Online counselling or therapy, once known as an alternative therapy, has now become a normal practice ideal for both the clients as well as the therapists. It is appreciated for bridging the gap that traditional face to face therapy process has and given solution to multiple issues of face to face traditional therapy procedure such as convenience, accessibility, affordability and others.

Convenience

Online therapy is more convenient than traditional. This kind of therapy lessens the burden of setting up and fixing appointments that are common in traditional settings. It also helps the therapist to offer their services to more and more clients as appointments can be scheduled easily over 24 hours and increase the reach to a larger geographical region.

Online therapy is a more preferred choice for those individuals who feel uncomfortable in face to face session with an unknown person speaking about their problems and sufferings because of the social phobias, anxiety disorders, or agoraphobias.

Accessibility

Web or Online counselling is accessible easily for those who want to avail it. Online therapy overpowers the obstructions that may prevent someone from seeking help from a therapist.

For instance, people who reside in rural or remote areas or are physically disabled or those who cannot leave their home because of the children can easily access the online therapy services conveniently. For people who reside in such areas where there is no mental health clinics can get the benefit of online counselling.

Online counselling is also effective for encouraging children and teenagers for therapy sessions as they seem more comfortable using the internet for counselling. Anyone with access to the internet can use online therapy services conveniently. Sometimes if the therapist is not available they can also send an email with the perception like they are interacting with their therapist when writing the email.

Affordability

Web or Online counselling has been proved to be more economical for both the client and the therapist. Particularly for the therapists who cannot afford or are not willing to rent any commercial space to lower the overhead costs for capital, commuting property and administration processes when comparing with traditional counselling services.

Everyday life seems more challenging to a person dealing with depression. Be it socializing, meeting friends, going to work, or even just getting out of your bed may feel like a big struggle.

Here are a few things that you can do to deal with these symptoms of depression and improve your lifestyle.

1.      Have a Support Network

The most essential things you can do to help yourself with depression, except medication and therapy, is to have strong social support for yourself.

For a few, this may be like building stronger bonds with family or friends. Understanding that you can count on caring for loved ones will also help to go a long way towards improving your condition.

For others, their depression support circle can be the key. It can be a social group in your area or an online therapist who meets your needs and understands your concerns.

2.      Reduce Your Stress

When you stress about things, your body creates more of a hormone known as cortisol. For a short time, it can be a good thing as it helps you to deal with whatever is causing you the stress in life.

But in the long run, however, it can cause several harms for you, as well as depression. So reducing stress will reduce your risk of becoming depressed.

3.      Improve Your Sleep Hygiene

Mood and sleep are closely related. As per studies people with major depressive disorder experience sleep disturbances.

Sometimes, you may feel you just can't fall asleep easily. Or possibly you may struggle to get out of bed in the morning as you feel exhausted most of the time.

Maintaining sleep hygiene is the key to improve the quality of your sleep.

Turn off your devices TV or mobiles at least an hour before you go to sleep. Dim light and try to read a book or use any other relaxing activity.

If you do work in bed, or even in your bedroom, it can cause you to connect your bed with stress, rather than comfort.

4.      Improve Your Eating Habits

There is a direct link between your diet and mental health. As per studies improving nutrition can save you and even treat your mental illness.

A lot of brain-essential nutrients can cure depression. For example, a study found that zinc deficiency can increase symptoms of depression. So improving your diet helps you to reduce your symptoms.

5.      Stop Negative Thoughts

Depression just not makes you feel low but also causes negative thinking. Changing negative thoughts, however, can help improve your mood.

6.      Beat Procrastination

The signs of depression, like fatigue and trouble, concentrating, make procrastination tempting.

Putting things off oils depression and can lead to feeling guilt, stress, and worried.

It is essential to fix goals and manage your time. Make short-term goals and effort hard to complete the priorities done first. Every job you complete successfully will help you break through the pattern of procrastination.

7.      Get a The grip on Your Everyday Responsibilities

Depression can make you find it challenging to complete household responsibilities, like doing the dishes or paying your bills.

But a load of paperwork or stack of un-cleaned dishes, and floors hid in dust or dirty clothes will only amplify your feelings of worthlessness.

