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Depression – more formally referred to as Major Depressive Disorder – impacts more than 17 million American adults in just one given year. 

Depression is a serious medical condition most often characterized by a persistent feeling of sadness. It can require long-term care and treatment and can even lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. 

If you recognize any of the following signs of depression in someone you know, encourage them to seek assistance.  

1. Loss of Interest 

Someone who is depressed may lose interest in the things they once enjoyed doing. An individual may no longer enjoy the things they once loved.

2. Feelings of Fatigue

While depression commonly goes hand-in-hand with feelings and emotions, those emotions can be draining. Depressed individuals often lack energy and notice overwhelming fatigue. 

3. Hopelessness

Those struggling with depression may have adopted a very hopeless outlook on life. Their general thoughts can include, “what’s the point?” and “things will never change.” 

4. Decreased Sex Drive

Just like someone may lose interest in other hobbies and activities, this same person may also lose interest in sex and even experience impotence. 

5. Weight Loss or Gain

Clinical depression can either decrease someone’s appetite or lead to overeating. So, significant weight loss or weight gain can point to a problem. 

6. Irregular Sleep

For some, depression can look like consistent oversleeping. For others, the illness can cause insomnia, restless nights, and early-morning wakeups.  

7. Trouble Concentrating

Depression can make it difficult for someone to concentrate. A person with depression may lose their train of thought frequently or have trouble making decisions.

8. Irritability

Mood swings are common for people with depression. Even small issues can lead to angry outbursts or significant frustration. 

9. Unexplained Physical Problems

Those struggling with depression may have unexplainable physical problems, such as persistent headaches or back pain.

10. Thoughts or Attempts of Suicide

Typically, the most severe cases of depression can lead to suicidal thoughts, comments, and even attempts. These signs are serious and require immediate medical intervention. 

Did you know that about 40 million people in America alone experience anxiety? Children, teens, and adults alike can be impacted by both temporary feelings of anxiety and serious anxiety disorders. 

Each case is different, but by implementing some of all of the following measures, you may be able to reduce your anxiety.

1. Establish Routines

An excellent way to minimize anxiety is to establish a routine. When anxiety takes over, it’s easy to panic, feel stressed, or feel uncertain. 

Routines can help you take back control in your life, improving your overall focus, organization, and productivity. 

Having a routine can also help you plan time to take care of yourself along with your other responsibilities.

2. Drink Less Caffeine

Caffeine is a big “no” for anyone who has chronic anxiety. Research shows that caffeine intake can worsen feelings of anxiousness and may exacerbate anxiety disorders.

Caffeine is a stimulant, which heightens the senses, causes jitters, and disrupts regular sleep patterns. By cutting caffeine out of your diet – or at least minimizing your intake – you may be able to significantly improve your feelings of anxiety. 

3. Practice Self-Affirmation

While some people may not feel comfortable practicing self-affirmations, many others find them very helpful in managing their anxiety. 

Self-affirmations are positive phrases and statements you can say to yourself to get through hard days, hours, or even minutes. 

Try repeating phrases like the following to yourself when you’re feeling anxious:

• My anxiety doesn’t control me. 
• Today is going to be a good day.
• I’m okay. 
• I have a great and happy life. 

Simply saying these phrases to yourself can help you overcome feelings of anxiety. 

4. Exercise

Consistent exercise is good for your body physically, but it’s an excellent natural medicine for your mental state as well. 

Exercise has been proven to minimize stress, reduce tension, and burn energy – all of which can contribute to feelings of anxiety.

Plus, exercising releases endorphins, which improve your overall mood. It can also serve as a nice, healthy distraction from the worries running through your mind. 

Mental Health is a critical aspect of everyday life. Taking care of yourself is not just eating right and exercising. Complete health also includes talking to a mental health professional when you need some help or direction. 

If you are experiencing any troubling issues, or if you want to keep ahead of stress and maintain good mental health, there are 6 important reasons to see a mental health professional now. 

