How a psychologist can help you with a physical health problem
New research finds a link between mental trauma and diabetes. I'm Rachelle Grossman with your latest health news. It seems women who survive traumatic events and show PTSD, or post-traumatic
stress disorder symptoms are much more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. The good news is that a healthy diet and lifestyle may lower that risk. Daily Rx News talked with Dr. Barry
Sears, expert in anti-inflammatory nutrition and creator of the Zone Diet. He says PTSD can be associated with increased levels of inflammation, and "that" would explain the link. Researchers found that anti-depressant use and a higher body mass index accounted for nearly half of the increased risk of diabetes for PTSD patients.
One in nine women is affected by PTSD in her lifetime.
Physical health
your physical health can affect your mental health I think when we step back and think about this it makes absolute sense that a patient who is suffering or adjusting to a long-term condition is going to be affected.
emotionally as well and we can lose the sight of that when we get quite clinical and we narrow down and try and fix discrete problems for patients but it's important to keep quality of life
in mind and that's why looking after people's psychological health is really very important luckily I'm part of the very forwards looking clinic at the London
cardiovascular clinic who really recognized this that the quality of life is important and that patients need their psychological health to be supported at all aspects of their health
The journey so for example before diagnosis we often need to need some support with the anxiety that comes up with the fear of what might be around the corner
and to manage that well a lot of symptoms can be made a lot worse by anxiety as well so perhaps if we're experiencing palpitations or dizziness or even pain
if we're very anxious that can really amplify them and make things worse as well and there's a lot of adjustment that needs to happen once we have a diagnosis and we're learning to live
with a long-term condition because it's very important to realize that we can still live life well and how to achieve that so looking after relationships making
sure that we still keep doing things that we love and that we're passionate about is important but to get there sometimes we do need the help of a professional as well so I look
forward to a time when a psychologist working alongside the physical health care team is routine
and that helps us keep patients quality of life at the center of care
at a very simple level and I think our emotional health affects our physical health because if we feel more optimistic and resilient we can really
step-up and take control of our condition and we do know that patients who feel in control and have an understanding of their physical health the condition does do better as a result in terms of third the biology and
the physiology of what's happening was only really beginning to understand this whole area but we know for example from
the placebo affect the fact that our the body can respond to dummy pills or to imaginary intervention if you like that our body does have a capacity to heal itself we also know for example that even quite
inexperienced meditators in effect their blood pressure their heart rates their blood glucose levels and amazingly even their survival rates after cancer as a result of meditating and pulling in the
power of all the feel-good chemicals that come with the parasympathetic the nervous system that cascade of feel-good chemicals that come when we're really
relaxed so there are a lot of ways that we're only beginning to understand around the physiology of all of this and I think it's also really important that we're learning a lot about how social the connection is very important as well for
affecting our physical health being part of a team or feel supported it seems can have a strong and effective on our health outcomes in terms of them of how long we're likely to live as in some
cases of smoking or obesity so there's a lot we're understanding about our psychology and our relationships and the strong the impact that that has on our physical health
there are many ways that a clinical a psychologist can help with a physical health problem often by the time patients come to see me they've been given a wealth of different advice and
information and it can feel a little bit overwhelming so often an important part of the work I do is having the time to sit down and pull all those strands of advice together and to help patients make the lifestyle and cognitive changes
that they need to make to be looking after themselves well there's also really important work to helping patients to adjust to a new identity and to live well with a diagnosis and with the struggles the daily struggles that come from living with long term
conditions it's really important to make it very clear that life doesn't have to be miserable or compromised but there are many ways that we can still live a valuable and positive life and
still do the things that matter to us whether that's spending time with friends and family and adjusting those interests and passions so that they're
achievable even with the compromises we need to make so adjusting exercise in a way that's workable spending time with friends in a way that we can still achieve is very important to maintain
quality of life and living a meaningful and vital and joyous life there's an awful lot that I want to achieve in a first session and very importantly a lot of the patients I work with haven't seen a psychologist before
so there's some important work to do to demystify the whole approach and to make it clear that we're here as a team to work together to identify what you're struggling with at the moment and how we can move towards
helping you live the life that you want to live often by the time patients come and see me they've seen a lot of other professionals and consultants and they've had to tell this
story many times and that can be a little bit frustrating so while I need to hear directly from the patient what it is that they want to achieve and what they're
struggling with and what our goals are going to be I also think it's really important to spend some time really working on a plan helping a patient have a sense of where it is they want to go and what they want to achieve and to
leave the room with a few new tools to try out a few strategies to put into a place so that when we meet the second time we can already start to talk about what's working and what isn't I also
spend some time establishing what approach it is that the patient would like us to use together we have a few different therapeutic approaches that we can use but we must agree
and talk about that so that we both know the way we're going to be working going forward but the most important the thing is that the patient walks
out of my door feeling confident to come back and with a sense of hope and optimism that we're on the right path to making life as good as it can be
Or
hello I'm Charlie and welcome to authentic mental health the channel that offers advice and friendly support within our like-minded community today's the post is coming up right after this your
mental health is just as important as your physical health and they are very very closely connected a person's mental health plays a major role in maintaining their physical health mental health and physical health can affect a person's
energy levels motivation and other daily functioning tasks two major lifestyle factors can influence both mental health and physical health
the first lifestyle factor isn't a big surprise it's an exercise I just see what I just did I didn't mean for it to rhyme any form of exercise is good for your physical health along with your mental health and mental well-being even a short walk can increase our energy
levels mental alertness and mood the second lifestyle factor again is no surprise this time it doesn't rhyme its diet a healthy balanced diet is an important factor in influencing the way
that we feel if you constantly eat junk food and you get no vitamins in your body you are going to feel like crap and that will eventually lead you to feel depressed and have poor physical health
along with poor mental health and your mental well-being will be bad the two major lifestyle factors that you you need to look at the need to look at if you want to maintain good mental health along with good physical health
is exercise and diet above anything else get those two things in check to improve your physical health and your mental health I'm not saying you have to go absolutely crazy and eat broccoli and
spinach every single meal and you have to join a gym and workout for seven hours a day and just go crazy that's not what I'm saying you need to have a balanced lifestyle have everything in
proportion start small and work your way up to do you exercise do you have a healthy balanced lifestyle is your physical health good is your physical health bad is your mental health good is your
mental health bad I'd love to know about you in the comments section down below where you can also see what my physical health and mental health is like too if
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take care guys and girls and I'll see
you in another post
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