So without making any delay, take control of your daily tasks. Start with small work first and one at a time. Getting up and moving will help you feel better in itself.

8.      Make Your Wellness Toolbox

A wellness toolbox can help you calm yourself when you feel down.

Think of things that make you happy. And when you feel down, try one of these activities.

Cuddling your pet, taking a warm bath, listening to favorite music, gardening, or reading a good book can be your tools to help feel good.

Create your own list of your favorite activities and try when you feel bad. 

If you are not able to help yourself and depression is making you feel suicidal thoughts, then its time to seek depression counseling professional help, talk to a therapist nearby, or on online counseling as soon as possible. 

It is not easy to move on from the pain, after a painful break-up with your ex. But after a heart-break, it is normal to feel gloomy. There is no vulnerable or weaker time in someone’s life than that after a breakup. Remaining strong post a breakup can seem to be impossible.

No matter what the situations, it is hard for everyone. 

Although in some cases it can be significantly harder than others, for instance for those being cheated on or left for the other woman. In fact who broke up with whom or it was mutual, does not always matter, it is painful and far too easy to get drawn back into a position that you know is not good for you. 

That is the reason why relationship breakups hardly stick at first attempt. Usually, partners hurt each other a few times before it finally happens. It is a torture, and the sad part is that we do it to ourselves.

Here are the tips about how someone can stay strong after a breakup and move on to better things.

Let Yourself Cry

You have to release painful emotions out or they will stay to haunt you and eat you alive. Denying your feelings can make things worse. So let cry, feel sad, let yourself be angry and grieve with pain. Allow yourself until you feel sorry for yourself and be sure to pick yourself up and make a resolution to move on.

Write It Out.

Writing is extremely therapeutic. No matter how close you were there is always something left out to say. Doesn’t matter how many times you said it out you will never feel satisfied this is where writing will work.

Get Support from Closed Ones

Seek out emotional support from your family and friends. Don’t do it alone, it makes everything ten times worse. When your significant one is not there in your life, you may feel a big deep hole in your heart. And the way to fill it is to get love and support from the people in your life.

Follow the No Contact Rule

It is would be impossible for you to stay strong if you still are in contact with your ex after a breakup. Stop. If you wish to move on, you must cut off contact. If it seems too much to bear, then just do not think of it as forever. But stay away from contact. Your focus should be on moving on and staying strong.

Forgive and Move On

For you it may not be possible to forgive them, but who cares? Move on as this is not about him, it’s more about you. Holding on anger and bitterness is slow poison and you will hurt yourself only. So let it go. Forgive and Forget to move on.

It is very normal sometimes to feel a bit down, anxious or stressed, as daily issues related to career and society can fuel temporary bursts of sorrows and make you feel a bit “off.” While it is natural not to feel best every day if you are obsessed by a relentless sense of anguish that stops you to enjoy the things you love the most, then it is the time to look closely at your feelings.

Although the very common sign of depression is a deep sense of despair, still depression many times also influences people in other ways. Not every depressed person experiences have the same symptoms and the intensity can be different depending on the circumstances of an individual or person.

On the other hand, Feeling sad is a normal human response to difficult times and sooner or later goes away. This sense can be assumed a little part of the depression, and few people with depression also may not be sad at all. 

If you find it difficult to determine whether you are depressed or only sad for some reasons, here are some points to think through. As per the therapists, if you are having any of these symptoms for approximately half a month, then chances are that you have depression.

Lack of Concentration

If you find it difficult to meet with commitments, deadlines, or routine errands appear to slip-up and seem fuzzy, it can also be a sign of depression. 

Trouble concentrating, memorizing or decisions making is an outcome of your mind being preoccupied with feelings of sadness that leads to blurred thinking and perhaps certain strange and out-of-character resolutions.

Increased or decreased Appetite

As depression makes you reserved and checked out, it can result in loss of appetite. Forgetting your meals or losing interest in preparing or cooking for yourself, is the common symptoms. 

The opposite can also occur, you may experience improved hunger driven to overeating, as the body may use food binges as a basis of comfort.

Irresistible Sense of Fear

Another symptom is panic thoughts or feeling anxious. More than the worrying about new circumstances, anxiety is an endless sense of obsessive and panicked thoughts that may cause physical symptoms as well, like an unstable heartbeat, sweating and sleep problems.

