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03 Jun 2019
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Why Nutritional Psychiatry is the Future of Mental Health Treatment

A lack of essential nutrients is known to contribute to the onset of poor mental health in people suffering from anxiety and depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and ADHD. Nutritional psychiatry is a growing discipline that focuses on the use of food and supplements to provide these essential nutrients as part of an integrated or alternative treatment for mental health disorders.

But nutritional approaches for these debilitating conditions are not widely accepted by mainstream medicine. Treatment options tend to be limited to official National Institute for Care Excellence (NICE) guidelineswhich recommend talking therapies and antidepressants.

Use of Antidepressants

Antidepressant use has more than doubled in recent years. In England 64.7m prescriptions were issued for antidepressants in 2016 at a cost of £266.6m. This is an increase of 3.7m on the number of items prescribed in 2015 and more than double than the 31m issued in 2006.

A recent Oxford University study found that antidepressants were more effective in treating depression than placebo. The study was led by Dr Andrea Cipriani who claimed that depression is under treated. Cipriani maintains that antidepressants are effective and a further 1m prescriptions should be issued to people in the UK.

This approach suggests that poor mental health caused by social conditions is viewed as easily treated by simply dispensing drugs. But antidepressants are shunned by people whom they could help because of the social stigma associated with mental ill-health which leads to discrimination and exclusion.

More worrying is the increase in the use of antidepressants by children and young people. In Scotland, 5,572 children under 18 were prescribed antidepressants for anxiety and depression in 2016. This figure has more than doubled since 2009/2010.

But according to British psychopharmacologist Professor David Healy, 29 clinical trials of antidepressant use in young people found no benefits at all. These trials revealed that instead of relieving symptoms of anxiety and depression, antidepressants caused children and young people to feel suicidal.

Healy also challenges their safety and effectiveness in adults. He believes that antidepressants are over-prescribed and that there is little evidence that they are safe for long-term use. Antidepressants are said to create dependency, have unpleasant side effects and cannot be relied upon to always relieve symptoms.

Nutrition and Poor Mental Health

In developed countries such as the UK people eat a greater variety of foodstuffs than ever before – but it doesn’t follow that they are well nourished. In fact, many people do not eat enough nutrients that are essential for good brain health, opting for a diet of heavily processed food containing artificial additives and sugar.

The link between poor mental health and nutritional deficiencies has long been recognised by nutritionists working in the complementary health sector. However, psychiatrists are only now becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of using nutritional approaches to mental health, calling for their peers to support and research this new field of treatment.

It is now known that many mental health conditions are caused by inflammation in the brain which ultimately causes our brain cells to die. This inflammatory response starts in our gut and is associated with a lack of nutrients from our food such as magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics, vitamins and minerals that are all essential for the optimum functioning of our bodies.

Recent research has shown that food supplements such as zinc, magnesium, omega 3, and vitamins B and D3 can help improve people’s mood, relieve anxiety and depression and improve the mental capacity of people with Alzheimer’s.

Magnesium is one of most important minerals for optimal health, yet many people are lacking in it. One study found that a daily magnesium citrate supplement led to a significant improvement in depression and anxiety, regardless of age, gender or severity of depression. Improvement did not continue when the supplement was stopped.

Omega-3 fatty acids are another nutrient that is critical for the development and function of the central nervous system – and a lack has been associated with low mood, cognitive decline and poor comprehension.

The role of probiotics – the beneficial live bacteria in your digestive system – in improving mental health has also been explored by psychiatrists and nutritionists, who found that taking them daily was associated with a significant reduction in depression and anxiety. Vitamin B complex and zinc are other supplements found to reduce the symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Hope for the Future?

These over-the-counter” supplements are widely available in supermarkets, chemists and online health food stores, although the cost and quality may vary. For people who have not responded to prescription drugs or who cannot tolerate the side effects, nutritional intervention can offer hope for the future.

There is currently much debate over the effectiveness of antidepressants. The use of food supplements offer an alternative approach that has the potential to make a significant difference to the mental health of all age groups.

The emerging scientific evidence suggests that there should be a bigger role for nutritional psychiatry in mental health within conventional health services. If the burden of mental ill health is to be reduced, GPs and psychiatrists need to be aware of the connection between food, inflammation and mental illness.

