4 Surprising Benefits of Seeing a Therapist

When you picture a person in therapy, what comes to mind? If you think about someone in some sort of mental health crisis, you’re not alone. While therapy certainly does have the benefit of helping people through such difficult times, that’s not the only purpose it serves.

Whether you’re in a mental health crisis, feeling a little down, or simply looking to improve your life, therapy can help. Throughout your therapy journey, you may notice a variety of unexpected benefits, including increased empathy, better physical health, and increased comfort with difficult conversations. You may also help other people find the confidence they need to seek help.

Develop More Empathy for Yourself and Others

In therapy, you gain a better understanding of why people make certain decisions or experience specific emotions. Furthermore, your licensed therapist can help you see things from other perspectives. These elements of therapy can help you develop deeper empathy for other people.

Therapy can also help you be empathetic and gracious with yourself. For example, in talking through challenges from your past, you may develop more empathy for who you were at the time and why you reacted the way you did. You can also create room for compassion for yourself by understanding how circumstances have affected you.

Have Better Physical Health

Therapy is a mental health treatment, but it can also have profound impacts on your physical health. As you progress in therapy, you may experience better sleep and decreased stress levels. These two benefits alone can:

• Lower your blood pressure
• Decrease your risk of heart attack or stroke
• Increase your athletic performance
• Balance your blood sugar
• Help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight
• Improve fertility
• Strengthen your immune system
• Lessen chronic pain

While there’s no guarantee that you will gain all of these benefits from therapy. However, don’t be surprised if your body starts feeling healthier as your mental health improves.

Learn to Discuss Difficult Subjects

Talking to people about your past, trauma, emotions, or other sensitive subjects can be challenging for anyone. As you know, you will have to talk about some of these things in therapy. Doing so can not only help improve your mental health, but it can help you develop the skills you need to have difficult conversations outside of therapy as well.

Your therapist can help you find meaningful and healthy ways to express your feelings. You can use these skills in your daily life to discuss hard things with your family, friends, and even coworkers. Furthermore, if you know you need to have a particularly hard conversation with someone soon, you can tell your therapist. They can walk you through how that conversation might go and how you can cope.

Inspire Other People to Get Help

You do not have to tell anyone about your decision to go to therapy. However, if you decide to open up to anyone about it, you may inspire them to take care of their mental health as well. By being open about your experience, you normalize the act of going to therapy and reduce the stigma of mental health issues. You never know who will find the courage they need to get care all because you talked about your experience.

If you’re ready to experience all the benefits of therapy–expected and unexpected–be sure to contact LifeStance Health. Our licensed therapists specialize in a variety of areas. Find the provider who is right for you.