How to Recognize the Signs of PTSD in Your Life
Post 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.
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Lifestyle Interventions That May Keep You from Developing Depression
Despite 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.
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Why Do Unhappy Couples Continue Staying Together?
Most 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.
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How to Make Parenting Less Stressful and More Satisfying and Enjoyable
Most 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?
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Developing a Positive Body Image: 10 Steps to Loving Your Own Body
There’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.
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4 Ways Self-Care Can Improve Your Entire Life
If 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.
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School Difficulties: How to Help Your Child Develop the Skills to Feel More Confident
If 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.
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3 Tips to Protect Your Teen from an Eating Disorder
Eating 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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Is Your Competitive Marriage Making You Both Miserable? – 6 Helpful Tips
You’ve probably been jealous of your partner at least once during your marriage.
Maybe they are a faster runner, dashing through a 10K while you gasped for air at mile two. Or, perhaps your partner has enjoyed more career success than you have.
Unfortunately, jealousy can quickly cause your relationship to devolve into a competitive marriage. Instead of working together as one unit, each of you is trying to “one-up” the other.
Whether it is over careers or something else, there is an inequality in the marriage that breeds resentment.
Consider these helpful tips if your competitive marriage is making you both miserable.
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Bullying Prevention: How to Empower Bystanders to Act
There are times and places for aggressive behavior.
Aggression in the abstract is neither good nor bad.
But when it’s deliberate, planned out, and ongoing, aggression is known by another label: bullying.
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Want a Healthy Morning Routine? – Consider Adding These Great Habits
If you are like many other Americans, you are probably not a morning person. So, when you struggle to get up and get going early in the day or find yourself hitting the snooze button a dozen times, your morning routine could use a bit of a makeover.
While it’s true that not everyone can naturally be a morning person, everyone can learn to make the most of their mornings and start the day off on a healthier, more positive note.
Creating a healthy morning routine takes time and practice, but you will find the results are well worth the effort.
For healthier and happier mornings, consider adding some of these great habits to your routine.
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Creating a Trusting Relationship: 4 Essential Steps
There are several important keys to any healthy relationship.
One of the biggest foundations is trust. Without trust, a relationship can rarely survive, and it certainly can’t grow.
So, how can you continue to build trust in your relationship?
It takes time, effort, and consistency. But, if you and your partner are both committed to creating a trusting relationship, it can make you stronger than ever before as a couple.
Here are four essential steps for success.
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Is Your Teen Just Moody or Something More? – 6 Parenting Tips
Let’s face it, even on a good day you might feel that you need to consult with a psychic to get an idea of what your teenager is thinking.
Of course, teens are known for feeling moody, sullen, or experiencing a swing towards suddenly having a lot of energy.
Yet, how can you tell if your teen is just struggling with moodiness or something more?
Depression is a common problem with teens, and you want to be able to support them as best you can. Therefore, it’s necessary to dig a little deeper and pick up on the subtle clues that mean the difference between moodiness and depression.
Consider these six parenting tips.
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How to Understand the Link Between Social Anxiety and Communication Technology
As our world becomes increasingly more digital, more and more people find themselves struggling with social anxiety.
At first, it may seem counterintuitive for technology that encourages interaction to lead to a reduced ability to actually communicate.
When viewed more critically, however, the relationship makes perfect sense. The more time we spend in front of our screens and hiding behind our online profiles, the farther away from real communications we move.
The link between social anxiety and communication technology is actually very strong. If we are to understand this link, we must first recognize how technology has reshaped our communication behaviors.
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How to Protect Your Relationship from the Roommate Rut
Whether you’ve been married or just living together for a long time as a couple, no relationship is totally immune from the “roommate rut.”
Sometimes called the “roommate phase” of a relationship, this kind of rut occurs when you simply get caught up in the natural rhythm of your companionship.
For example, when you were first dating your spouse or partner, how did you act? Were you always showing off the best version of yourself? Did you dress nicely? Did you do more exciting things before than you do together now?
When you live together as a couple, it’s easy to fall into the trap of treating each other less like romantic partners and more like roommates. Here are a few ways to avoid getting stuck in this phase?
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Phobias: What Are Some of the Most Common? And What Brings Them About?
Have you ever experienced an extreme, overwhelming fear that changed the way you lived your life?
Severe, irrational fears or aversions that cause feelings of extreme panic or terror are known as phobias.
Phobias are considered mental disorders and are much more serious than average or temporary fears. People who suffer from phobias are unable to function normally when confronted with their particular phobia. Additionally, they will often go to great lengths to avoid any type of contact with the object of their phobia.
If your fears have dictated your daily routine or choices, you may be suffering from a phobia.
Here are a few of the most common phobias.
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Depression: What Are Common Types and How Do They Differ?
Depression can have a big impact on how you think, feel, and behave. Generally, most people think about depression either as something they can handle on their own or something they need help with.
Keep in mind, not all depression is the same. People handle certain types differently and some symptoms are more severe than others. Whatever type of depression you’re going through, though, it’s easy to feel hopeless and not know what to expect or where to turn.
Being able to hone in on specific symptoms can give you more answers about what you might be going through. And understanding the different types of depression and their signs can make it easier to find the right treatment.
Let’s learn more about some of the most common types of depression.
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Secondary Infertility: Coping with Feelings of Grief and Loss
You and your partner have been trying for a second child for a while. However, at your last doctor’s appointment, you’ve been told that you’re infertile.
At first, you just brush off the news. “Impossible!” you think.
After all, you already had one child. How could you possibly have problems with fertility now? It just can’t be.
Yet, ignoring these deeper emotions of secondary infertility and sweeping them under the rug won’t’ make them go away. In fact, without help, the pain of grieving this loss can turn your whole life upside down.
So, what’s next? First, consider what you’re up against.
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Here’s What You Can Expect from EMDR Therapy
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) has been around for several decades. It’s possible that you may have stumbled across it while researching different therapy methods. But, most people don’t know what to expect from EMDR therapy.
Admittedly, it is a bit unique and sometimes hard to understand how it works. In short, EMDR offers you the opportunity to address and resolve past trauma.
Accomplished in a two-part series, first, you work with a compassionate therapist trained in EMDR since they’ll know how to guide you through this process. And next, you participate in a step-by-step procedure (usually) over the course of several weeks.
These two facets make it possible for you to deal with the trauma that may have been affecting you for far too long. But that’s just an overview. Here’s what you can expect from EMDR Therapy.
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5 Ways the Outdoors Can Benefit Your Mental Health
Have you ever felt the need to step outside and get some fresh air during a stressful experience? Research has shown time and time again that spending time outside is great for both our physical and mental health.
If your mental health, in particular, has been struggling lately, you would likely benefit from spending less time in front of a screen and more time enjoying all that Mother Nature has to offer. Even just short bursts of time outside several times a week can greatly improve mood and energy levels.
Discover five ways the outdoors can benefit your mental health.
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