Maybe you’ve never participated in mental health counseling before and you’re unsure about what it will be like. In such situations, when we don’t know what to expect, it’s typically far too easy for our minds to imagine all sort of stories as we’re trying to fill in the blanks.

But counseling needn’t be some mysterious or anxiety provoking thing. With that said, what exactly can you expect at your first counseling appointment?

Self-care can be a wonderful thing. And it’s become an increasingly popular trend, especially as the conversation about mental health awareness and wellness has spread. Maybe you gave it a try, and it did help reduce your worry and stress. But maybe it didn’t really seem to do much. Or maybe it seemed to make things worse. Is that even possible, you might wonder - can self-care actually increase your anxiety in certain cases? If this has been your experience, there are a few reasons why you might be having this reaction. And yes, there are some changes you can make in order to have self-care be more effective for you.

The small “little” things which stress us each day, throughout our day, often seem deceptively innocuous. After all, they’re “little.” Yet, taken all together, they can cause us hours of stress every single day. So how do you combat the stress brought on by the “small” stuff?

Many people think the self-help genre is the only category which could potentially be effectual in terms of enhancing mental health and well-being. This just isn’t true! In reality, there are several reasons you should consider stepping out of the self-improvement aisle. You might even be surprised to learn that FICTION might be the best thing to read when you’re feeling anxious or depressed.

A lot of people who come to me for counseling experience symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. Some have been told the root cause is a biochemical imbalance. However, I have discovered that, most of the time, this simply isn’t true. Usually, we come to agree that one or more of the following 8 habits is usually contributing to their distress:

Did you know that binge eating disorder is the most common type of disordered eating (it is three times more common than anorexia and bulimia combined)? Were you aware that it is perhaps one of the most misunderstood? The myths, the associated humiliation, and the social stigma surrounding binge eating means a person struggling may go years (sometimes decades) before finally asking for help – although unfortunately many never seek help, they instead suffer in silence. An important step in ending this is to call out the lies about binge eating disorder. Do you believe any of these 12 myths about binge eating?

Binge Eating Disorder is a very common problem. There can be a multitude of factors at play if you find yourself binge eating including physiological reasons, environmental factors, social components, nutritional reasons, emotional drivers, genetic predispositions, trauma history, etc. There is no singular reason why a person binge eats - and thus it follows that is no singular solution. Yet, while there is not any one simple trick you can employ to experience relief, there are many interventions which in combination are known to be highly effectual.

Therapy can help facilitate a significant transformation within you. But therapy is not something that happens to you. The reality is that you can’t just show up, passively sit by, and expect your therapist to change you. Here are ten things you can do to make the most out of therapy.

In general, few people meet the daily nutritional needs of their body. If you’re diagnosed with an eating disorder there’s a high probability that you are missing out on a few, possibly even many, micronutrients. Your brain and body can be helped, or harmed, depending on what you’re eating (or, in many cases, not eating). Take, for example, B12 - a Vitamin B12 deficiency has been implicated when it comes to the development of depression.

There is evidence demonstrating that an eating disorder may negatively impact your sleep and, also, disturbances in sleep can exacerbate eating disorder symptoms. As such, during eating disorder treatment, it can be critical to your overall recovery to consider how you’re sleeping.

An urge to binge eat can feel overwhelming. In the moment, the urge feels insurmountable and intolerable. While stopping binge eating might seem impossible, urge surfing can help. Learn to ride the wave and begin recovering from binge eating.

A therapy consultation could actually be just as important as therapy itself. For one thing, it’s an obligation free opportunity to be sure you really want to move forward with a given therapist - because choosing the right one for yourself matters.