1. Gain Better Coping Skills 
2. Enhance Self-Development
3. Aid with Anxiety or Depression Symptoms 
4. Dealing with Significant Life Transitions 
5. Substance Overuse 
6. Feelings of Loneliness, Isolation, or Lack of Self-Control

1. Gain Better Coping Skills 

Life can be unpredictable, giving you unforeseen circumstances and stresses you are not ready to tackle. A mental health professional can provide numerous strategies to help you cope with stressors in your life. 

2. Enhance Self-Development 

Learning does not stop when you finish school. Life is an opportunity for you to learn about your strengths and weaknesses and build on your experiences. Many facets of self-development include mental and emotional well-being, where mental health professionals can guide you on this path. 

3. Aid with Anxiety or Depression Symptoms

If you face chronic anxiety or symptoms of depression, seeing a mental health professional can make a world of difference. A professional can suggest therapy choices and offer insight into other alternative methods to help minimize symptoms you have. 

4. Dealing with Significant Life Transitions 

Life does not stay the same, unfortunately. There can be employment changes, divorce, deaths, or other significant life transitions that you are not ready to face. When these situations occur, it helps to see a mental health professional and work through your circumstances as best as possible. 

5. Substance Overuse 

When you rely on substances such as alcohol, drugs, or other elements to cope with your day or forget about a situation, a visit to a mental health professional is in order. Substance overuse can happen when you are not coping well with your current situation. A professional can provide tools and strategies to help you overcome these dependencies. 

6. Feelings of Loneliness, Isolation, or Lack of Self-Control

Feelings of loneliness, isolation, or a lack of controlling your surroundings can deteriorate your mental health. A mental health professional is someone to talk to about your current situation, any problems you face and help you find strategies to ease your circumstances. 

Conclusion 

Dealing with poor mental health does not have to go untreated. You must contact a mental health professional and seek assistance. In today’s world, options like telehealth make it easy to find various methods of receiving quality care. 

Contact us today to start your journey towards a better life.

Childhood is a crucial phase in the life of every human as it shapes the thought process, behaviors, and beliefs of a person. Childhood play is not only a part of life, but it forms the foundation of life experiences. It has numerous positive impacts on an individual’s emotional, social, mental, and physical state even throughout adulthood.

Adulthood, on the other hand, comes with less time to play. As people grow older, they have more responsibilities, and at some point, stop playing. Yet, the positive impact of play doesn’t end with childhood. It is equally beneficial to adults and can affect work, behaviors, relationships, and mood.

Childhood Play

During recreation, most adults do things like see a movie, go to a fancy restaurant, or watch soccer. Primarily, their choice of activities does not engage the body or require a lot of energy. However, childhood play involves more energetic activities like sports, swinging, and other physical and mentally engaging activities.

The Benefits of Playing on Adult Relaxation Behavior

Playing has a lot of benefits for adults. Most adult lives are extremely busy or filled with worry and anxiety from their jobs, family, and bills. Playing like a child would help adults feel more relaxed, relieve stress, and rejuvenate the mind and body.

Here are two prominent effects of childhood play on adult relaxation behavior.

Increases the Release of Endorphins

Endorphins are chemical secretions that help the body cope with stress, pain, or anxiety. They evoke a feel-good sensation and are popularly called “feel-good chemicals.” Childlike play and laughter help increase the production of endorphins, which in turn help adults feel calm, happy, and relax better.

Enhances Brain Function

Mentally and physically challenging games such as puzzles help to increase brain activity and enhance brain function. One great thing about childhood play is, more often than not, it involves other people. To enjoy childhood play, you need social interaction with friends and family. Interactive play helps to reduce depression and loneliness, affecting adult relaxation behavior positively. 

Wrap-Up

Childhood play is an excellent way of bringing an adult close to the fun memories and simpler times of their childhood. It helps them take their eyes off life’s pressures and adopt an optimistic view, even if it’s for a while.

Childhood play helps adults boost their energy levels, making it easy to unwind and is a fantastic way to improve relaxation behavior in adults.

Children misbehave. Anyone who has spent some time around children knows that some behavior problems are common. Some behavior problems in children can be simple, while others are more challenging.

Children are interacting with new situations every day. They’re learning how they feel when something new happens and how they should respond. Many common behavior problems, such as defiance, meltdowns, whining, and impulsive behavior, can be solved with consistent early intervention.

