Relatives who do not know how to help a depressed person often become frustrated and feel helpless. However, it is worth overcoming them and finding out what can be done to make the person with the disease feel better, because a lot depends on family and friends. Here are 6 tips that are a good guide to helping you with depression.

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1. Just Be

How to help a person with depression? The most important thing is just to be there and support her, to listen, hug her or hold her hand. While a depressed person may not necessarily be grateful, in the future they will certainly appreciate these little gestures, which are often more than words.

2. Take Care Of Yourself And Your Well-Being

Being with a depressed person often can make us feel worse as family or friends and give us a feeling of depressed mood. Therefore, when helping a depressed person, we must not forget about ourselves, because the effectiveness of support also depends on our mental strength.

3. Emphasize The Positive Elements Of Reality

The depressed person sees everything in black – himself, others and the world around them. To break it out of this loop of negative thinking, it is worth emphasizing the positive aspects of reality. It is worth making these statements as specific as possible and emphasize those elements that a person close to us has dealt with.

4. Try Out The Visualization

The visualization is often used by athletes, but it can also be useful for others and can be one of the ways of supporting people in depression. Ask the sick person to tell you about their dreams and the life they would like to have. Such a conversation, about the positive aspects, can significantly affect your well-being.

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5. Encourage Psychotherapy (But Don’t Force It)

How to help a depressed person and how to encourage him to seek the help of a psychiatrist or psychotherapist? Certainly not to force! However, it is worth encouraging a conversation with a specialist. How? You can propose that we will help a loved one find the right specialist, arrange an appointment and take you to the first meeting. Patients struggling with mental disorders often have problems with making decisions, which is why such support from a loved one can motivate them. It is also worth talking about the benefits that psychotherapy can bring and the losses that result from not taking it.

6. Activate

Walk, cinema, swimming pool? Encourage the person with depression to take little activities and leave the house. Find out what made your loved one happy before the disease, to make them happy.