Losing Interest Hobbies and Activities

Possibly you have always planned for a Monday-night dance class or scrapbooking many loving memories, but when the day comes you don’t find that motivation or longing to do it. If this results in avoiding lots of outings and experiences, then it is something serious. 

Depression can make you unconcerned about your interests and hobbies that once provided you joy, therefore stopping these activities that could improve your mood. Depression Counselling helps you to understand how to avoid such negative thought and come back to normal life again.

These are only a few possible symptoms of depression, at any stage your routine life and normal activity gets disturbed by these major symptoms, which means assessing further. Depression is not a significant weakness or a character flaw and is not something you can simply shake. 

If you be certain that you are experiencing any symptoms of depression, it is essential to seek out professional help. A therapist or psychologist can help you by talking to you on your issues and by teaching you to how to acknowledge your emotions and cope up with the negative thoughts.

Relationships can be assumed as a difficult recipe. A recipe needs certain ingredients essential to create a delicious and excellent dish. While baking or cooking, it is necessary to follow the directions and take the measurements, set forth by the recipes.

If you use the wrong ingredients, or miss any ingredients, or use inappropriate amount, then you are risking messing up the dish. Your recipes will either taste a bit off or totally destroyed, rendering it uneatable. Relationships work same as recipes; they need a lot of ingredients to work and in the appropriate quantity are important.

The incorrect ingredients or wrong mixture of these ingredients can make a relationship unhealthy, unstable, or even abusive that leads to a painful break-up. So people need to be careful about what they put into their relationship to make them healthy and long-lasting partnerships.

Here are some ingredients that are necessary if you want to have a successful relationship:

Communication-  Healthy communication is one of the most important ingredients or component to have a healthy relationship with your partner. Lack of communication or miscommunication may lead to relationship failure.

Communication lets couples to stay on the same page and resolve any conflict in effective and productive ways. Listening to each other’s concern is important to value and hear individual feelings. If you feel you are not able to communicate your concerns to your partner then you can also consider relationship counselling experts to know the effective ways for putting your concerns to your partner.

Trust- Trust is the foundation of any relationship. Honesty, Transparency and clarity are vital to build and maintain trust in a relationship. Trust is built on dependability and reliability and does not come easily, particularly for a person who has been deceived earlier. Trust is fragile and broken once can be very hard to get back together. It is about being there protecting one another’s hearts and keeping promises.  

Intimacy- Physical and emotional intimacies are also important for a healthy relationship. Emotional intimacy helps a couple stay connected and sync with each other. It helps in developing a sense of safety and security with each other. Physical intimacies like holding hands, cuddling, and physical relations should be the top priority to preserve the romance in a relationship.

Working Together and Sharing the Responsibilities – The key to a healthy and successful relationship is to work together share responsibilities of household and parenting. Working together allows couples to create a stronger connection and to get over obstacles and difficult situations together.

Respect- Having respect for each other is significant to develop a healthy relationship. Partners are required to respect each other’s opinions, thoughts, aspirations and dreams. Individuals in a relationship have to respect each other’s concern despite being disagreed with them.

Friendship- Enjoying your partner’s company, laughing with them, and having fun together as true friends help you to build a strong bond with your partner. Building romance and love upon a strong friendship make a relationship, long-lasting.  

Recipes can be complex and challenging sometimes. Even most skilled chefs and bakers use their creativity and instincts to prepare a dish. Relationships are so much like that. Relationships are messy, tricky and complicated. To make them happening these necessary ingredients needed to be present in the right amounts. Creativity and instincts also are an important part to have a healthy relationship as every relationship is different not the same. 

According to a family and marriage therapist – A true relationship is created on trust, respect and equality, a marriage and family therapist. Where partners can easily share what they need and how they feel.

They share a deep bond of security and protection. They always have each other’s backs. Throughout the worst times—from feeling sick, to grieve about terrible loss, they both are there to support each other’s sides.

According to a family marriage therapist- in a true relationship one where can feel free to be yourself. Feel accepted, connected, wanted and cherished. And you make your partner feel the same.

