The number of Americans diagnosed with a mental disorder has grown exponentially, and to make matters worse, many are increasingly over-diagnosed. Curiously the numbers are unique to the United States among industrial nations, a fact in itself that should ring alarm bells.

Why take a pill, though, when a plethora of research supports lifestyle changes are promising alternatives, providing one makes a commitment to holistic change? Findings show that an anti-inflammatory diet, exercise, meditation, among other health essentials for the brain and body, are equally if not more viable and effective treatments for anxiety and depression – notably, with no side effects.

Making a case for Ending the Era of Mass Psychiatry, Dr Marilyn Wedge discusses three recent books that seek answers to the question of why Americans are suffering a ‘unique’ to the U.S. ‘mental health epidemic’?

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If you’re not already exercising, and wish to make exercise part of your lifestyle, you may be wondering how you will ever find the energy, the will or even the time to exercise.

If so, you first need reasons to love exercise for its many benefits so you can begin to energize your heart and mind to fully embrace, and welcome a balanced exercise program into your life, for its many benefits to your physical and emotional wellbeing.

Naturally, the next step is to talk to your doctor about taking a fitness test, to determine if there are any exercises that are unsafe or off limits for you. [Hopefully a doctor that values a preventive, holistic approach to primary care...]

And now, to really get started, here are 12 tips or guidelines to follow, and more and more, to enjoy making exercise an integral part of your lifestyle:

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There is a lot to love about exercise! Like a trusted friend, you can count on it to always be there to take your frustrations to, and know you will leave feeling better or re-charged and ready to return to living your life, and to keep stretching toward your dreams.

Similar to a good therapy session, exercise can also help you discover the power you have inside, through the choices you make, to consciously melt away any stress or anxiety, to calm your anger, and to regain your composure after an upset — and to do so in ways that grow, empower and nourish you, emotionally and physically.

In some cases, it’s no exaggeration to say that exercise can work instant wonders, not unlike the refresh button on your computer.

(A word of caution, however: Exercise cannot replace professional therapy in dealing with a serious personal issue, trauma, addiction, and so on. It can however work miracles on routine or relatively minor stresses — and in all cases is a great partner to therapy, especially essential in dealing with big stressors.)

Falling in love with a regular and balance exercise routine may be just what you need to energize yourself to live your best life — and achieve the healthy, trim and fit body you want — as a bonus!

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You’ve heard it before, and increasingly, doctors and therapists are recommending it: Exercise is one of the healthiest steps you can take to improve your life, health and emotional well-being. It not only helps you maintain a healthy body and weight, it also has proven benefits in increasing your happiness and even improving your relationships.

If you’re already exercising, you may want to improve your consistency, and spend less time making excuses or dreading what’s involved. Wouldn’t it be great to enjoy and appreciate its value to you, your health and your happiness?

You can. Check into how you may energize your love and appreciation for exercise. And, if you are just getting started, here are 12 tips to help you make exercise part of your lifestyle.

Regardless your fitness level, however, it’s important to work toward putting together an exercise regimen that is balanced. What’s that entail? A balanced exercise program is one that includes the three essential components of physical health: endurance, strength, and balance and flexibility.

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Believe it or not, you are in a perfect place in your life, exactly where you need to be.

If that doesn’t feel true, you may not be exercising your capacity for conscious acceptance as a springboard for making optimal choices, or may not understand how it can serve you as a bridge or anchor, to realizing the larger vision of where you aspire to be your life (whether you know what that is or not).

In Part 1, we looked at conscious acceptance, and how it can empower you to respond to disappointments and challenges in consciously positive ways. Considering the life-shaping power of responses, that’s big.

In this post, we look at three factors that shape how you respond – your beliefs, choices and actions – and how acceptance can play a vital role in cultivating these key abilities, so that they more fully support you to take the shortest, most expedient path to living a life of balance, healing and transformation, or what psychologist Abraham Maslow would call self-actualization.

