Holistic Treatment

The health benefits of getting outdoors have been well-documented for decades. Even just spending 20 minutes a day outside can help improve your immediate mental health. Sunlight helps the body produce vitamin D — an essential nutrient for keeping bones, muscles, and teeth healthy and strong. Indoor air quality can contribute to chronic respiratory illnesses, so getting outside helps boost our immune system.

Spending time outdoors also has some other amazing mental health benefits, such as:

• Reducing stress
• Improving concentration
• Lowering blood pressure
• Reducing anxiety and depression symptoms

Anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms can take you out of the present moment and cause a spiral of negative thoughts and emotions. Therapy and medication are helpful tools for managing the root cause of anxiety and depression. However, meditation is an incredibly helpful resource for managing symptoms before they start.

Numerous studies have tested the effectiveness of using meditation and mindfulness to treat anxiety, depression, and panic disorders. Overwhelmingly the evidence indicates that regular meditation practices reduce anxiety and depression symptoms by:

• Helping you stay focused in the present moment
• Providing a new perspective on stressful situations
• Giving insight into triggers
• Teaching breath work that can have a calming effect
• Building stress-management skills

Yoga and meditation are both practices that help redirect the mind to the present moment. Practicing yoga tends to be more physical than a meditation practice, which is especially beneficial for people with anxiety and panic disorders, who may find sitting still uncomfortable. The focused deep breathing involved with yoga (and meditation) can be calming, reducing emotional responses to external triggers — even outside of practice.

Yoga has the added benefit of being a physical exercise, and almost all exercise produces endorphins and increases the brain’s oxygen supply. These effects help lower stress and make you feel better overall.

Acupuncture originated in China, and as a practice has been in use for millennia. In the last several decades it has been integrated into more Western medicine practices due to its efficacy in treating a host of physical and mental health disorders.

As a complementary treatment to other therapies, acupuncture has proven to be especially helpful in alleviating symptoms of certain mental health disorders, like depression. One of the primary benefits of acupuncture is its effect on areas of the brain known to react to stress and pain, by promoting a more relaxed and less reactive mind.

There is no doubt that chronic pain can contribute to increased depression and anxiety symptoms. Pain can make everything from getting a good night’s sleep to engaging in day-to-day life difficult, if not near impossible. Massage and chiropractic care work to help realign the body and manage chronic pain, which can go a long way to alleviating depression and anxiety symptoms. Other benefits of massage and chiropractic services include:

• Relief from migraine and chronic headaches
• Reduce muscle tension — often a physical side effect of anxiety
• Induce a more relaxed physical state

It takes a concerted effort for most people to give their bodies the food they need — especially when processed and pre-packaged foods are more convenient. Compounding that fact is that people struggling with the symptoms of mental health disorders may not have the emotional energy to be mindful of healthful eating. However, inadequate nutrition can actually make depression and anxiety symptoms worse.

Eating well doesn’t just make your body more healthy, but is actually beneficial for your overall mental health Learning about diets that support gut health, mental wellness, and mindful eating set the framework for continued physical and mental health during and after treatment.