Talkspace Provides an Affordable Therapy Option

People can have a host of medical problems, and they don't fear talking about them or sharing their condition with others. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case when it comes to the issue of mental health. Many don't feel comfortable sharing their problem with others, and they don't always feel like making an appointment and going to a therapist. There is still a stigma associated with seeking mental health assistance.

 

Others are not able to access mental health help due to cost barriers. The cost of a weekly session can exceed $150 a week, and health insurance may not cover everything. What is the option for those seeking help with a mental health concern?

 

Talkspace was created as a service to help those who needed to access help but who did not want to go to a set weekly appointment for whatever reason. Talkspace allows its users to access its services by means of a smartphone app. The services provided by Talkspace are completely confidential, and users may maintain their anonymity if they so wish. Talkspace utilizes licensed professionals to assist clients with their problems through online therapy.

 

The first step in utilizing the services on Talkspace is to sign up and choose a program on the website or through the mobile phone app. The basic plan that Talkspace has set up allows for unlimited messaging therapy for a set weekly price. This service allows the client to message back and forth with a therapist for 24 hours a day, seven days per week. The messaging is accessed through the user's private room on the website or app.

 

Before a user begins therapy, matching is done to make sure that the user has the right counselor to help meet his or her need. Once several questions are answered, the user is matched with a counselor, and messaging can begin.

 

This type of therapy is very useful for those who have an active lifestyle and don't have the opportunity to take an hour or more out of each week to attend an in-person therapy session. Also, those who prefer written communication will benefit from using Talkspace. The service allows the user to have the time to think about a response to the therapist. It offers a reflective time to understand the therapist's questions as well.

 

Those who use Talkspace might feel as if they will get stuck with a therapist that they are not comfortable with. This is not the case. A change can be made at any time.

Raising Kids on a Hectic Schedule: 5 Tips for Proper Parenting in a Time Crunch

No matter how you slice it, life has its ups and downs.
 

As soon as you feel like you finally get into a rhythm in terms of your schedule and your kids’ needs, something comes up to totally disrupt it.

Maybe you’re in a situation where you need to take care of a sick parent.

Perhaps you or your partner’s work schedules flipped and your time with the kids has become limited.

Regardless of how hectic life can become from day-to-day, you can’t let it have a negative impact on your relationship with your children. Likewise, ensuring their happiness is a top priority. Juggling a crazy schedule and your kids is difficult, but with these five tips you can make it happen.

Get Your Sitter Situated

If you or your partner can’t be around much, you need to take the steps to ensure that your sitter is equipped to take care of your kids’ needs. This might including giving out an Uber gift card to ensure they can get from Point A or Point B or provide money for take-out and meal prep.

On a related note, having a strong relationship with your sitter will make all the difference when it comes to making sure your kids are taken care. Rather than relying on one-offs and flaky sitters, strive to find someone who’s invested in your kids’ lives.

Make the Most of Your “Free” Time

Perhaps this is a no-brainer, but you can’t just allow yourself to veg out on the couch on your days off.

While it may be tempting to put your feet up, you need to use your free time wisely to both spend time with your children and ensure they’re taken care of for the coming week. For example, weekends are perfect for day-trips and catching up; meanwhile, Sundays are a prime time to take care of meal prep, homework questions and just plain being there.

Of course, you should also make some time for yourself, just don’t expect too much.

Be Clear That You’re Still Available

When you’re busy, it’s easy to accidentally send the signal to your kids that you’re unavailable and shouldn’t be bothered. Explicitly remind your children that they can come to you at any time and that your hectic schedule isn’t going to last forever.

If your children are old enough for smartphones, such devices are perfect for keeping in touch when you’re away. Whether through texts or FaceTime, you can essentially make yourself available around the clock if they need you.

Encourage Your Kids to be Self-Sufficient

Although your children can’t do everything themselves, it’s certainly a plus when they understand the principles of self-sufficiency. That is, they understand when it’s time to go to bed, do their homework and otherwise adhere to their own schedule.

 

To ensure that your kids don’t fall into bad habits, you likewise can’t let discipline totally fall by the wayside. As a side note, setting high expectations while you’re away can make a big difference when it comes to good behavior.

Learn to Say “No”

You obviously need to make sacrifices for the sake of your kids, but you shouldn’t let others in your personal or professional life to add extra stress on your plate. Learning to say “no” might be difficult in your pursuit of being supermom, but it’s worth it for your mental health in the long-run.