How does conscious acceptance maximize your beliefs, choices and actions?

• Like an anchor, acceptance grounds your sense of self in mind- and body-calming core beliefs.

The idea of ego-strength has a long history in the field of psychology that can be traced back to the development of Sigmund Freud’s three-tiered view of personality in terms of id, ego, and super-ego.

Thanks to numerous contributions since, this and other Freudian concepts were significantly revamped by many of his followers, such as Alfred Adler, Carl Jung and Erich Fromm, known as NeoFreudians, all of whom positioned their own theories as complements to Freud’s. More specifically, each shifted away from Freud’s deterministic, and pessimistic, view of human nature and, in its place, added what was sorely missing: An empowering view of human personality and behavior as, by nature, primarily social in focus and self-determined by intrinsic motivation.

In particular, NeoFreudians rejected Freud’s emphasis on sexual urges as primary motivators of ego drives and behavior. A follower of NeoFreudians, Abraham Maslow, who later made significant contributions of his own to psychological (and organizational) theory of human motivation with his now famous Hierarchy of Needs, put it this way in his book, Toward a Psychology of Being: “It is as if Freud supplied us the sick half of psychology and we must now fill it out with the healthy half.” 

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If you are in a relationship that is negatively impacting your emotional, mental, or physical health, hurting others you love, or compromising your inner values, you are likely in a toxic relationship – and addictive neural patterns are in control.

If you have not already, take time to reflect on the dynamics, and to consider what you can and cannot do – that would allow you to break free of their control, and to take charge of your emotional response, so that your mind and body may restore balance, and let healing begin.

In Part 1 of this series, we identified five toxic patterns partners get stuck in that activate one another’s protective-response patterns. In Part 2, we looked at the neuroscience beneath the emotional command circuits that destabilize each partner’s inner sense of emotional safety in relation to the other. We then touched on key factors that affect relational balance in Part 3, and considered the first step partners can take – cultivating awareness of one another’s triggers – to break free of the toxic patterns and restore balance in your lives.

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Whenever events or relationships do not turn out the way you imagined or thought, it’s only natural to feel some degree of disappointment, perhaps also grief, frustration, or anger, and other fear-based emotions. Regardless whether the emotion is directed toward your self or another, it can hurt.

Did you know, however, that it is how you respond to disappointments, and not how hurtful the events or outcomes themselves were, that determines the extent to which they may harm or prosper you and your life?

Your responses have life shaping power over the direction of your personal life and relationships. And one of the most powerful responses is one characterized by acceptance, i.e., a conscious opening of your heart to understanding what happened, self and others, what you can and cannot change, and so on.

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Do you want the New Year 2012 to be a fabulously successful kind of year for you? Then start off with writing achievable S.M.A.R.T. goals instead of New Year’s resolutions.

The start of a New Year is great time to gather fresh energy and go after what you want in life. It’s a perfect occasion to reflect on your values, your dreams, and how you want your life and your relationships to be.

A 3-step process is outlined below to help you write goals specifically designed to energize the optimal emotional states that create the focus and momentum you need to make them a reality. Read all 3 steps through before beginning.

STEP 1. Schedule a Mini-Retreat to Reflect on Life Aspirations

The first step is to schedule a time away from distractions, a 10 to 15 minute retreat, where you may relax and contemplate on your life, aspirations, what you want and need in your life and relationships.

Why a relaxed reflective, relaxing retreat?

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Awareness is key when it comes to living – and loving – authentically. A key aspect of awareness is getting to know, and understand your self and life around you, and one thing that involves is being aware of what triggers you.

To live in balance and harmony in your relationships, you need to know how to calm your mind and body, to feel safe enough to set judicious limits in your interactions with others, for example, to say or hear the words ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without getting triggered.

The first step in setting limits is identifying the specific situations that challenge or trigger you when it comes to either standing up for yourself with courage and, or doing so in a way that treats the other (thus also your self) with dignity.

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