A useful listener notices when advice has become another demand.

Suggestions accumulate into pressure without anyone meaning them to. Someone struggling hears about the app, the book, the doctor, the routine that worked for your cousin, and each item arrives as one more thing they are now failing to do. Help offered as a list can end up heavier than the original problem.

Before you suggest anything, ask whether they want ideas or company. If they want company, sit with it and say nothing useful at all. And if you have already given three suggestions, stop at three, because the fourth is more likely to be for your own comfort than theirs.