With all the bad things that are happening in our world today, anything can trigger mental health illnesses and other issues. Trauma, natural disasters, emotional turmoil, and even the simplest things like the sight of dental equipment can trigger anxiety, depression, or panic. Let us discover one of the highly-recommended ways to address mental illness – the holistic mental health approach. Find out what this holistic approach to mental illness is all about and what benefits can this method give.

What is the Holistic Approach to Mental Health?

A holistic approach to your mental or psychological health means that it does not isolate this part of your overall health to your other body systems and their status. Rather, the holistic approach is interested in all facets of the person. This specific approach does not center on the mental complaints assessment, and diagnosis, of the patient, but it also takes into consideration the emotions and the social status of this individual. By incorporating all aspects of the person’s life to what triggers he may have on a regular basis, then addressing these factors with different holistic methods would result in a more wide-ranging healing approach to improve the patient’s clinical results. Simply put, a holistic mental health approach is accepting the fact that there is an inherent connection between the mind and the body.

What are the benefits of following a holistic approach to mental illness?

Using the holistic mental health program as an alternative medicine approach, a practitioner addresses the factors in a person’s life that may affect the mental illness, including his medical, psychological, spiritual, social, and behavioral aspects. Apparently, the lifestyle or way of living that a person follows can also affect his mental status. What the facilitator would take advantage of is to help the patient use his mind to heal. The way he thinks and feels will help him adjust his reactions to any triggers and allows him to self-manage his symptoms by easing himself out of any mental instability. The thought of feeling imbalanced due to anxiety, panic, or fear can be easily managed if the patient realizes that he can cope with the stimulants effectively on his own.

Another benefit that the holistic mental health approach can offer is the thought that you would not be depending on pharmacologic means to remedy a mental illness. By changing some aspects of your daily activities, diet, and lifestyle choices, you can manage any symptoms that you may have when battling mental illness.

Activities that promote Holistic approach to mental health illnesses

While changing the way you think and feel are thought to be enough to solve a psychiatric or mental problem, there are also some activities that you can learn and practice to make your recovery smooth-sailing.

Meditation

This practice calms the mind and frees it from all the stressors that you may have been feeling and thinking about. Focusing on a specific event, object, activity, or your own person helps clear your mind relaxes your body. You may start practicing meditation with the help of an instructor or other resources,  or you can isolate yourself in a quiet room or space so you can untangle yourself from the world for just a bit, just so that your mind can be calm and clear after.

Exercise

Known to energize the body and keep us fit, exercise regimens can definitely make our body strong and fit. But there are more benefits that we can get from performing different exercise techniques, and that includes releasing stress and balancing our mood. Studies show that when you improve your discipline, endurance, and self-confidence, it will directly affect your outlook in life.

Breathing exercises

Deep breathing exercise is known to relax the body anytime you feel stressed or tired. Practicing this purposefully every time you feel stressors are attacking you can increase your oxygen supply in the body, thus achieving what the body normally needs in cases of over-excitement or agitation.

Yoga

Combining meditation, breathing exercises, and slow and stable physical movements can strengthen the mind and body connection to relax and calm the whole body.

Proper diet

Ensuring that the body gets the right nutrition can immediately balance the health of all aspects of the body. Your mental health and your overall health can all benefit when we get all the right nutrients.

Aromatherapy

There are studies that show the connection of certain essential oils to the calm and focus of the mind can definitely benefit the overall health status of the body. The aroma of lavender, chamomile, and other fruit or flower extracts can relax the mind and cause the reduction of psychiatric symptoms.

Doing these practices not only strengthens your mind and emotions, but it can also benefit your overall health status. Instead of depending on pharmacologic medications or psychotropic drugs that impact the hormones and neurotransmitters of the brain through chemical approaches and pharmacokinetics, allow your body to heal itself in an organic, intrinsic, and self-assuring way through holistic mental health approaches.