Nutrition’s Powerhouse Role in Physical and Mental Wellness
Sound nutrition supports physiological health. But often overlooked, it is a key player in not only alleviating mental health symptoms, but in preventing them! Lab testing is an efficient way to discover if nutritional deficiencies need to be corrected. Both changes in diet and supplementation can be instrumental in naturally correcting any such deficiencies. 
A good nutritional status supports not only physical health, but can prevent physical conditions that may not only impact mobility and longevity, and ultimately can take a toll on mental health as well.
When a person is ill, it’s pretty hard to be happy at the same time. These domains are both positively affected by paying attention to a correct nutritional plan.
On one hand, what we consume can directly or indirectly lower our mood, cause blood sugar spikes and crashes, contribute to anxiety, and other stress factors that make us feel mentally unwell. Similarly, low mood is closely connected with lack of activity and motivation.
On the other side of the picture, correct food and supplement choices in the daily diet can positively support mental wellness, brightness, and energy needed for an active lifestyle. Some physicians, especially the holistic “green” psychiatrists, are now beginning to prescribe both exercise and diet changes instead of prescription medication for psychiatric symptoms such as insomnia, anxiety, and depression.6,7
Dietary Choices that Wreck Mental Wellness, vs Ones that Support a Calm Mood, and Give us Energy
General recommendations for these positive effects include avoiding refined carbohydrates in large quantities, and cutting out sugary or chemically laden desserts and chemically processed snack foods that are full of empty calories but lack nutritional value. These foods can burden the insulin producing hormones in the body, and corrupt many vital organ functions. Physical problems such as overweight, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, jitteriness and subsequent fatigue of blood sugar spikes and crashes, corrupted hormone function, and others are associated with a poor diet.
However, eating a wide variety of raw or unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables, good quality proteins, fermented foods to support gut health, and staying well hydrated are good measures to ensure the body is getting everything it needs for calm energy, proper cardiac function, hormone production, and a healthy gut. For mental wellness, these are important pieces of the puzzle.8
Find out more about specific dietary choices for mental health as recommended by ATMC.
Supplements to Consider for Depression and Anxiety
While supplements alone aren’t going to reverse deep-seated mental conditions immediately, they can certainly assist in the reversal of symptoms like depression and anxiety that arose from factors including poor nutrition, even if underscored by a lifetime of no exercise and unhandled mental trauma.
Studies have shown that application of nutritional supplements such as Omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, magnesium, probiotics, zinc, and others can be significantly beneficial in treating major depression.9 Speak to a naturopath in choosing the most beneficial supplements for your personal situation.
Perhaps not surprisingly, similar recommendations are provided by clinical researchers for anxiety relief, including a foundational diet high in vitamin and mineral content, quality proteins, and relatively unprocessed foods, supplemented with Omega-3s, zinc, magnesium, selenium, tryptophan, and probiotics for gut health. The gut is where most of our neurotransmitters are produced so it’s a key part of the nutritional pathway to good mental and physical health.
As part of a well-planned recovery program, supplements such as NAD+ in IV form and nebulized glutathione can provide great relief for unwanted physical and mental symptoms. Supplements like these can also play a substantial supporting role when coming off psychiatric medications in a managed setting like Alternative to Meds Center.
Nutrition that Can Aid in Insomnia
There can be many contributing causes resulting in insomnia. When it persists too long, it can have disastrous physical and mental health effects. In the case of persistent insomnia, the most important therapeutic step to take is to discover the root cause or causes for the condition.
This is the way ATMC addresses such chronic symptoms. Supplements like tryptophan or melatonin (precursors to serotonin) may have a limited benefit, as well as drinking chamomile tea, or other soothing herbal preparations to help get the body prepared for sleep. For some people, these work very well and are beneficial without the risk of side effects that can come from prescription medications.
However, for more chronic issues, real relief is going to come from addressing the actual underlying reasons for your insomnia.
