The Holistic Approach to Mental Health
Introduction
Mental health is an integral part of the notion of health. The problem is that the symptoms of mental imbalance are sometimes difficult to identify.
Natural medicines always include the person’s mental state in the health assessment when treating a person holistically.
Early treatment of mental dysregulation is the best way of preventing mental illness.
Understanding the Mind-Body Connection
Conventional medicine systematically separates the mind from the physical body. This separation does not exist in natural medicine.
For example, naturopathy and Chinese medicine always include the patient’s mental and emotional state in their treatments and diagnoses. It is important here to understand that the mind cannot be separated from the emotions either.
Our body’s biology and biochemistry are both global and specific. Our brain is the organ that allows us to express who we are. If this organ malfunctions, the rest of our body will also malfunction and vice versa.
So we won’t be able to express who we really are, but rather what we’re not.
When we understand this mind-body interconnection, we are much more motivated to take care of our whole body. A healthy mind in a healthy body.
Our brain cannot direct a sick body and a sick body cannot nourish our brain in a healthy way.
It should be added that our mind cannot be satisfied with a molecular diet made up of proteins, fats, sugars, minerals, vitamins, etc. Our mind needs energy, energy and energy.
Our minds need energy, light, connections, movement, communication, education, creativity, values and spirituality.
Signs you’re struggling with mental health
To be pragmatic, here’s how you’ll realize that you’re suffering mentally you are:
- (Or someone close to you) suffering from a serious illness
- Suffering from serious or chronic stress, whatever the cause
- Traumatized, whatever the cause
- Trapped in toxic or conflictual relationships
- Don’t like your life, don’t like what you do, can’t find your way or are in conflict with your values
- No longer making progress, you are bored or depressed
- Basic security (housing, money, work, etc.) is being or is at risk of being affected
- Not eating properly
- Not getting enough sleep and not getting good quality sleep
- Deprived of movement and regular contact with nature
- Engage in behaviors that are harmful to your health (taking drugs, alcohol, tobacco, medication, addictions, etc.).
Obviously, all degrees of imbalance are possible, from the mildest to the most serious, and from the easiest to treat to the most difficult, or even impossible, to treat with natural medicines.
This long list of possibilities for mental suffering reveals that the majority of people suffer mentally in one way or another, yet only a small minority seek to understand the mechanisms and find concrete solutions to free themselves from this suffering.
Faced with this suffering, people react in 3 different ways:
- Denial, running away
- Compensation
- Mental pathology
Denial, running away
Denial of situations that cause psycho-emotional suffering is unfortunately widespread. Running away is a way of occupying time so that you stop thinking and eventually realize that you are in denial.
When a day is full of activities, projects, long hours of work or leisure, trips, meetings, and outings, we have the impression, thanks to our ability to be in denial, that everything is fine. To regain holistic mental health, we first need to become aware of our psycho-emotional suffering. Only then can we put in place the necessary treatment and change the behaviors at the root of these sufferings to avoid the same causes leading to the same effects.
People do not heal in denial. Often, the patterns that led to the suffering are repeated. The person relives them, whether in their personal life or as a spectator in the lives of others.
Compensation
Compensation is also a very common reaction. Sometimes the person is aware that they are compensating, sometimes, the mechanism is unconscious.
Compensating for acute stress by eating sweets is not a problem, but when it becomes chronic, the compensation itself can be so negative as to ruin the person’s physical and mental health. Once again, chronic compensation does not lead to optimal mental health, whatever the type or variety of compensation.
Mental pathology
This third type of reaction allows the person to be labeled as a justified victim. I’m depressed, I’m bipolar, I’m bulimic, I’m anorexic, and so on.
Psycho-emotional suffering can encourage the development of a mental pathology when the person’s psycho-emotional balance is already fragile when the person has addictions, a poor diet, or when the suffering is too great.
More often than not, the causes are mixed and it doesn’t take much, when the ground is prepared, to plunge into mental pathology.
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The Pillars of Holistic Mental Health
As described above, the causes of mental health imbalance define per se and ad a contrario the pillars of mental health.
Although our minds are highly personalized – much more so than our bodies, which are differentiated from one individual to another only by a few different constitutions/temperaments – they do not escape the need to be :
- Well nourished
- Well rested
- Well educated
- Well-connected
Let’s take a closer look at these pillars.
Well-nourished:
Without a healthy diet, our brain cannot receive the nutrients it needs to function. Hormones and neurotransmitters can’t be produced properly, and the nervous system goes haywire. The more mental suffering takes hold, the more poorly nourished the person becomes, resulting in a vicious circle that’s hard to break.