The challenge comes when behavior problems in children are more than a stage. Some behavior problems can mask underlying issues. The source of the problems can vary and can include emotional trauma or an undiagnosed medical condition.

Behavior Problems May Indicate Underlying Medical Concerns

When behavior problems mask a medical problem, it can be an undiagnosed disorder, such as ADHD. Or it could be a child feeling unwell, such as a fever or an injury.

• Difficulty sleeping can increase behavior problems in children. Sleep abnormalities in children with ADHD have a significantly negative influence on behavior.
• Children with seizures also display behavior problems and can experience an increased risk for children with unrecognized epilepsy.
• Children with learning disorders can act out because of feelings of frustration.

Behavior Problems May Indicate Underlying Emotional Concerns

Emotional trauma can also trigger behavior problems. When children learn how to react to significant life events, such as changing schools, parental divorce, or an ill family member, they can externalize their feelings.

• Children can display emotional problems, like anxiety, phobias, OCD, or depression, as behavior problems. 
• Outbursts, extreme irritability, headaches, and drastic mood changes can be signs of mental illness in children.
• Moving can cause problematic behavior for both children who leave and the ones left behind. It can impact their social behaviors, academic performance, and moods.

Getting help from a professional can help children discover the source of behavior problems. When we know why a child is acting out, Comprehensive Consultation Psychological Services can help them find solutions.

While playtime becomes grossly undervalued in adulthood, it’s a crucial aspect of childhood. Playtime is an essential contributor to a child’s cognitive, physical, and emotional development. In addition, play offers parents an ideal opportunity for connecting with their children.

Here are five critical ways playtime contributes to child development.

1. Encourages Creativity

Playtime allows children to access their creative minds within a free environment. Playing make-believe or taking part in artistic expression encourages them to use their imagination. This teaches them to think more creatively, which creates the starting point for more advanced learning and enhanced problem-solving skills.

2. Cognitive Growth
Many studies show that engaging in playtime is critical for a child’s brain development. Playing freely will influence how the brain’s neural circuits are wired and, as a result, positively impact their neurological development. This will also result in better communication, intelligence, and confidence.

3. Emotional Stability

Regular playtime will not only act as a mood booster for children, but it can also reduce symptoms of stress and anxiety. It also creates more emotional flexibility, adaptability, and resilience. Through playtime, children can more easily process and understand life’s challenges and difficulties.

4. Builds Social Skills

Grouped playtime is a child’s introduction to socialization among their peers. This setting allows them the opportunity to develop the necessary skills to play cooperatively within groups. This form of playtime can also encourage self-control and help them become familiar with acceptable group behavior.

5. Greater Independence

Just as group play is essential for enhancing social skills, playtime in solitude can be just as valuable. By giving your child space to play alone, they can more easily prepare for socialization and gain a greater sense of independence while fostering creativity. In addition, kids who play alone in an open setting often become familiar with social cues as they observe other children interact with each other from a distance.

Your child is unique, and you want the best for them in schooling and life. The educational potential in children is boundless, but how do you measure your child’s potential during their learning years to give them the best opportunities for their skills, abilities, and desires?

Psycho-Educational Tests To Determine Educational Potential

Testing the educational potential in children isn’t simply about figuring out their intellectual strengths or weaknesses through a battery of tests. There’s much more to your child than being good at math and not so good at reading. And a learning disability doesn’t mean any doors closed to the educational potential in children either.

Whether your child is intellectually gifted in all areas or needs a more specialized path to learning, psycho-educational tests give us a bigger picture about what each child needs to succeed and flourish in society.

Let’s talk about how we accomplish this through testing methods like the following:

1. Stanford Binet-5 Intelligence Scales (SB-5) are cognitive ability tests. Measurements include working memory, quantitative reasoning (counting, logic, and problem-solving), fluid reasoning (how easily a child learns or comprehends something new), and visual-spatial processing (learning physical things or making sense of numbers and letters). 
2. Nelson Denny Reading Test was developed to gauge vocabulary and reading comprehension from adolescence into young adulthood.
3. Woodcock-Johnson Cognitive and Academic (WJ-III Ach and Cog) consists of “standard battery” tests and “extended battery” tests administered to children from their toddler years into young adulthood. The testing areas to determine educational potential in children include comprehension, memory, reading-writing, visual-spatial processing, listening, quantitative logic and problem solving, and learning new things.