Medical education has traditionally excluded nutritional knowledge and its association with disease. This has led to a situation where very few doctors in the UK have a proper understanding of the importance of nutrition. Nutritional interventions are thought to have little evidence to support their use to prevent or maintain well-being and so are left to dietitians, rather than doctors, to advise on.

But as the evidence mounts up, it is time for medical education to take nutrition seriously so that GPs and psychiatrists of the future know as much about its role in good health as they do about anatomy and physiology. The state of our mental health could depend on it.

About the Author: Joyce Cavaye

Joyce Cavaye is a senior Lecturer in Health, Well-Being and Social Care at The Open University.

**This article was originally feature at The Conversation and is re-posted here under a creative commons license.

03 Jun 2019
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Meeting The Darkness: dealing with your feelings about climate change

The photographer Paul Nicklen said he wanted to show people what a starving polar bear really looked like. Sealegacy/Caters News

How do we be present to the suffering caused by climate change – and not let it overwhelm us, but rather move through it to a place of hope and empowerment?

It sometimes feels like an unrelenting onslaught. News story after news story about the horrors climate change is wreaking upon us. Floods, fires, cities filled with smoke, a melting Arctic and more and more new refugee crises. And of course most of these stories end with the virtual inevitability of worse times ahead.

What we don’t know is how much worse it will get, and when we will turn the corner towards sanity. These are the massive uncertainties that can weigh on us and cause us to disengage from that precious gift of this one life we have been given.

Uncertainty is one of the places we human beings are most uncomfortable. When faced with not knowing, we often settle on a negative outcome just to have a story to tell ourselves that will bring some comfort of certainty in our own minds. Like when your family member is late for dinner and you convince yourself they’ve had a car accident instead of the more obvious possibility that they were simply delayed. We detest uncertainty. It makes us uncomfortable. And yet learning to live with uncertainty is one of the life skills that is most called for at this time.

All of this challenging news about the state of our climate, our planet, and what it might mean for human civilization can indeed be overwhelming. Many people are now entering into a state of eco-grief. In psychological literature the term “solastalgia” has been coined to refer to the distress caused by environmental decline. It is derived from the notion of nostalgia for the comfort of home — the effects of witnessing the place you identify as home being threatened or destroyed. Therapists and clergy are now developing practices to help people cope with this new a new category of psychological stress.

And indeed there is much to grieve about. Luckily, grief is something we humans know quite a lot about. While the scale of ecological grief is new, grief itself is very well known terrain. And while climate grief is different in scale and focus than individual grief at a loss, they look quite similar in terms of process.

The key takeaway is that the difficult work of facing the reality cannot be avoided. Yes there will be denial, anger and forms of bargaining as outlined in the seminal work by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross on death and dying. But what we know most about grief is that it is a healthy, necessary and healing process to cope with loss. The extent to which one avoids or subverts grief is the extent to which one delays the potential for healing.

And so we must sit with it.

We must acknowledge our feelings about the reality of an increasingly unstable climate and the innumerable repercussions it will have on the human and nonhuman worlds. We must let ourselves meet this darkness face to face, so that we can move through it rather than be weighed down by it.

And, conversely, we must remember how much we also have to be joyful for. Those that move through grief often talk about coming out the other side to a new kind of aliveness. A deeper joy and appreciation of what is. Rooting in gratitude can create the safe container we need to let ourselves feel our grief without becoming mired in it. A daily practice of naming what you are grateful for can give us a reservoir of love and appreciation that both enhances the joy of life and gives us the strength to be present with the darkness.

So, how to deal with your feelings of climate grief?

First, offer gratitude for what you do have. The relationships in your life, the abundance around you, clean water and clean air. And we — each of us reading this on a computer or smartphone — we each have so much. We have more than most any other cohort of humans have ever had. Consider a daily gratitude practice or keeping a gratitude journal. Go for walk in nature and re-root your system by soaking in the outstanding beauty of the amazing world we now inhabit.

Second, feel your feelings. Let yourself be sad, or confused, or angry. Talk to a friend and share your feelings. Grief needs to be heard and witnessed. Watch a movie and cry your eyes out. Journal about it. Shout into the wind. Let it out. Let it come through you and be released. All of these things will help you along the difficult healing journey.

Third, get comfortable with uncertainty. Humanity is on a roller coaster the likes of which we have never seen. Change is the only certainty. Of course our wisest selves have always known that certainty and control are illusions. Now, we are invited to practice that eternal spiritual skill of living in the present and accepting the unknowable nature of the future. Surely there is a gift in that.

