When you’re struggling with depression, even the thought of trying to get help can feel overwhelming. You’re already having a hard time with energy and coping with everyday tasks. Adding more appointments to your schedule can seem like too much. You may have sought treatment in the past but didn’t find the help you wanted.
Unfortunately, as with many illnesses, depression only gets worse if left untreated. In the vast majority of cases, it’s not going to get better on its own.
Read MoreDepression has many symptoms: fatigue, sadness, unrelenting sadness, withdrawal from friends and family, and sleep issues, to name a few. Add these all together, and it’s easy to see how depression can also create creative blocks and self-doubt in those who suffer from it.
You can also lose interest in things you formerly enjoyed when you’re depressed. Even if you want to keep creating, this unwanted loss of interest can also cause creative blocks. And creativity doesn’t just include visual, musical, and literary arts. All of us use creativity to navigate and enjoy our life and its challenges.
Fortunately, there are steps you can take to help overcome creative blocks and self-doubt.
Read MoreIf you struggle with ADHD, you know its chronic symptoms can interfere with all aspects of everyday life. ADHD itself can mean that completing or starting tasks is more difficult for you than for individuals without ADHD.
“But everyone procrastinates!” you may find yourself thinking. “Anyone would rather watch a movie or hang out with friends than bother with tax paperwork or housework!”
And if you don’t have ADHD, you may find the idea of explaining away procrastination due to its symptoms as just an excuse. It may seem like a convenient way to avoid getting things done.
Read MoreChances are you’ve spent time outdoors and noticed a positive feeling afterward. Maybe it was an afternoon at the lake, a long walk in a nature preserve, or even just an evening sitting outdoors in a shady, green yard.
Feeling better after time in nature is not just your imagination. Spending time outdoors is proven to provide vital mood-boosting and calming effects on the brain.
The way we live in the modern world is a very recent occurrence. For millennia, humans did not live the way most of us live now. Urban settings, with their noise, crowding, pollution, and lack of outdoor time and manual work, are not the brain’s natural habitat.
Read MoreWe tend to associate relationship counseling with those that are on the rocks. In reality, counseling is designed to provide strength and awareness—two things that relationships are often in need of.
Relationship counseling can help you and your partner, even if there are no problems in your relationship. Not only will it provide a clear means of communication, but it can help you and your partner better understand and plan for a future together.
Here’s how.
Read MoreWhen the sun goes to bed early, and the white snow turns grungy gray, your mood may follow suit. As a result, knowing how to let winter inspire you might seem like a massive feat.
As the season goes on (and on and on, depending on where you live), the winter doldrums can set in. Your spirit may feel as heavy as do the weight of bulky coats, boots, and scarves wrapped around your body. Maybe you’d like to hibernate to miss it all and wake up when the grass is green again.
The season can have positives, however. Don’t be afraid to take advantage of them. If you’re feeling dreary and uninspired about life in the winter, consider some of these ideas to reignite your inner glow.
Read MoreTo experience any success in life, you have to fail. You have to make mistakes, and you have to learn. Some of the most successful people in history had significant failures to overcome before they reached the top.
Your “failures” don’t have to be something massive. But to find success in the future, you should regard each setback as a learning experience.
That said, it’s time to start looking toward 2020. The New Year is approaching, and it’s the perfect time to set new goals for yourself.
When you’re thinking about setting goals for the future, you can look back on the previous year. Learn from your mistakes and failures. Or think about what you wanted to accomplish last year that you couldn’t. What were your roadblocks?
Let’s take a look at how you can set goals based on what you’ve learned this year and how you can carry them with you into 2020.
Read MoreOf all the trials and tribulations that your relationship may face, an affair can sure hit the hardest.
Affairs happen under any circumstance, with both men and women, regardless of age, happiness, sexuality, or marital status. If people want to have an affair, they will do it.
If your spouse has had an affair, you may find yourself wondering one major thing: Can we make it through this, or will our marriage fall apart?
The answer depends on you. Despite an affair, your marriage can recover. However, it will take time and effort to repair and replace old boundaries. Are you prepared to do that?
Read MoreIt seems that you’ve done everything you can to make your relationship work. You’ve been patient, expressed your concerns, and have tried to work it out with your partner. Maybe you’ve even gone to couples counseling.
If your partner still refuses to change when it comes to showing their true colors, however, it could be time to end the relationship.
That’s often easier said than done. Just because someone doesn’t change their behaviors doesn’t mean you stop loving them instantly. But, if those behaviors have damaged the relationship, it’s essential to get out safely and healthily.
So, what does leaving look like in that situation?
Read MoreAsk anyone who has lived in a large metropolitan area, and they’ll tell you it’s possible to feel alone in a crowd. Amplify the crowd into a global online mob scene, and it gives a new perspective on the meaning of “being connected.”
Modern technology has more than its share of benefits. To discuss the downside of these developments is not the same as saying it’s all bad. What matters, for the betterment of human interaction, is a clearer understanding of its impact.
With that said, here’s a post about why social media has adverse effects, and how we can navigate this unique situation.
Read MoreThe holidays. From TV shows to feature films to stand-up punch lines to more memes than we can count—the holidays are exposed for the mixed bag they genuinely are.
