10 Ways To Cope With Depression

If you’re struggling with symptoms of depression, there are many different strategies that can help promote positive thinking and alleviate stress. While seeing a therapist is always an option, the same types of treatment and management strategies do not work for everyone. Below are 10 things that you can try to help cope with symptoms of depression. 

1. Make a lifestyle change

   Did you know that your lifestyle choices can affect your mood? Making small lifestyle changes can help you manage your mood and treatment beyond medications. Think about what small change you can make to make a big impact. Start with baby steps!

2. Keep a journal

   Expressing yourself through writing is a healthy way to let go of thoughts and feelings that may be troubling you, and keeping a daily or weekly journal is a great tactic to manage stress. Even writing for only a few minutes a day can completely change your mood!

3. Find ways to boost your self image

   One of the most common effects of depression is low self esteem, so being able to feel better about yourself is a key part of a treatment plan. Practicing positive thinking, focusing on your best qualities, and spending time with friends can help boost your self image and get you on the way to feeling your self.

4. Stay involved

   Those struggling with depression often feel like they want to withdraw from social situations, but social connections can actually prevent downspirals and further isolation. Try to push yourself to stay involved with friends if you can.

5. Keep a schedule

   Keeping a routine is a helpful coping mechanism for depression as it helps keep motivation at a steady level. Even just scheduling one small activity to do every day can make a huge difference in productivity and self esteem.

6. Get some sleep

   Sleep is one of the most underrated coping mechanisms for depression, as rest is essential to a good mood. Try to go to bed and wake up on a regular schedule for maximum benefit.

7. Ask for help

   Friends and family can do wonders to bring you up when you are feeling down. Don’t be afraid to ask your loved ones for help - they love you and will most likely have no problem being there when you need them!

8. Eat foods that make your brain and body happy

   A good diet and nutrition regime can help you feel healthy, give you energy, and even change the chemical composition of your brain. Adding elements such as Omega-3 fatty acids to your diet can help keep your brain healthy and reduce the symptoms of depression.

9. Get some exercise

   Exercise brings many psychological benefits that can be essential to those struggling with depression. Not only does it help you sleep better, but exercise elevates your mood and gives you a sense of accomplishment which can make a huge difference to your day.

10. Work with a therapist

    For most people, seeing a therapist plays an important part in overcoming their depression symptoms. A therapist will be able to provide you with techniques and strategies to help you with the 9 other suggestions above!

If you need help developing a plan for dealing with your symptoms of depression, our experts are always ready to talk. Contact our counsellors in Victoria BC to set up your first session. 

What Do You Need Most Right Now?

Are you having a bad day...or week? Here are some useful strategies to turn it around:

• Identify what has gone wrong or why you are in a bad mood. Sometimes recognizing that you’re in a funk will be enough to pull you out.

• Examine your emotions: What is beneath your immediate emotional reactions?

• Practice looking for the silver lining. Our brains are evolutionarily wired to look for threats which means that modern day minor annoyances (e.g. traffic!) can be interpreted as threats which leads to a negativity bias where we are focused on things that go wrong. To break free of this neural rut you can train yourself to notice when things go right. This can take form in many ways - many find it useful to use a gratitude journal where they write down a few things each day that they are grateful for.

• Create a practice of empathy and give others the benefit of the doubt. For example, if someone is giving you a hard time, imagine what their stressors might be - maybe they have a sick child, money problems, or something else.

• Cut yourself some slack! Personal change takes time and practice. Try using your bad moods to practice some self-compassion. Try to regularly check in with yourself throughout the day, and ask, "What do I need most right now?" It's possible that a glass of water or a quick walk may be all you need to raise your mood.

• Zoom out! Take a look at your past experiences of bad moods, days or rough patches. How did they end up working out? Remind yourself that this is temporary.

Contact me to booking a Victoria BC counselling session.