And lastly, know that your grief — reaching into the darkness and actually feeling it — is a natural and healthy response to life in these times. In fact is a valuable contribution to the collective emotional work that is needed now.

You are not alone with these feelings.

Part of the work of saving the world is grieving for the parts of it that we may lose or which we have already lost. Let yourself be transformed by your grief, the way compost enriches the soil, to make fertile ground for the new life — however that may look.

This is the first of a series of articles exploring Climate Hope. Please send me a message or email to let me know what you think. We’re all in this together.

About the Author: Karen Mahon in Opinion | April 18th 2019
[email protected]

https://www.nationalobserver.com

03 Jun 2019
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Your Cells Are Listening: How Talking To Your Body Can Help You Heal

Your Cells are Listening

Every part of your body has its own consciousness or its own soul.

These transformative words, spoken by indigenous medicine women, began my journey within to discover the extraordinary healing capacity of the human body.

When this perspective was introduced to me, I was suffering from a severe chronic pain disorder. I suddenly imagined incorporating this concept into my meditation routine.

I thought, can my body hear me… can I talk to it to gain its cooperation in healing this condition?

The Path to Freedom

That night, after reaching a state of deep calm through meditation, I inwardly engaged my body in a heartfelt conversation, with hope, but having no idea what to expect. After about one hour of this focused communication, something amazing happened.

My tissues began to respond. Connective tissue pulled and stretched apart layers of scar tissue. Nerves fired and my calf muscles began to perform flexion and extension exercises independently of my conscious control.

As this response continued, one of my calf muscles that had become paralyzed by the neuropathic condition — diagnosed as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy — came back to life as electric-like jolts shot through the area.

My heart pounded as I realized that the path to my freedom from this condition had finally begun.

Guidelines for Dynamic Healing

With a background in acupuncture and Oriental medicine, I knew too well how prevalent chronic pain is in this country and I wondered what the implications of this phenomenon could mean to so many others who were suffering.

As I continued to make progress with my condition, I organized my approach into a system that I could teach to clients and shifted my professional focus to hypnotherapy.

When instructing my clients, I explain that a regular meditation practice is necessary to train the brain to enter alpha and theta brain wave states. While in these states, communication between the conscious mind and the physical body is dramatically enhanced.

I have found that when communicating, there are three key steps to gaining the cooperation of the body:

Approach your body with genuine compassion, understanding that it is made up of conscious cells who experience emotions.
Build trust by engaging your body in mental conversations about your desire for the two of you to cooperate and overcome the ailment.
Allow changes in the conversation by using different thoughts and words that elicit spontaneous elevated emotions.

From my experience, the above guidelines are necessary to achieve dynamic healing responses in the body.

The Force of human Intention

I recently came across a very similar set of factors that were discovered by researcher Cleve Backster, who spent 36 years studying biocommunication in plant, animal and human cells. He referred to these factors as real intent, attunement, and spontaneity.

Backster, formerly an interrogation specialist for the CIA, wrote about the defining moment which led him to his real work in this world, in his book Primary Perception.

This moment occurred one February morning in 1966 when he decided to monitor the Dracaena plant in his lab utilizing polygraph equipment.

He attached the electrodes to a leaf and began to think about ways that he might induce a surge in electrical activity in the plant. In humans this surge in electrical activity is associated with intense emotions.

He suddenly imagined burning the electroded leaf. The same instant this idea entered his mind, the polygraph pen shot to the top of the chart showing an extreme reaction on the part of the plant.Amazed, he walked to his secretary’s desk to retrieve a set of matches while pondering the possibility that this plant was somehow detecting the force of human intention.

Can Plants become Attuned to their Primary Care Takers?

When he returned with the matches, the plant was still showing the same high level reaction which would interfere with tracking additional changes on the chart. Backster decided to “remove the threat” by returning the matches to the desk.

At this point, the chart displayed a downward trend as the plant apparently began to calm down. When Backster attempted to repeat the same results by pretending that he was going to burn the plant, there was no reaction. The plant seemed to sense the difference between real and artificial intent.

He eventually discovered that plants become attuned to their primary care takers, responding to both their positive and negative emotions and to their return after being away for a time. Chart findings also showed that plants prioritize the emotions of their primary care takers over the emotions of others nearby.

