Integrative Mental Health
Our bodies are like a well-oiled machine…well, sometimes. But if one piece or part of our machine isn’t working right, the whole thing runs wrong, or just shuts down. Integrative mental health understands that all the “pieces” of our body and life need to be in sync in order to run effectively.
Integrative mental health recognizes the pieces (that usually get ignored in traditional therapy) that cause or contribute to emotional health symptoms: our sleep patterns, nutritional habits, environment, physical health, & chronic stress in the body. Doctors and scientists finally realize the impact these have on our emotions and mental health. So nutrition, circadian rhythm, and lifestyle habits may actually be what’s contributing to your mental health symptoms.
Even thousands of years ago, Hippocrates said “all disease begins in the gut”. Turns out, he was right! New research on depression heavily links it to system-wide inflammation in our bodies. Inflammation that can come from certain vitamin deficiencies, food sensitivities, and disruptions in our gut microbiome. Our microbiome is the good and bad bacteria in our gut, and it directly affects neurotransmitter production. Basically, neurotransmitters are like the Uber Eats of our body, delivering chemical messages to the brain that regulate our mood, make us feel happy or stressed - among lots of other things.
You might hear a lot about the gut-brain connection lately. That’s because we’re finally figuring out how much our gut health impacts our mental health. Our mind and body work together, and if something’s out of sync, we get all “off-balance”. Our mood, sleep, and physical health can all be out of wack.
By integrating things like nutrition education, yoga/exercise, vitamins, healthy sleep habits, and stress reduction into traditional talk therapy, it becomes much more successful.