Well-rested:
Mental suffering almost always leads to sleep disorders. The less restful the sleep, the less clear the mind and the less likely the person is to find solutions to his or her problems. Similarly, sleepless nights and lack of sleep, so common among young party-goers or workaholics, weaken the nervous system and encourage more problematic situations. Sleep deprivation is very often linked to inadequate nutrition.
Well educated:
Mental stability also depends on the tools the mind is given to think and make decisions. Knowing how to avoid the biggest traps that societies set for children, young people and adults is of paramount importance today. Wrong decisions can ruin a person’s life and plunge them into terrible psycho-emotional suffering.
The education we’re talking about here isn’t the education you get at school, it’s the real education, the one everyone should get to understand how human relationships work and what our bodies need.
How can we live on Earth and know nothing about ecology? We live on a planet with ecosystems that are essential to our mental health, but we don’t know anything about them! How can we make life choices in tune with ourselves if we’re trapped in appearance and superficiality? Knowledge sets you free is surely one of the great truths of our existence.
Well connected:
The energy we radiate attracts similar energies. But if we want quality connections, we also need to be able to offer quality relationships.
Developing values and principles to make the experience of life on earth more beneficial for everyone is a dynamic that brings a great deal of satisfaction and quality exchanges.
Therapies for Holistic Mental Health
Natural medicines offer many therapeutic approaches to mental health. First, a holistic diagnosis is required to understand the complexity of mind-body imbalances in the person seeking help.
Then, a wide range of therapies can be proposed, including :
- Prescriptive therapies such as phytotherapy, biotherapy and homeopathy
- Mental therapies such as relaxation, meditation and hypnosis
- All psychotherapeutic therapies, such as psychotherapy, the CAP method and Tomatis.
- All reflex and electro-magnetic therapies, such as acupuncture and electro-magnetic fields
- Manual therapies such as massage, stretching, breathing and yoga
- Nutrition
- Movement and sport
Of course, not all these therapies are equal, and some can only be used as a complement to a primary therapy.
The problem is that the person in pain is unaware of this, and most of the time starts off on a kind of health tourist circuit, looking for the miracle solution by accumulating sessions of whatever they can get their hands on.
Our advice, of course, is to turn to an expert in holistic natural medicine, who can organize a real health check-up and then a coherent, effective treatment plan tailored to your specific needs.
Today, an expert in holistic natural medicine will be able to use specific blood tests to assess the mental imbalance from a biological point of view, thus providing an additional aid to treatment.
Benefits of the holistic approach to mental health compared to traditional treatment
The benefits are indisputable, as there are never any prescriptions for chemical medications with serious side-effects, but of course, this also means that natural treatments cannot deal with serious situations that require the use of chemical medications.
The majority of consultations for problems of psycho-emotional suffering fall within the therapeutic means of natural medicines, so it’s sad that these people are prescribed anxiolytics, antidepressants or sleeping pills.
Identifying the cause, understanding it, treating the organism holistically and changing its operating mechanism so as to no longer generate or maintain suffering is the greatest asset of natural medicines.
In almost all cases, the treatments offered by conventional medicine are limited to administering pills to alleviate symptoms. Suffering, of course, is simply gagged, pushed into the background and told to shut up. The sinusoid of emotions is flattened, and unfortunately this phenomenon is often confused with healing.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we’d like to give you three pieces of advice:
- Maintain your physical and psycho-emotional health on a regular basis by educating yourself, as we propose on our platform.
- Treat yourself regularly with natural medicines, so that minor health problems don’t become major ones.
- If, in spite of this, unforeseeable or difficult events should occur in your life, have the reflex to seek help as quickly as possible from natural medicines. Any acute situation taken care of correctly will save you a lot of unnecessary trouble.
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Barone Holistic Experts is a distinguished team of three highly skilled natural healthcare professionals. With certifications in Naturopathy and Traditional Chinese Medicine, they possess a collective experience of over 50 years.
Their primary focus is on delivering personalized treatments and creating comprehensive long-term plans that enable individuals to achieve optimal health. They prioritize the unique needs of each client, striving to provide the best possible results.
Renowned as pioneers and authorities in alternative therapies, this team has gained a well-deserved reputation. Through their combined expertise and collaborative efforts, they offer an extensive range of solutions to their clients.
These include homeopathy, aromatherapy, phytotherapy, reflex methods (Auriculotherapy, Sympathicotherapy, Reflexology), manual techniques (Osteopathy, Tui Na, Reboutology, Trigger point, Fascia therapy), Nutrition and micro nutrition, and many more.
Beyond their clinical practice, they are deeply committed to educating their clients about holistic health. They empower individuals by educating them on how to improve their well-being through dietary choices, lifestyle modifications, and mindful life decisions.