Signs of Consciousness

Backster later expanded his research to include testing human cells for signs of consciousness.

He collected white blood cells from human donors, electroded them in a test tube and then recorded the cells’ reactions as the donors experienced different emotional states. He found that spontaneous emotions were necessary in order to elicit an electrical reaction in the cells.

For instance, if a donor forced herself to feel an emotion, the cells would not respond. However, when she received a distressing phone call from her daughter, the cells reacted significantly.

He noted that distance seemed to be irrelevant in these experiments. For example, a donor left his electroded cells behind in the lab, then kept a detailed log of any stressful emotions experienced on his trip home to another state, such as missing a turn on the freeway, standing in a long line at the airport, and the take-off of his plane.

Later, his logged incidents compared with the chart recording showed strong correlations between the timing of the stressful events and the electrical reactions in his cells. The chart became quiet again when he arrived home and went to sleep.

Raw Creative Healing Ability

These experiments were conducted while using equipment that screened out electromagnetic radiation — the usual energies used for information transmission. The cells behaved as if the screens weren’t there, suggesting that this communication is carried by a field still unidentified by conventional science.

Some scientists believe that the further development of quantum physics may help guide us to understand this field that communicates emotional intent between living things. Quantum Entanglement is a process where two particles of matter which have interacted with each other, still behave as if they are connected after being separated by many miles.

When an energetic change is made to the properties (position, momentum and rotational spin) of one of the particles, the properties of the other distant particle will change at the same instant.

This scientific phenomenon and the research of Cleve Backster, point to the Eastern concept of oneness — the view that all of nature is interdependent. Ancient cultures understood this interconnection as a living universal energy field that sustains life while guiding the evolution of consciousness throughout the universe.

The meditation techniques involved in my practice bring the mind into attunement with this field. Energy from this field is then focused into a physical healing event through clear intention — delivered by means of a conversation that evokes spontaneous emotions — and attunes the physical body to the conscious mind.

This method which I call Antara (Sanskrit for within), enables one to experience the raw creative healing ability generated by an alliance of the mind and body with this living universal energy field.

Source: antarahealingarts

11 Dec 2015
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Make Room For Miracles: New Moon in Sagittarius

This month’s new moon occurs during the last few days of Chanukah on Friday, December 11th at 2:29AM PST. A celebration of light amidst the darkest nights, Chanukah’s central theme is to remember and publicize the miracle, reminding one another that miracles are a part of our life, happening all the time. Placing our menorah in the window ensures that everyone who passes by our home will at least have the possibility of receiving some light during these long dark nights.

Chanukah isn’t the only holiday this season that centers itself around the themes of gratitude, miracles and the returning of the light. All of our ancestors had specific yet similar associations with the sun’s cycles and this season.

As the days grow darker and darker until the Winter Solstice on December 21st we need reminders that the light will return, so we light candles, we wrap trees in tiny lights, we tell stories of miracles that occurred long ago and if we are wise we look for the miracles that occur in our lives everyday.

Miracles are a part of life.

They happen constantly and as humans we often miss them. Our gaze might be cast down when they fly by our eye line. Our hearts may have hardened against receiving them. We may have forgotten that we can actively manifest them. We might not know that there is a way to prepare ourselves to be the vessel for such miracles to flow through.

Preparing our selves for the miraculous takes deep introspection. It takes a willingness to see when our thoughts are rooted in greed or hate. It takes a great strength to notice the places inside of us that are bound in fear and trauma, rightfully so perhaps, but nonetheless withholding from us the experience of witnessing how grace is always wanting to move through us, always ready and at our service, and always willing to show up.

The fact that we have been traumatized, violated, beaten down and abused is not our fault. It is not a fault that we have within us. It is not something that is wrong with us.

It is, however, something that we have to carry.

The fact that we have perhaps participated in the trauma, violation and abuse of others is something that is hard to recognize, it’s hard to see in ourselves, it’s hard to acknowledge and it’s also hard to carry.

But we are not our worst decisions.

We are human and if we choose to see both sides of ourselves, the victim and the perpetrator, miracles can occur.

When we open ourselves up to more than just our own experience, we become more competent, loving, intelligent and connected beings. And that makes our lives fertile ground for miracles, healing and hope.

