Talk to a Counselor

Improving your quality of life requires that you put some measures in place that will contribute to an amazing state of your health and wellness. For all ages, it is important to put special consideration on your health, because it determines to a good extent how long and healthy you will live.

Below are some useful tips to improving your quality of life:

• Regular checkups: Going for checkups at the hospital is not what people are really used to. And they are not aware that checkups are quintessential for uncovering underlying medical health problem. You might go for a checkup and discover that you have a health problem that showed no symptom.

• Good diet: For your health to be top-notch, it is important to maintain a good diet. If you put other measures in place without paying attention to your diet, it is futile. So, you need to watch what you eat for your quality of life to improve. And if you do not know how to go about it, you can always reach out to a dietician.

• Regular exercise: If you need a routine that assures you of a boost in your immune system, it is exercise. Exercising affords you the opportunity of stretching your muscles and bones for the purpose of making them stronger. When you exercise, your body gets into a great shape and your organs function optimally.

• Regular rest: You also need to rest properly to improve your quality of life. No matter how stressed you might be at work, it is important to pay good attention to your health by resting. Doing this enables your brain and body to recharge, and be more productive in due time.

• Engage in recreational activities: For you to remain mentally sound, it is important for you to take part in recreational activities, like hanging out with your loved ones. While doing this, it is necessary to refrain from activities that would make you to abuse substances, which can eventually get you admitted.  

For your mental health to be great, you need to undergo counseling sessions that are targeted at stabilizing your mental health.

A counselor is a professional who is vast in human psychology, he or she knows how the human mind works and also how to ensure people have a good mental health.

It is important for people to take their mental health seriously because, it determines to a great extent how productive we will ever be. If you observe closely, people who have everything working well for them, have a good mental health, and they guard it with all jealousy.

People who have mental health problems like anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, PTSD and the likes need a counselor to get better. These are mental health problems that can easily be taken care of provided there is a counselor in the picture.

One outstanding quality about counselors is, they are always ready to help out irrespective of the reluctance of the individual.

They understand that mental health problems can have a profound effect on someone, making them to think and act abnormally that is not common with normal people.

So, by all means possible, counselors ensure that they try their best to make these individuals see why they need help, and to accept any form of treatment that would be given to them.

Mental health counselors have a treatment plan for all patients. Although, it is not generic, this treatment plan would be tailored to meet the specific needs of each individual.

So, even though there are three patients that have the same mental problem, the treatment plan would be restructured based on their needs.

Mental health counselors set goals for their patients in line with this treatment plan, so that they can monitor if they are making good progress or not.

Even though you think you don’t have any mental health problem, it is advised to go for check-ups from time to time, in order to prevent any underlying mental health or physical health problem.

Counselling for alcohol and drug addiction is an essential aspect of a good number of treatment programs in rehab centres which are located all over the world. There are several various counselling approaches and structures. Counselling is most times done within the framework of mental health model of addiction.

Addiction is viewed as an illness which can be effectively treated using an integration of several strategies and techniques. Addicts usually think that they have the capacity to recover without any need for counselling.

When you are counselling an addict, it requires knowing the inspiration behind the ingestion of alcohol or drugs. It is necessary to identify and looking into these major issues are needed for a sound rehabilitation process.

Psychological rehab combines group therapy, whereby addicts would come together and assist each other, and also individual therapy, whereby the counsellors would work hand-in-hand with the addict, and sort out means on how to specifically help them.

Insight is needed for a substance abuse addict to recover and live a normal life. Counsellors usually make certain tools available for addicts, so that they can fully understand their problems and have the capacity to knowingly avoid alcohol and drugs.

Taking advice from a counsellor concerning the health of an addict, is much more efficient that the effect which certain drugs or medications would have. For a successful recovery process to take place, there is a need for a sound counselling methods, putting aside the style and form of the therapy process.

One of the most essential aspects to combat addiction is counselling. If you, your family members or your friends, are making conscious efforts to deal with the addiction habit, then it is necessary to get in touch with a counsellor who would assist you in the addiction recovery process.

