 How To Help Someone With Depression If you have a partner or friend who struggles with depression, you may not always know how to show them you love them. One day they may seem fine, but the next they are sad, distant, and may push you away. It is important you know that as their close, trusted friend, you can help them have shorter, less severe bouts of depression. Mental illness is as real as physical illness, and your friends need you when they're stressed, as much as they need you when they have the flu. Having people there to support and care for you while going through such a tough illness means a lot to those suffering from depression, more than you could ever imagine. And although depression can be one-sided at times, by helping your friend through a very difficult and painful affliction, you are strengthening their mental health in the long term. Here are some ways to care for a loved one dealing with depression. 1. Help Them With Their Chores and Duties When someone is suffering from depression, they may feel like they're slowing down while the world around them is speeding up rapidly. By helping them with their laundry, sorting out their mail, taking care of their phone calls or cleaning their dishes, you're taking a huge weight off their shoulders because otherwise they will feel overwhelmed. Your help also gives them a calmer and healthier environment. 2. Take a Walk With Them For a depressed person, the benefits of going outside are huge. Being outside allows them to be in the sunshine, which increases vitamin D and can help alleviate depression. Being barefoot in the dirt helps ground the body and reverse the effects of living in a world of EMFs, and digging in soil can actually act as an anti-depressant since there's a strain of bacterium in soil that triggers the release of seroton, which elevates mood and decreases anxiety. 3. Encourage Them To Focus On Self-Care To press people often stop taking care of themselves. Showering, getting haircuts, going to the doctor or dentist, it's all just too hard and they feel like they don't deserve to be well taken care of. Having the encouragement from another helps tremendously. Without others helping them take care of themselves, they will snowball quickly into greater feelings of worthlessness. Being proactive and telling them things like, I'm going to do the dishes, why don't you enjoy a bubble bath? Gives them the permission they won't give themselves to do something normal, healthy and self-loving. 4. Compliment Them People with depression typically have very low self-esteem. Help them challenge their feelings of self-loathing by giving them sincere specific compliments. Being specific is really important because they are more likely to remember what you said later. One thoughtful, genuine compliment has more power than 10 careless comments that feel like flattery. Put your heart into what you say. 5. Ask Them To Help You Understand What They're Feeling If your friend is able to articulate what they're going through, it will help both of you better understand what they're dealing with and may give insight into a plan of action for recovery. Feeling alone is common for a depressed person and anything that combats that feeling will help alleviate the severity and length of depression. Having someone to talk to about how they feel makes them realize they're not as alone as they think they are and that others actually care for them. Do you have helpful tips on caring for someone with depression? Share your thoughts in the comments below. If you liked this video, check out our other social media for more content and don't forget to subscribe. Thanks for watching.