stomach, weakness, lethargy, increased blood pressure, gastrointestinal issues, increased heart rate, and many others. Anxiety may be linked with other mental illness like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), depression, and others. Have You Suffered from a Panic Attack? A panic attack is a scary presentation of anxiety and can be debilitating for most. Symptoms of a panic attack including feeling hot or cold, numbness in the fingers and other parts of the body, trouble breathing, rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, sweating, dizziness, blurred vision, shaking, and a sometimes an overwhelming fear that you are losing control, or “going crazy.” Panic attacks can be ugly and are a prime symptom of anxiety. There are many different presentations of anxiety and many different symptoms. The preceding three signs are some of the more obvious symptoms of anxiety but it can be different for everybody. If you feel like anxiety is disrupting your daily life, it’s time to make the call to a local therapist or your doctor. You can only relieve the symptoms of anxiety once you start treating it.

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