No mom wants to see their kids’ well-being suffer just because of a hectic schedule. By sticking with these tips, you can make the most of your time and maintain your sanity as you do what’s best for them.

Beautiful Gifts for Gardeners

Gift giving is a joy, especially if you can give something that you know will be genuinely welcome and enjoyed. People who love their gardens or nature, in general, are fairly easy to buy for. But, if you are stuck for ideas here are a few to inspire you.

A nice tree

It is really easy to give a tree as a gift. All you need to do is to go online and find a stockist that is willing to deliver to your friend or family member´s home address. Some of them offer a service that allows you to send notification of the gift via an email. This gives the person you are giving the tree to the chance to double-check that it is suitable for their garden. If it is not they can change the order to another one.

Tickets to a garden show

If there is a garden show taking place close to where your friend or family member lives you could buy them a couple of tickets. Or, perhaps pay for them to visit a botanical garden. Alternatively, if you know where and when they are going on holiday you could book them entrance tickets for a special so they can view a special garden or park in that area.

Gardening classes

All gardeners relish the chance to get their hands dirty and learn some new skills. Some botanical gardens, stately homes, and parks offer people the chance to work with their team for a day. Occasionally, it is possible to find actual gardening related classes. Two great examples are topiary or hedgerow tuition. For someone who loves to be outside, these are ideal gifts.

Good quality tools

Good quality gardening tools make especially good presents. Potentially, you can club together with others and buy something you know they really want, but would never buy themselves. However, if you are not 100% sure what they want it is usually best to play things safe and buy a voucher instead. That way they are guaranteed to get exactly what they need.

Labor saving gifts

Something simple like a timer can make an excellent gift for a gardener. Being able to have the sprinklers come on automatically is a lot easier than having to get up every evening to put them on and turn them off again.

Some help in the garden

For an older gardener keeping up with all of the tasks can be difficult. Helping them in the garden is a great way to lift their spirits, spend some time with them and keep yourself fit. If you cannot do that, consider paying a local gardener to do a few hours of work. When you hire them, make it clear that they are basically there to be a pair of hands. This leaves the person you are buying for firmly in control of their beloved garden.

Other practical gifts

If you are looking for smaller gifts, a pair of gardening gloves or plant pots and little items like that are ideal. Something simple like a tray of bedding plants can also make a good gift. For those of you who are looking for something a little different, this page contains some especially good ideas.

8 Steps Towards Having A Healthier Family

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How healthy is your family? Chances are, like many families up and down the country, they aren’t as healthy as they should be. Truth be told, this may be down to you. As the parent, you are responsible for your family's well being, from your own health and fitness levels down to your children. What are you all eating? How do you all spend your leisure time? How educated are you all on health issues? You need to be the person who takes the mantle of health provider, encouraging your family to live a better lifestyle, and finding ways to do this for each individual person. To alleviate future health problems for any member of your family then, the following steps may prove useful. Be sure to set them in motion today.

Step #1. Get yourself educated

Don’t turn a blind eye to possible health issues that come from an unhealthy lifestyle. The article you are reading now will give you a few tips to benefit your learning, but there is always more you can do. As the parent, you need to get the right advice to pass down to all of your loved ones. So look online, research healthy foods, find fun fitness activities, and discover what signs to look for should your child or spouse start to feel ill. Then consider courses, from online CPR Certification to local first-aid courses happening at a community center near you. Doctors and nurses do a wonderful job, but you can learn some basic skills for your family’s well being for those minor (or major) accidents and injuries that often occur around the home.

When it comes to health matters, knowledge is key, so go to school, head online, and buy yourself the relevant books. Then share your wisdom with the family you have around you.

Step #2. Be the role model

It’s no good telling your children to eat their greens or to go and play outside if you’re living a hypocritical lifestyle. If you want your kids to eat their veggies, make sure you do too, so cut down on those unhealthy snacks and takeaways. If you want your children to exercise outdoors, get off the couch yourself, put down the remote, and practice what you are preaching. Your children are watching you, so the only way they are going to learn good habits is if you lead by your good example. Be sure to remind your partner too, and work on being a role model as a team.

Step #3. Encourage healthy eating

The only way to encourage healthy eating is to remove anything sugary and unsavory out of your pantry and refrigerator. Sorry, but you need to say goodbye to those chocolate bars, cookies, and fizzy drinks you have been hoarding. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t allow treat days, but as a good habit for the majority of your family’s eating and drinking time, only have items on offer that aren’t bad for anybody’s health. So have fruit and protein bars on offer instead of sweets and chocolate. Provided allergies aren’t an issue, have bowls of nuts situated within reach. When making your kid’s packed lunches, use healthy fillings and use brown bread instead of white. When it comes to making the evening dinner, learn some healthy recipes, and cook foods that your kids aren’t going to turn their noses up.