How To Handle Public Anxiety

If you suffer from an anxiety disorder, you’re far from alone. You are probably familiar with how difficult it can be to have an anxiety attack - but one of the worst places for this to occur is in public. When your mind is spinning, the last thing you need is to be surrounded by strangers as you try to calm yourself. Below are some strategies to help you cope with public anxiety in a subtle and manageable way: 

1. Just breathe

   Breath work is a great place to start when you feel any anxiety coming on. Start by focusing all of your attention on your breathing and try to take slow deep breaths. You can do this by inhaling for a count of 4, holding the breath for a count of 4, and then exhaling for another count of 4. Repeat this to help calm your system.

2. Talk to yourself

   Use the voice of reason with yourself as a reminder that you are safe and not in harm’s way. Repeat these words over and over to remind yourself that all is well. Talking to yourself can help you calm down - especially if you are not with a trusted friend who might otherwise talk you down.

3. Visualize

   When you start to feel anxious, try visualizing a scene that calms you. This might be your living room, a quiet beach, the basketball court, or your favourite park. Put yourself in that scene by carefully visualizing every detail including sounds and smells that might be in that space.

4. Listen

   A great way to distract yourself from oncoming anxiety is to listen to your surroundings instead of your thoughts. Listen to every sound in your environment, and be sure to identify each one. To give these sounds your full attention, you can’t be thinking about anything else - and this helps you forget your worries and calm down.

5. Carry essential oils

   Many people have success with using essential oils and aromatherapy to calm themselves in anxiety producing situations. Try to keep a small bottle of your favourite essential oil (lavender is great for calming) in your bag so that you can inhale the scent or rub the oil itself on your temples. 

When anxiety strikes in public, it can be a terrifying experience, but you don’t have to let it control you. Try the above tips to help manage feelings of public anxiety, and book a session with our Victoria BC counsellors to discuss additional strategies that can help you manage your anxiety one day at a time. 

A Daily Exercise To Boost Your Week

Here’s a daily exercise that will super boost your week!

A simple (yet effective!) exercise to build self-confidence and heart strength:
• Find a friend or family member and ask them, "What have you seen in me that you value and appreciate?” 
• Try to do this at least once every day this week 
• Keep track of the responses
• On Sunday review and reflect on your list. Is there anything that surprises you? Why?

You can also take this exercise a step further and volunteer an answer to this question to at least one friend or family member per day.

Contact me to learn more about my counselling services.

Narcissism and Its Discontents

In the current political and social environment narcissism has become a normalized social condition that often represents an affinity for financial and professional success. Not surprisingly, a lot of clients share stories with me of how a person with narcissist personality traits has negatively impacted their life. This often leads to questions of how to set healthy boundaries with these people, or how to decide whether or when to sever the relationship. Of course each person’s work is based on their individual context, but the following TedTalk (presented by the author of Should I Stay or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship With a Narcissist) is a must watch!

A few of my favourite pieces:

“Narcissistic patterns undercut the core of what’s necessary for healthy relationships. These things include mutuality, respect, compassion, patience, genuineness, honesty, and trust – things that are simply not possible with a system or person that is narcissistic.”

“If someone is not willing to recognize that they need to make a change because they are hurting other people, there is little likelihood that they will change, but there IS likelihood that they will continue to blame other people, the world, or you for their bad behavior.”

“Start giving the best of ourselves to our healthy and reciprocal relationships and really only give the bare minimum to the relationships that aren’t helping us grow.”

What If There’s Nothing Wrong With You?

Many clients come to me because they struggle with low self-confidence and anxiety issues which are often rooted in their childhood. This Tedtalk, presented by Susan Henkels, MSW, is a clear demonstration of how people develop self-judgments and anxieties in response to their early childhood experiences. She described how her father’s criticisms of her (which began at age 4) caused her to “keep her mouth shut” and close her heart. She explained that she lost her voice and self-confidence in turn for safety from her father’s continuous judgment and blame. She internalized all sorts of “wrongs” with herself until much later in her life when she began to ask herself in the mirror each day, “What if there’s nothing wrong with me?”. Through this practice she chose to leave negative self-beliefs behind and opened her heart to strength and fulfillment. This practice sounds like a great way to begin to unravel self-limiting beliefs!