One of the many tricky aspects of this time of year revolves around our eating habits. For some reason, we have all swallowed (in more ways than one) the whole overeating thing.
Read MoreDespite countless songwriters weaving the “getting over you” theme into lyrics, there’s more to life after a break-up than merely moving on from a former partner. You must think of your well-being, too.
No matter the duration or quality of the relationship, ending a romance can set you back significantly. Not only are your emotions likely bleeding out, but a break-up can upset your daily routine and usual support system as well.
It’s essential to cover a handful of fundamental steps to move on from a break-up healthily, i
Remember, though; you don’t have to follow these (or any) steps in order. After all, there’s no norm when it comes to recovering from a break-up. Just make sure you take care of yourself by touching on each one.
Read MorePost Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can happen for many reasons. Chances are, you have most often heard the term used concerning soldiers and veterans who experienced war. Sexual trauma and rape is another frequent cause of PTSD.
But these aren’t the only causes of the condition. It can arise as a result of many different types of trauma: emotional, psychological, natural or humanmade disasters, accidents, surgery, bad breakups, and more.
Events that may not have seemed like a big deal at the time can trigger PTSD later. It can arise from a single event or ongoing, chronically unstable situations. No matter what the cause is, its symptoms can disrupt in the lives of those who experience it.
It might be hard to tease out the symptoms of PTSD in your own life. Sometimes it can resemble depression or anxiety. And while there can be overlap among the three, PTSD is its diagnosis.
As with so many mental health issues, PTSD involves both emotional/psychological symptoms as well as physical symptoms. Here’s how to recognize signs of PTSD in your life.
Read MoreDespite depression being a common mental health condition, it has a stealthy way of entering our lives under the radar.
Feeling off-kilter one moment and frozen the next, you might wonder what hit you. Unfortunately, plenty of reasons exist why depression found its way into your life. Teaming with a therapist can help you identify some of those different causes.
Sometimes, however, depression is like a vapor slipping in through the crack of a window sill. To seal the sills of your life tightly, here are a few recommended lifestyle interventions to start today.
Read MoreMost of us know numerous couples who have divorced or split up after years or even decades together.
Divorce rates leave no doubt as to the unhappiness of many couples. Sometimes their unhappiness was palpable to all. Reasons for the break up may have been self-explanatory, such as infidelity, addiction, or crime.
Sometimes, though, the end of relationships comes as a surprise to everyone other than the couple. However, some couples stay together despite unhappiness in their partnership, for several reasons.
Here are a few of those reasons and what to do about it should you find yourself in a similar situation.
Read MoreMost parents’ top priority is what’s best for their children. Parents are spending more time on their kids than ever before. They’re also spending more money.
Additionally, they want to protect their children from everything. On top of that, kids are involved in endless extracurricular activities.
So, while you’re probably happy to run one child to soccer practice and the other to piano lessons, all of those factors listed above can start to take a toll on your mental and emotional health.
With so much going on, parenting can become less enjoyable and more stressful. As a result, you could be missing out on a lot of the simple joys being a parent can bring.
So, how can you make parenting less stressful and find more satisfaction along the way?
Read MoreThere’s an old saying about being your own worst enemy, and there’s plenty of truth to that. We tend to be our harshest critics. Sometimes, silencing that negative self-talk can be hard to do.
We also live in a world where things such as social media make it easy to compare ourselves to others. It’s bad enough to see models and celebrities with “perfect” bodies, but when you start to see people in your own life with a body to envy, that negative perception of yourself can get even worse.
That’s why developing a positive body image is so important. Not only will it boost your self-esteem, but learning to love your own body can help you on your journey toward loving yourself, as a whole.
With that in mind, let’s look at 10 steps you can start putting into practice to love your body from head to toe.
Read MoreIf you’re like most people, then you’ve probably heard about how self-care is essential and that you should do it.
However, the benefits of self-care are not always that obvious. Of course, it sounds good, and taking better care of yourself only makes sense.
How can self-care truly improve your entire life?
Interestingly, when you effectively practice self-care several critical areas of your life fall into balance. When this happens, you find that both your emotional and physical well-being will significantly improve.
Consider then these four ways that self-care can help to improve your whole life.
Read MoreIf you’re like most parents, your child started high school this year with all the thrill and excitement that many students have when beginning a new chapter in their academic careers.
However, you’ve noticed that lately, their enthusiasm has waned.
Your child appears to have less confidence with school than they did at the start of the year.
Even though they’ve been successful in the past in school, this particular level is asking more of them. Rather than a curriculum issue or problem with a specific subject, this struggle often stems from a lack of confidence.
If your child is struggling to develop the skills to be confident in school, here’s how you can help.
Read MoreEating disorders are nothing to take lightly, especially when it comes to teenagers.
Teens typically develop eating disorders for a variety of reasons, including societal pressure or their desire to be “perfect.”
The early signs of an eating disorder include skipping meals, exercising excessively, an unhealthy obsession/focus on food, or going to the bathroom immediately after meals.
An eating disorder can lead to many different health problems, including heart or kidney failure.
It’s crucial to protect your teen from an eating disorder, whether you’ve started to notice signs or not. Use the following three tips to work with your teen and make sure they understand the risks involved with this unhealthy condition.
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