ABC Blog Post
15th September 2018
Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, 2018
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Dr Jim’s Blog: Mental health is not just about childhood experiences;
Or current stressors; or badly managed thoughts…
Mental health is related to diet and nutrition, inner dialogue, physical exercise, re-framing of experience, and sleep science…Etc…
Introduction
In science as well as popular culture, the body and mind have long been pulled apart, and treated as separate entities.
And when they are treated as being connected – as in the modern psychiatric theory of ‘brain chemistry imbalances’ causing negative moods and emotions, the ‘brain chemistry’ in question is taken to be unrelated to how you use your body; what you eat; how well you sleep.
It is assumed to be ‘special brain chemistry’ – separate and apart from Lifestyle Factors – which can only be fixed by consuming dangerous drugs!
If you are interested in the impact of lifestyle practices on mental health and emotional states, then you will enjoy our page of information about how all of the ideas above are presented in our book about Lifestyle Counselling. We see this as the core of most holistic healing practices of the future.
In the immediate future, lifestyle counselling practice will be a novel service offering for counselling and psychotherapy clients who have realized that:
# the body and mind are intimately connected;
# that the body-mind is an open system, permeated by a whole range of lifestyle factors which can be managed well, or mismanaged,
# which results in excellent or poor mental health, physical health, and personal happiness.
In the pages of our popular book on lifestyle counselling, we have presented:
– a summary of our previous book about the impact of diet and exercise on mental health and emotional well-being;
– a chapter which integrates psychological theories of emotion with physical sources of distress – for the emotions of anger, anxiety and depression – and recommends treatment strategies;
– a chapter on the negative effects of sleep insufficiency on our thinking, feeling and behaviour;
– a chapter on how to re-frame any problem, using our Six Windows Model (which includes some perspectives from moderate Buddhism and moderate Stoicism) – but excludes the extreme forms of those philosophies of life!);
– a chapter on how to divine and assess the counselling client’s multiple sources of emotional disturbance, using our Holistic-SOR Model;
– and a chapter on how to set about teaching lifestyle change to counselling and therapy clients.
For a page of information about this book’s contents, including extracts, and the contents pages and index pages, please click the following link: *Lifestyle Counselling and Coaching for the Whole Person… by Jim Byrne***
And/or you could also look at our current range of six books on this area of counselling and therapy theory and practice: Books about E-CENT Counselling.***
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That’s all for now.
Best wishes,
Jim
Dr Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling
ABC Coaching and Counselling Services
Telephone: 44 1422 843 629
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ABC Counselling and Psychotherapy, Hebden Bridge 