What does your inner critic say? How does it silence you? Is it time to take your voice back? Watch this TedTalk and then give it a try – ask yourself in the mirror each day, “What if there’s nothing wrong with me?” and then strive to live each day into that possibility.

Contact Strength in Heart for more information on how to regain your voice and the strength in your heart.

Deep Breathing Exercise

"I breathe in my courage and exhale my fear".
- Quote from Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To breathe is a basic human function that can detox and revitalize a body in a few short minutes, but most of us don’t take full advantage of it. Deep breathing helps lower your blood pressure, calm your heart rate and aid digestion. Breath is also connected to emotions and mood. Think about when you feel anger or fear – what is your breath like in those moments? I bet it’s short and shallow! If you change your breath to be slow, deep and consistent in stressful situations you can actually change your mood – in a sense you exhale your anger or fear and are more able to remain calm. Breath work can be a great tool to work against anxiety. One method that I like is “square breathing”, give it a try!

1. Relax and focus on your breath as best you can
2. Breath into your stomach for 4 seconds (or longer if you like)
3. Hold your breath for 4 seconds
4. Exhale evenly for 4 seconds
5. Hold your empty lungs for 4 seconds
6. Repeat until you feel content

Contact me for more information on my counselling services in Victoria BC.

The Power of an Open Heart

This past Saturday evening I had the pleasure of attending the Vancouver Island Public Interest Research Group (VIPIRG) conference keynote panel event: “Visionary Women: Inspiring Stories, Limitless Boundaries” a conversation with Lee Maracle, Mayor Lisa Helps, and Reeta Tremblay. The event focused on the paths that these trailblazing women have taken to their many achievements and leadership roles. As I listened to their stories I recognized large differences in their backgrounds, but was struck by one important commonality amongst them all – a high level of strength and resiliency in their hearts! Even when faced with oppression, violence and adversity, these women remained courageous and heart centered in their lives and work.

When asked what she would most like audience members to take away from her panel contributions, Lisa Helps said for people to keep their hearts open in difficult situations so that they can connect with each other to effect positive change. This reminded me of something that Michael Singer wrote in “the untethered soul”: “When you close your heart or close your mind, you hide in the darkness within you. There is no light. There is no energy. There is nothing flowing. The energy is still there but it can’t get in…That is what it means to be “blocked” (2007; p. 43). In other words, the power of an open heart is that it allows positive energy and strength to flow within you, and to and from others. It is true that life can be tough which can cause the strength in our heart to become blocked, but we all have a responsibility to ourselves, each other and the earth to open our hearts and walk in a good way – just as these visionary women have!

How strong does your heart energy flow?

Bell Let's Talk Day

It’s Bell Let’s Talk Day - It’s also time for ACTION!

At some point in everyone’s life their mental health will be negatively affected by any of a wide range of factors such as winter darkness, grief, regrets, worries, illness, and on and on. The Bell Let’s Talk initiative opens up the conversation and awareness of mental health in an effort to target mental illness stigma and remind those struggling that they are not alone.

If mental health problems or illness affect us all, then why is discrimination against mental illness still so common in our society? According to the Mental Health Commission of Canada, “60% of people with a mental health problem or illness won’t seek help for fear of being labeled.” They also state that stigma is “a social process that aims to exclude, reject, shame, and devalue groups of people on the basis of a particular characteristic…stigma sheds light on who in society has access to the power and privilege necessary to define rules and apply sanctions for violating them —those who do, become the beneficiaries of stigma; those who do not, become its subjects.” The complex oppressive function of stigma suggests that talk alone is not enough to eradicate it. We need to do more.

According to the WHO, the 3 most important determinants of mental health are: Social inclusion, freedom from discrimination and violence, and access to opportunities and resources. What does all of this mean? We must re-focus our attention from individual mental suffering to how, as a collective, we are all involved and affected by oppression and mental health. In other words, this is not an individual issue - it is a societal issue and requires collective action. This means taking the conversation a step further to re-establish connections and solidarity with each other and to effectively call policy makers into actions where they meaningfully and sustainably address the social determinants of mental health.

If you are dealing with any mental health issues, contact me for a counselling session in Victoria BC.