Contact Us To Learn More About the Education Potential In Your Child

We welcome your questions and invite you to make an appointment. To learn more about our founder and director, Dr. Sanam Hafeez, please visit About Us or Our Treatment Center.

Academic performance encompasses both cognitive and non-cognitive skills in a complex and interdependent matrix where one begets the other.

While cognitive skills may be easier to measure, with schools around the globe utilizing standardized testing to evaluate the academic performance and proper advancement of students from one grade level to the next, current studies stress the importance of non-cognitive skills as equally important determinants of success in the academic world and beyond.

We will look at 5 popular tests that serve as excellent predictors of academic performance and, consequently, graduation rates, post-graduate education, and economic/vocational success.

Cognitive Skills

The most well-known measure of cognitive skills used worldwide is an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test, consisting of a series of questions that measure reasoning and problem-solving skills.

Test questions can be verbal or non-verbal, often testing intelligence in abstract yet universal ways, which is why IQ tests are so pervasively used. There have been countless studies that correlate IQ scores with intellectual intelligence and academic performance. Other intelligence tests include:

• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children.
• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.
• Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability.

The second form of cognitive skills tests is standardized tests that educators administer at every grade level to measure their students’ academic performance against other school districts. General math, reading, writing, and reasoning skills tests assess a student’s learning advancement from one year to the next, which predicts how well the student will continue to perform academically.

The third set of cognitive tests are standardized college and graduate school entrance exams like the SAT, ACT, GRE, MCAT, and LSAT. These tests measure a student’s academic potential. However, they have recently faced criticism for being better predictors of a student’s socio-economic background than raw academic performance.

Non-Cognitive Skills

To test non-cognitive skills, administrators and researchers use psychometric tests that assess character traits and measure emotional intelligence. There are many psychometric tests out there, but the consensus is that the top four character traits that predict academic and economic success are discipline, grit, conscientiousness, and self-efficacy.

We have chosen the Grit Scale, and the ACT Engage tests as two tests that aptly encompass the range of emotional and personal characteristics covered to get the best idea of emotional and motivational intelligence.

Cognitive and Non-cognitive Tests Are the Best Predictors

To conclude, cognitive and non-cognitive skills are both vital aspects of academic performance. While testing cognitive abilities have become a controversial topic, we will list the 5 types of cognitive and non-cognitive tests that have popularly served as the best predictors of academic performance:

• Intelligent Quotient (IQ)
• Standardized Testing
• College and Graduate Entrance Exams
• Grit Scale
• ACT Engage

With so many children spending most of their lives at home right now, it’s more important than ever to keep playtime for kids productive and meaningful. This will allow them to thrive and hit all of the appropriate developmental milestones during these challenging times.

Make Playtime for Kids Productive and Fun With These Tips

If you’re looking for a subtle way to add an educational or organizational element to playtime for your kids, then take a look at this brief list we’ve put together. With these handy tips, playtime for your kids will be both fun and intellectually stimulating.

Add an Interactive Element to Playtime

As infants grow into toddlers, they will begin to become more assertive and take an active lead in play. At this stage, toddlers want to choose their playtime activities, whether it is coloring or playing with blocks. When playtime comes, make sure that parents and siblings are involved and ensure that children play and choose their own activities.

Participate in Pretend and Make-Believe

Another effective way to stimulate intellectual development and critical thinking in toddlers and young children is to take an active role in playing pretend and make-believe. By encouraging your children to act and use their imaginations freely, you’re building empathy, because pretending always involves thinking about others’ feelings and perspectives.

Engage Toddlers and Babies in One-On-One Talk

The last item on our list is also the simplest and most basic way to make playtime for kids productive. At some point during the day, we encourage the parents of babies and toddlers to engage in a solo, one-on-one conversation with their kids. By taking the time to talk directly to your toddler or even simply making a funny face, you’re building neural pathways and stimulating intellectual development.