It’s about being creative, thinking outside of the box for your fussy eaters, and knowing it is possible. And hey, if you have a garden, give your kids a vegetable patch to grown their own. Chances are, if they have had a hand in producing something, they may be more inclined to eat it. Probably!

Step #4. Get out of the house

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Our homes have become an all-purpose entertainment center, with flat screen TVs, video streaming services, and games consoles. Why go outside when you have so much to do at your fingertips? You can even socialize with your friends from the comfort of your armchair, thanks to Facebook! Don’t let the great outdoors be a thing of the past. Not only are we talking about exercise, but we are also talking about the emotional benefits of the fresh air and sunlight. So, put down the tv remote, switch off your multitude of devices, and find good excuses to get outdoors. Having a pet is a great excuse for a walk, buying everybody a bike is a fun way to encourage exercise, and visiting somewhere that appeals to every member of the family is an incentive to cut yourself off from your wifi connections.

Step #5. Keep up-to-date with health checkups

The best way to preempt any kind of illness is to make a date in your calendars for health checkups. We aren’t just talking about visiting the local doctor’s surgery, either. We are also talking about visiting the dentist (yikes), going to the optician, and anybody else who has a hand in your family’s health each year. We know it’s a pain to get everybody into the car (or whisper it, on foot) to visit each of these places, but despite your children’s protestations (as well as your partners), these are appointments you don’t want to miss. Even the dentist and optician have the ability to pick up on possible health conditions, above and beyond teeth and eyesight, so there are a multitude of reasons to visit each of them, even if you all do feel fine.

Step #6. Make exercise fun

We briefly mentioned exercise in point #4, but it’s not something that should only happen outdoors. There are ways to make exercise fun indoors too, be that in your own home with motion-controlled video games (dig out your old Nintendo Wii console or Xbox Kinect), or at a local leisure center, with swimming pools, dance classes, and a range of sporting activities. Finding fun and interesting ways to exercise is something you should do as a family, whether you take part in specific activities together, or separate yourselves up when you do get to the leisure center. Of course, as mentioned earlier, you should also take your fitness away from the confines of four walls, wherever they are situated. You could all go for a walk together, be that at the local park or somewhere further afield, or even get out into the garden and have fun playing a range of outdoor games, from tig to hide and seek.

Step #7. Think about emotional health

Staying healthy is not only about the physical aspect, such as keeping fit and eating the right foods, although they do play a part in emotional wellbeing too. Emotional health extends to the way you all relate to one another. What does this mean in reality?

For starters, create a positive home, and have a praise and affirmation culture within your household. When somebody does something well, congratulate them on it. Encourage each other, help each other, and be supportive of each other’s achievements. If somebody makes a mistake or does something naughty, don’t spend time berating them over it, with words and actions you will regret later. Instead, use your words wisely, and focus on the problem behaviour rather than the person. Resolve conflict in healthy ways, sitting down together and discussing the problem.

Don’t put down your children when they come to you with an issue, either. Their crisis may seem insignificant to you, but the event likely seems a lot larger in your child’s head. Talk to them, listen to them, and help them resolve the issue in question.

By following each of these examples, you are better serving your children’s emotional wellbeing.

Step #8: Work together

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Our final step is the most sensible one. No man is an island, so the saying goes, and neither is each woman or child. You are all in this together, and this means being accountable to one another. While you will set in motion a healthier lifestyle, there are times when one or all of you will fall down. There will be days when you just can’t be bothered to get off the sofa. There will be days when your children will be glued to their tv screen. There will be days when ‘just one more’ chocolate won’t seem like a deal breaker. And in a sense, that’s fine. Nobody’s perfect, after all. Still, if you work together, spur each other on, remind each other of the benefits of a healthier lifestyle, you will have a greater chance of success. So, listen to each other, spend time in each other’s company, and learn from one another’s good days and bad days.

Final word

So, there we have it, eight steps to a healthier family. Improve your education, focus on everybody’s physical and emotional well being, and work together to achieve your health goals. It will take some effort, but it will benefit everybody in the short and long term, and it will positively affect your relationships as a family (even if your kids do grumble occasionally). We hope our advice has helped, but remember to continue your research into a healthier lifestyle online, and let us know if you have any helpful tips. Thanks for reading!

 

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