In an addiction rehab centre, there are various ways of counselling, and they are: family counselling, behavioural counselling, group counselling and counselling during detoxification.

A good relationship with an addiction rehab counsellor would aid in the healing process, and speed up the rehab success rate.

We all occasionally have the need to go to someone else to get their take on something that we are not sure how to feel about. When we are having a hard time understanding something, other people’s insight is invaluable. However, in times when it is critical that we receive wise insight, the importance of objectivity and an unbiased perspective cannot be overstated. It is no good to us to receive insight from someone who is unable to think clearly about the matter at hand. We need to the person whose advice we are seeking to be removed enough from the situation and from our personal lives to offer unbiased insight.

This is where the services of a professional counselor come in handy. Everything that you crave about wise counsel is available through a professional counselor. We all may have a desire to go to the person who will tell us what we want to hear, but when we are ready to make actual progress in our lives, we crave the assistance of a person who is wise and objective. These kinds of perspectives are what drives good decision making forward. If we were to only react emotionally, basing our understandings of one another on feelings alone, our interactions would be chaos. All of our ability to empathize and be gracious toward other people comes from our ability to put aside our biases.

Professional counselors are not meant to take the place of our closest confidants. We are still meant to go to our close relationships for counsel as well. However, it is wise to think carefully about which life situations would be better discussed with someone a bit more removed from your life. You truly cannot go wrong with a professional counselor. This is someone who has no connection to your life, who is trained in the art of healthy decision making and behavior and who you are paying for good advice. There is no stronger guarantee of receiving the best advice possible.

There are many people who look down on counseling or stigmatize it as something that broken people need. They think they are above counseling and or better off than people who receive counseling. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Counseling can only help more than it hurts. What could possibly be bad about gaining insight about yourself through someone who has a vested interest, is detached and objective and is trained in mental health matters? It is this blogger’s opinion that people who think they have no room to improve their mental health are in denial. Everyone has room to work on their mental health, and your mental health journey of improvement will be most successful when guided by a professional counselor.

When you work at strengthening your mental health, it rewards you. You increase your quality of life by making your thought and behavior patterns healthier. You may not recognize where you have areas to improve in your life. There is no fault in that. Many people simply do not think in terms of mental health awareness, as it relates to themselves or as it relates to others. When you educate yourself about what good mental health looks like, however, you will begin to understand what your personal strengths and weaknesses are. You will have a clearer picture of what you can offer in terms of good mental health as well as what you could afford to put more work into.

Everyone recognizes the difference between a stable person and an unstable person. But what many people fail to recognize is that humanity is made up of a complex spectrum of stability and instability, and that everyone falls in an individual place on that spectrum. Coming to understand your own level of stability, as well as your personality profile, informs you on a great many things and inspires you to strengthen the areas you are weak in. If you are someone who thinks of psychology and counseling as pseudosciences that are not actually helpful, it is time to reevaluate your opinions. Informed, civilized people esteem the field of psychology and recognize the necessity of counseling for a variety of circumstances.

Arguably, everyone can benefit from counseling because no one has perfect mental health. Spending time in counseling can increase any person’s level of awareness, healthy thought patterns and relationship abilities and it is recommended for anyone who is in a position to receive it. However, there are certainly some people who need it more than others. The more your mental health is ailing, the more need you have for professional counseling. Despite understanding what a counselor does and knowing that their services are available, it is not always easy to tell when your need from counseling has gone from optional to critical, which is why you should be aware of the signs that it is time to find a counselor.