In addition to possibly being related to poor nutrition, insomnia can also be medication-induced, from certain heart meds, food allergies, too much caffeine, or other stimulants. Insomnia could be stress-related, or could even be a symptom of using sleeping pills for too long, more than a few days or weeks.
The best solution is to discover the root cause and then address that appropriately. This is the approach at ATMC, using a combination of lab testing and other assessments to pinpoint the actual root cause for your symptoms.
What You Should Know about Toxins and Your Health
We get exposed to toxic substances nearly daily from pesticide contamination, air and water pollution, chemicals in processed foods, and even from medications we have taken under doctor’s care.
Toxic exposure can result in physical and mental health symptoms, and these can mimic mental illness, and result in a misdiagnosis. Many of our clients have discovered this was the case in their own history. Once again, lab testing can isolate these toxic accumulations, and a proper and thorough cleansing process can purge them from the body. This is where true and lasting relief of symptoms can occur. After cleansing in the “Detox Shoppe” spa with sauna, oral chelators, ionic foot baths, colon hydrotherapy, and other methods, clients typically report higher energy, better mood, better sleep, and physically feeling better than they ever did on medication.
Want to Find Out More about Therapeutic Programs at ATMC?
You can find out more about ATMC’s amazing range of therapeutic programs including medical oversight during medication withdrawal with a host of helpful adjunctive treatments that are nutritional, and orthomolecular and environmental medicine-based. You can optimize your mental health without relying on prescription medications and their sometimes horrific side effects.
ATMC knows that there are far superior ways to get relief of symptoms than a lifetime of psychiatric medications that typically bring on other problems, and have a limited timeline of efficacy. We do the investigative work to isolate root causes for symptoms, and once these are addressed, there is no further need for the numbing action of medications. Your mental wellness is our main priority.
In a pristine, friendly atmosphere, nestled in the beautiful surrounds of the Red Rock Mountains of Sedona, you can look forward to a relaxed and productive journey to a better you. You’ll have the dedicated care of professional staff at your side every step of the way.
Call us anytime 24/7 to find out more about ATMC’s programs that are designed to address the cross-effects between physical and mental health in effective, holistic ways. It may be easier than you ever imagined to enroll at the center, and enjoy the relief that proper diet, supplementation, and toxic clearing can have on both the physical body and your mental and emotional health. Call us today!
CD’s Success Story
I began taking psych meds at age 16 to fight chronic head pain. I experimented with some forty meds until I settled on Cymbalta and Depakote. I soon added Ambien and Toradol to the mix. This continued for almost a decade until the head pain became unbearable and I started taking opiates: morphine, Percocet, and increasingly stronger doses of codeine. Eventually I reached overdose levels and my body went into shock. I quit the opiates cold turkey further exacerbating the problem and sending me into a psychotic state.
I entered a mental hospital and then transitioned into a partial hospital program for four months. During my stay there I increased the number of psych meds to nine. Sensing my life was once again threatened, I begin looking for detox options.
After doing thorough research, including seeking the advice of Dr. Peter Breggin, I decided to go to ATMC in Sedona, Arizona. When I arrived I was shaking uncontrollably from the lithium and from nervous spasms. The shakes were so pronounced that I had trouble feeding myself and my neck and back were sore from the constant shaking.
During my two months at ATMC, the medical staff helped me reduce and eliminate my psychiatric medications. The program components that helped me the most were the environmental medicine ridding my body of toxins, the nutritious food geared towards healing brain chemistry, the vitamins/supplements, and the nutrition/fitness education so I could sustain my new state of being for a lifetime. In addition, the staff I found to be always wanting to help me and get me through it.
I feel more vibrant than I have felt in thirty years. My shakes are gone and I no longer fear for my life. I am no longer enslaved to psych meds. Gaining mastery of my mind and nerves is the greatest accomplishment I have achieved in my life.
I know I could not have come this far by my own wits. In fact, I was at wits end before I came to ATMC. The loving support I received there helped me transform and reclaim the best of myself. I will always feel indebted to ATMC and feel part of the extended ATMC family.
C.D. – ATMC graduate
Emotional well-being
