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Despite major advances in understanding stress, depression and anxiety, most sufferers are still being told four myths about the root cause of their problem.

This raises an important issue: How can you conquer these illnesses if you don't understand the root cause?

Time to bust the myths and reveal the exact cause of these harrowing problems.

The first myth to bust is that a period of serious illness can cause you to become depressed. This could be anything from a nasty virus that confines you to bed for a month or something far more serious such as loss of a limb, cancers, injury, or heart attack for example.

None of these illnesses can cause depression, anxiety or stress. It's easily proven. Because millions of people suffer from serious illnesses every year but only around 20% of them will become stressed, depressed or anxious. If illnesses cause mental breakdown, every person who becomes seriously ill will enter into mental breakdown. They don't.

The same explanation applies to traumatic experience. This could be death of a loved one, loss of a job, divorce or moving house for example. Again, every single one of us will experience traumatic times such as these. Yet not everybody enters into a mental illness, even those who have suffered extreme trauma. Therefore, traumatic experience cannot be the root cause.

Next up is genetics, another frequently given root cause. But it's completely untrue. There is no proven link between genetics and these illnesses. In fact, rather than genetics, learned behavior from family members who suffer themselves is the only real link to a family-inherited disposition to stressful illness.

I've saved the most widely accepted myth until last and I'll bet you're familiar with this reason and you may even believe it to be the root cause of your problem. It's the reason given by the medical community and which has spawned a $12 billion drugs industry to combat it. The myth is of course depleted levels of neurotransmitters in the brain ' the so-called 'chemical imbalance'.

Neurotransmitters are 'happy chemicals' which help to regulate your moods. So, if levels are low, you feel low. To boost these levels, powerful drugs are prescribed. Yes, they boost levels. But let's ask a question:

Are low levels of neurotransmitters a cause or a symptom?

Well, every human being on earth right now will experience many occasions in their lives when things go wrong and when bad things happen ' in short, times when they won't be their usual happy selves.

During these times, their levels of 'happy chemicals' will drop, and life will seem a bit of an effort. So, does this mean that everybody on the planet will descend into an episode of stress, depression or anxiety? Obviously not.

And do you just wake up one day and feel anxious or depressed because levels of neurotransmitters have dipped below the critical level? No. Because that would mean you'd wake up one day and feel great because levels have risen above the critical point. You know this just doesn't happen, even after taking antidepressants.

And when you're in the fog of mental turmoil, you also experience physical pain, you cannot sleep or you sleep too much and the feeling of overwhelming exhaustion is also present. But if a chemical imbalance in your brain is at the root, how come you experience physical pain in your legs, arms, and more commonly, your back?

You can see that this is too simple an explanation. This is borne out by the fact that 70% of people who take antidepressants will descend into second and even third episodes of mental breakdown if they stop taking the drugs. This is because antidepressants treat ONE of the SYMPTOMS of mental illness ' depleted levels of neurotransmitters.

So what, exactly, is at the root cause of mental breakdown? It's all down to flawed modes of thinking. Because the only difference between people who experience an episode of mental trauma and those who don't is because of flawed perceptions and explanations repeatedly performed by sufferers.

The following example describes this more clearly:

Two people suffer the death of a parent. One is absolutely distraught and finds it very difficult to cope and descends into a depressive episode. The other, although sad at the loss, is coping and doesn't descend into depression. The only difference lies IN THE WAY THEY MAKE SENSE OF WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THEM. The actual event has no meaning by itself. The meanings only lie within the minds of the individuals affected.

To beat anxiety, stress and depression, you need to learn the powerful and effective modes of thinking used by people who don't become stressed, depressed or anxious no matter what happens to them. Once learned, you will come out of the fog permanently.

Copyright 2006 Christopher Green