Blog
How to Tell Your Parents You are Suicidal
Suicidal thoughts and feelings can be frightening. Even if you aren’t sure you really want to end your life, you may not know how to tell your parents. They may know you’ve been struggling, but they may not guess you felt this hopeless. It’s understandable to hold back. You may worry about their reaction or want to avoid upsetting them. But when you keep your suicidal thoughts and feelings to yourself, you can feel isolated and helpless.
Talking to your parents can be the first step toward feeling safer and better about your life. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but the tips below can help you get started.
- Describe your other problems first
It can be hard to talk about feelings, especially when everything seems negative and overwhelming. Talking about suicide may be the last thing you want to do. The painful feelings can be so real when you’re sharing them with someone else. You may feel embarrassed, ashamed, or like nobody can help you.
It may help to start talking about other problems first. After you share some of your stories, you may...
more
4 Subtle Exercises to Calm Anxiety in Public
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 40 million adults over the age of 18 suffer from an anxiety disorder. If you are one of them, you know how difficult your life can feel most days.
When anxiety strikes, the world around us can become a sort of funhouse, only not that much fun. It’s important to be able to self-soothe in these instances. But how can you calm an anxiety attack subtly when you’re out in public?
more
How Counseling Can Help You Reach Your Goals in the New Year
If you struggle to set goals, let alone reach them, you are definitely not alone. In fact, it is thought that roughly 92% of the population has found it hard to stick to goals. This constant cycle of trying to set beneficial life or health goals, but never quite reaching them, can ultimately lead to depression.
That’s because reaching goals is empowering and helps us feel we are in charge of our life. When we don’t reach goals, we feel powerless and even hopeless that our lives can change for the better!
more
5 Strategies to Calm Your Anxiety Quickly
When you live with an anxiety disorder, any moment can become one that creates a slow-rising panic within you. Life is normal one second and the next, you feel your chest tighten and your heart begin to race. You may begin to hyperfocus on future events and find yourself getting lost in “what-ifs.”
To make matters worse, you may then begin to berate yourself for allowing the panic to get the best of you and begin to believe that all of those what-ifs are indisputable facts.
Luckily there are many powerful tools and techniques you can use to manage your anxiety effectively.
more
Telehealth for Support Group Therapy
Many of us continue to try and make sense of this new world we live in – one in which the novel coronavirus dictates much of our daily routine. Some states are still mandating social distancing and wearing of masks. And many people are still out of work or working remotely for the unforeseeable future.
This quarantine has certainly made life more difficult in many ways. One of those ways is making it difficult for some people to continue to get the mental therapy they need. Luckily, more and more therapists are offering their services through telehealth (telemedicine).
This means you can still receive your one-on-one or group therapy support via online therapy sessions.
more
5 Ways to Effectively Manage Anxiety
If you suffer from anxiety, you know that awful feeling when heart races, you start to sweat, and you feel like you just want to run. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders are the most common form of mental illness in the United States, affecting roughly 40 million adults. While anxiety can feel debilitating, there are ways you can manage it.
more
Pets Are Better Than Medication
“Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them, and filling an emptiness we didn’t ever know we had.”
– Thom Jones
For many of us, our home is just a house unless there is something with four legs and a tail sharing the space with us. Our pets are not only cuddly and cute, they give us unconditional love.
But it turns out our pets actually offer us more than “just” unconditional love; they seem to also have the ability to help our physical and mental well-being.
Research has found that the bond we share with our animals can do everything from improve our cardiovascular health to lower our cholesterol and decrease our blood pressure.
Beyond these physical health benefits, our animal companions can help our mental and emotional life as well. Here are some ways your pet is better than medication.
more5 Foods to Keep Your Immune System Strong
As the events of COVID-19 continue to unfold, many of us are focusing on how we can keep ourselves and our families as healthy as possible. While social distancing and increased hand washing can be very effective at stopping the spreading of the Corona virus, it is equally important to keep our immune systems strong.
moreHow to Cope with the Stress and Anxiety Caused by COVID-19
If you’re like most people, you are doing your best to stay calm during COVID-19 pandemic. But that can feel incredibly difficult at times. When not worrying about friends and loved one’s health, there’s also the conflicting information provided by the media and the economic ramifications of the virus that have people on edge.
more
Parenting Education and Support
There is no official training manual for performing the world’s most important job – raising children. Every parent embarks on the journey from day one with generalized expectations of what the future will hold, but no way of knowing the details of what lies ahead. Parenting is a “learn-as-you-go” experience, but that doesn’t mean that parents should address it blindly. Parenting education and support therapy is helpful for adjusting to the demands of raising children and adapting to the evolving environmental dynamics within the home.
more