We are, as a world, in dark times. We are in jeopardy of believing that our hatred of others will protect us from the pain of life. We are in jeopardy of forgetting that our own hatred harms us more than anyone else’s could. We are in jeopardy of letting our minds and our hearts be poisoned against one another by the distortions of the deranged. Right now, we need all the miracles we can get.

Fortunately, miracles aren’t granted only to the holy, the pious or the righteous. Miracles aren’t saved for the popular kids that are so #blessed. That’s privilege and it’s a human construct that has nothing to do with actual blessings. Miracles are something much more interesting. Miracles are taking place all the time. In big ways. In teeny-tiny ways. Inside every life. Miracles simply exist. Without our force. Without our coercion. Without our manipulation.

Every time you love out loud you are opening a space for a miracle to enter. Every time you seek to create a safe and just world for all you are helping miracles to occur. Every time you remember that your liberation is bound up in the liberation of every other being on the planet, you have been granted a miracle. Every time we remember and act on the fact that we are all here to serve one another, we have been part of a miracle.

Hold that miracle up.

We need to see it. We need to remember it. We need to be reminded of the fact that there is nothing greater to give than our light, our awareness and our energy in service of all life on the planet.

Sagittarius is a sign that has boundless faith. Sagittarius knows no bounds. Sagittarius is down for possibility and excited by the open road. Sagittarius focuses on what works. It is a sign that acts on faith and has the enthusiasm of a thousand excited puppies unleashed on the world.

Sagittarius knows life is miraculous.

On Friday, December 11th at 2:29 AM PST, the moon will be new in Sagittarius. This is a new moon that can remind us that we have to have great amounts of faith in order to live life out on the open road.

This is the first new moon in Sagittarius that we’ve had with Saturn co present in about 28 years or so. Saturn, having recently moved into Sagittarius where it will stay for the next two years, is encouraging us to embark upon our journey with a great commitment to its process.

Saturn isn’t the easiest planet, nor the kindest, but it is the most serious. In Sagittarius, Saturn asks us what journey we might be serious about taking, what we are serious about learning and what spiritual pursuit we are serious enough about to take on in earnest. More importantly to note is what part of your chart this is all taking place in (read your new moon horoscope to find out). Since Saturn will be here for the next two years it might be helpful to use this new moon to consider what projects you are willing to commit to, which journeys you are prepared to take and which pursuits feel like they need your full-on yes in order to really get going.

Saturn in Sagittarius might also be asking us to harness our faith, show up for what we believe in and offer our lives as sites for the miraculous to occur.

The new moon is also getting a hopeful and invigorating trine from Uranus and a helpful heeeyyy there sextile from Mars. Uranus wants freedom, change and innovation. Uranus wants new, bold beginnings. Mars has courage. Mars has get up and go. Mars has what it takes to take it to the next level.

It takes courage to travel this path because what we face we do so mostly on our own.

The ruler of this new moon is Jupiter. The new moon is squaring Jupiter who is currently in Virgo. Jupiter adds an exaggerated tone to the new moon. It might magnify Sagittarius’s tendencies, like over indulgence and overestimation.

Steady your feet. This isn’t a race. We need conscious co-creators to take their journey one step at a time. Look at the horizon. Look to where you are going. Look to what is possible as you commit yourself to the path that you have chosen.

Declaring our commitment immediately calls in the possibility of doubt. That’s what choice does, it reveals what we allow ourselves to become constantly distracted by. Our doubts. Our fears. Our facades. But it’s too easy to make excuses. It’s too easy to be swayed by unfounded fears. It’s too easy to be unsure and to therefore stay in the same cycle.

This new moon is daring you to do that all differently. If you want a relationship, commit yourself to a practice of self-love, healing and preparing for them. If you want to open your own business, commit time every day towards learning about it and doing something towards manifesting it. If you want to feel good, commit to a self-care ritual and to loving yourself through each up and down. If you want justice you have to commit to making room for it in all aspects of life.

If we want anything, like anything at all, we have to show up for it in sickness, in health, in hopeful days and in ones where we despair. That’s what Saturn can teach us. If we want a miracle, we can at the very least prepare ourselves for one.

About the Author:
Chani has a degree in Feminist Counseling from George Brown College and a BA in Integral Studies from California Institute of Integral Studies. She has studied psychological astrology for over 20 years and is currently studying Hellenistic astrology with Demetra George. Chani devotes her spare time to studying, practicing and supporting restorative justice practices. You can find her at http://chaninicholas.com