• Unmanageable mood swings. If your moods are spiking and then dropping, or you are switching back and forth between passivity and anger, this could be a sign that you need counseling. It is likely that you are dealing with substantial life stress or you have an undiagnosed mental disorder.
• Persistent nightmares about being out of control. If you are being plagued by frightening nightmares, particularly ones where you are being pursued by something, this is a likely indicator that you feel out of control of your life. It could very well be time to talk to a counselor about what is happening in your life.
• Racing thoughts and obsessive behavior. If you are having difficulty shutting your brain off to the point that you cannot relax, or if you are fixating on something that you know should be trivial, it is wise to talk with a counselor about this.
• Substance abuse or addictive behavior. If there is a substance or a habit that is controlling you, find an addiction or substance abuse counselor to talk to.
• Debilitating fear or anxiety. If fear and worry is keeping you from reaching your potential, talk to a counselor to learn how to control your fear reflex.
• Recent or past trauma. Traumatic events, no matter how old or how recent, have a profound negative effect on our quality of life and always warrant counseling.
• Out of control anger. A bad temper and anger problems hurt your quality of life and the people around you. If you are angry too often, it is advised that you see a counselor.
• Lethargy, depletion and sadness. Feelings that make you drag your feet and want to give up are highly indicative of a number of disorders, both situational or deeply rooted. Seek counseling if these emotions are familiar and frequent to you.
• Any behavior that endangers yourself or those around you. If you are violent, physically or emotionally, to your self or to others, you urgently need counseling.

Many people try to argue that professional counseling is just not for them. They do not see what is useful about sharing their inner lives with a stranger, nor do they think that there is any benefit to the practice of counseling. These opinions could not be more incorrect. Mental health is just as important as physical health. The more we study mental health, the more we come to acknowledge that mental health is something that requires awareness, education, nurturing and good health practices, just like physical health. This means that everyone can benefit from counseling because no one has perfect mental health.

One thing that professional counseling offers that is valuable to everyone is perspective. Perspective is something that people can only benefit from and never be harmed by. A professional counselor is very objective about their client’s lives. They do not carry any of the same biases, attachments, denials or falsities that their clients carry. They can receive all the information the client provides objectively and unearth additional information to form a clear picture in their minds.

Another thing that a person will inevitably gain from professional counseling is awareness. Talking to someone about your life who is interested and concerned but who is also removed and objective will always offer awareness. This is a much wiser option than talking to someone who has a bias, such as a parent, sibling or best friend. These people are likely to favor your perspective and your excuses much more than a professional counselor. Similarly, if you talk to someone who has a lower opinion of you about your problems, they are likely to judge you too harshly. There is no less biased opinion than someone who is being paid to care but to stay removed.

And lastly, the main reason we all go to a counselor is to receive guidance about what to do next. Counselors assist their clients cautiously in decision making. A person needs to arrive at their own conclusions about what they think should happen in order for their decision making to be effective. Therefore, a counselor will not tell a person how to think or decide what to do, but they will guide them in the direction that is likely to be healthiest for them.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what it is that counselors do. Many people still have the mental image of having to lie on a couch while a man in a tweed suit asks them to talk about their father. This is hardly the case. A professional counselor’s purpose is to provide a safe outlet for a person to communicate their troubles to, and to provide a professional, objective opinion on how to move forward. When taken seriously and utilized correctly, they can mean the difference between mental health success and failure. Professional counselors may work in a private practice, a hospital or a residential rehab center. When a person receives professional counseling, they are expected to do so with an open mind and a willingness to be receptive to the guidance they are going to receive. The duties of a professional counselor are to:

• Listen. Professional counselors are also professional listeners. They take the task of understanding their clients very seriously, and their method of understanding is by listening to what their clients have to say and interpreting their communication.
• Guide. Counselors are trained to guide the communication that takes place between themselves and their clients to maximize its usefulness. Their training also allows them to map the individual out to understand their psychological profile, which aids them in offering the individual life guidance.
• Assess. After hearing what the client has to say, the counselor will offer them an assessment of the situation. They will validate the person where their feelings are healthy and normal, as well as point out where their thinking is destructive. They will help the client understand the truth of their own situation much better.
• Advise. Giving advice as a counselor is tricky business. Anytime a counselor offers real advice about how a person can change their life, they have to feel very certain that no harm will come to their client if they follow their advice. That is why counselors will more frequently guide their client to arriving at their own conclusions and save the concrete advice for when it is absolutely necessary.