A meaningful relationship does not just happen simply. Sometimes, the ingredients required are already there. But generally, they make meaning, independently as individuals by making it assured we are being clear, thoughtful and compassionate; and as a couple together giving priority to the relationship with constructive communication and fighting fair.

In different words, if you want to know how couples can create and cultivate meaningful relationships, find the tips below:

Make conflict Nonviolent – A very common mistaken belief is that fights are a sign that you are not in a good relationship. Though, it is the opposite that relationships that do not have fights and conflict usually have years of rejection of their needs and pushing everything under the mat.

In a healthy and meaningful relationship, both partners navigate conflict constructively. But that does not mean cursing, yelling, blaming your partner or getting defensive. But it means to be present and available to your partner. This means acknowledging the pain of your partner and comforting them.

Experts suggest that conflict between partners is an opportunity to make your bond stronger. When a partner tells another about the insecurities they have like I feel that I don’t matter to you anymore, then another one should apologise and explain their importance by taking advantage of this opportunity.

Explore your Role - Many people try to run away from conflicts by thinking that how terrible, offensive their partner is and how poorly they behaved.

Instead, thinking that, try to put the spotlight on yourself. Because chances are that you also did not behave that great. For example, one may ask themselves such questions as how could they have handled it differently or could have contained themself better, or have controlled themself differently. How things could have been said more relationally or respectfully.

If couples realize their behavioural offences and their role, they will start finding themselves in a meaningful relationship.

Listen with your full heart - Meaningful relationships require emotional support from each other. Listen to what your partner wants and be honest and curious about how they feel and what they think. This is not always good to prove a point or to be right. When it comes to listening, listen with the intention of understanding where it coming from, and set aside your agenda.

Probing is good in a relationship to understand what makes them feel that they don’t matter. Understand well and clear the misunderstanding.

Talk your heart out -Be vulnerable, especially at the time of conflict. It may mean saying that you are hurt right now and apologize that you were not there for them when they were alone. Assure them that you want to fix this and will work together with them. If there is a lack of trust then you can ask a close friend or relative to mediate or for a non-biased approach take the help of relationship counselling.

Provide a roadmap. To have a meaningful relationship with your partner you need to be transparent and specific about your needs. Tell your partner what comforts you and what can make you feel comfortable when you feel insecure.

It may be the case, that you do not know, that your needs are the priority for your partner. Lots of people do not. This is why it is suggested to check in with yourself and identify what you want or what you need and express to your partner. Because until you do not know, what are your needs and desires are, you can’t expect your partner to know.

Again, meaningful relationships are those that are sincere, safe and honest. Partners are genuine and vulnerable with one another. They empathize and work over the conflict, and use it to give a boost to their strong bond.

Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day.

Enjoy the moments you're living in, they don't last forever.

What others think about you is not important. What you think about yourself means everything.

Keep the Faith. The most amazing things in life tend to happen right at the moment you're about to give up hope.

Sometimes, things just aren't meant to be. Sometimes, no matter how bad you want it, you gotta let it go.

There are many things in life to be thankful for, so don't let one ungrateful individual ruin your entire day.

God only gives three answers to prayer: 1. 'Yes!' 2. 'Not yet.' 3. 'I have something better in mind.

The harder the life, the stronger you'll become. The stronger you become, the easier the life will be.

Live life today and deal with tomorrow when it comes. We can't control how our life begins or ends. We can only control how we live it.

"We CAN change our lives. We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish."  - Tony Robbins

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

People don't always need advice. Sometimes all they really need is a hand to hold, an ear to listen, and a heart to understand them.

Making someone smile when they're feeling down is one of the best feelings in the world.

Faith is having a positive attitude about what you can do and not worrying at all about what you can't do.

Never give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, you can never go wrong.

Your words mean nothing when your actions are the complete opposite.

Sometimes the only thing that people see is what you did when in fact they should be looking at why you did it.

Honestly, I'm glad I met everyone in my life. The good and the bad. The good make me thankful, the bad make me learn my lessons.

I'm sad, hurt, angry, mad, disappointed. But you know what? I'll put on a happy face and move on. It will hurt but I will survive.

Believe in yourself, push your limits, and do whatever it takes to conquer your goals.

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