Becoming and more importantly staying healthy in the modern day and age come in numerous different ways. There is truly a lot you can do if your goal is to become healthier and happier overall, and it seems everyone you ask will give you a slightly different combination of practices and habits worth considering. However, you should definitely not take just about anyone’s advice when it comes to your own well-being.
Because of this, and to make sure you are doing the absolute most towards your goal to becoming healthier, you should think about different psychiatry treatments, and try to decipher which is best for you. While this article is about integrative psychiatry, we encourage you to explore other options, as psychiatry is not a one-size-fits-all treatment. BetterHelp.com has a great article about the different types of psychiatry and how they may impact you.
What is Integrative Psychiatry?
In integrative psychiatry, the complete human being is looked at as a whole. It is therefore a holistic approach that includes numerous methods of making an individual healthy and happy by looking not at different parts of your body, but the whole being that you are. Since not everyone is the same, the process is greatly personalized and different complementary ways of making someone feel and look better are explored based on who you are specifically.
In this branch of psychiatry, it is thought that there are different situations in existence when someone might need some form of therapy. Speaking of therapies, there are many often used as treatment, some of which will surely surprise you.
First of all, nutritional needs of a person are among the most important factors. A person’s diet is a great window both into their mental and physical health, which is why a change could benefit them a lot. In most cases, exercise is also included to complement the different diet and give the patient the absolute best result for a healthier and happier existence. Not only physical workouts are utilized either, as the mind has to relax and become stronger too.
Therefore, breathing exercises and meditation are an important part of integrative psychiatry.
Next up we have some less familiar things for an average person, like guided imagery, eye movements, and bodywork. Additional key areas of health are important too, like hormonal balance, infections, immunity, inflammation, work and life balance, management of stress and anxiety. Finally, psychological, existential, and spiritual troubles someone may experience are some of the hardest health related issues to tackle.
Ways Integrative Psychiatry Helps
So far there has only been word about what this technique helps us with. Now, let us explore how it actually does it and in what ways can be used to relieve us of numerous health problems.
1. Optimizing mental wellness
The absence of diseases does not mean one is happy and healthy with whom they are, what they look like, and how they feel. Not being depressed or anxious is not enough because it is not enough to feel average. Unless you are not happy and fulfilled, and unless you feel joy each day, there is much more to be wanted and sought. One of the ways integrative psychiatry helps is finding ways a patient can achieve this through various methods that include their whole being.
2. Relationships as a form of healing
Having people in your life you consider close and whom you love is important because nobody likes being alone. Having someone to rely to and someone to support you is crucial for the overall health of a person because you always have someone who deeply cares about you on your side. They are ready to listen and help and knowing that eases the mind and makes us happy and content.
3. Environment, body and mind are one
If you think about it, you cannot be healthy or happy with anything in your life if you have a physical ailment, if you are experiencing some mental difficulties, or if you are unhappy with your surroundings. Therefore, for the whole of you to be the best it can be all three must be in unison and complement each other every step of the way. Symptoms are there because something causes them, and you cannot understand and treat them if you lack the context in which they appeared. Your general circumstances and the environment you are in directly influence both your physical and mental health. Thanks to integrative psychiatry, you are able to find the best way to tackle this as one and the same problem and not as three separate issues.
4. Prevention is key
You have probably heard of a variation on the old saying that goes something like, it is better to prevent than to wait and have to heal it. If you always promote a healthy mindset and live a healthy and stress free life, you will never have anything to heal and no problems to overcome. Of course, this is much easier said than done, which is why integrative psychiatry can help you. Once you determine the best way in which the whole of you can become healthier and happier, it is only a matter of continuation and staying true to your word.
5. Individuality should be celebrated
No two persons are the same and it is important to love and cherish who you are, especially if you have some traits that are generally a rarity in society. Do not throw away who you are just to blend and fit in completely. By doing this you lose the real you. Your body and mind do not work the same and you cannot do the things other can the same. But they cannot become you either. Go out of your way if you have to but make sure that your preferences stay with you. Do what makes you happy and what you are good at no matter how different it may be. Only by staying true to yourself will you achieve an overall happy and healthy life. If you have issues with finding out who you are and developing habits to complement that, there is no better ally than integrative psychiatry.
