True, the mystery and complexity of the mind and brain may remain an ever present reality. Thanks in large part to advanced methods of studying the brain, however, recent findings in neuroscience have come a long way to unravel numerous puzzles.

Safe to say, many operations of the brain and body are governed by scientific laws as real as the Law of Gravity. Unquestionably, there is less mystery.

One of the laws discovered by recent findings is the ability of the brain to restructure and heal itself throughout life. This discovery alone tossed out centuries of scientific creeds, which previously held that we cannot do much about the damage caused by trauma and certain set patterns such as those labeled mental or behavioral “disorders.”

Known as neuroplasticity, findings show you have an innate ability to restructure the gray matter of your brain, literally speaking, with your mind and conscious action. When you change what you think, say or do in response to an event or situation, you change inner emotional states. As emotions are molecules that transmit the “what” to fire and wire” messages, whenever your felt experience of an event changes, accordingly, this physically restructures the gray matter of your brain.

More and more, psychological treatment is less guesswork and mystery, and more application of proven science.

Emotional healing is no easy road. In varying degrees, anxiety and depression are ingrained patterns of behavior, reactive attempts to deal with stress that become increasingly ineffective, and eventually, life-impairing.

These patterned responses are particularly resistant to change as they are associated with emotional-command circuitry in the brain that automatically activates the body’s survival system in response to stress or certain triggers.

Human being are fully equipped inside however, with everything needed to unlearn these responses, and self-direct change and own healing.

In Part 1, we looked at reasons why it’s essential to tune into your inner-world experience more than you do outer-world signals, in particular, to become aware of any prevailing mindsets, personal or cultural, that are limiting.

If there is evidence that questions both the effectiveness of psychiatric drugs and whether they cause more harm than good, what are options to consider (with your doctor, as necessary)?

In Part 1, we looked at some of the significant findings and publications that sound alarm on the prevailing take-a-pill approach to mental health (and health in general), and certain forces responsible for fueling an epidemic of mental (and physical) illness in the last decades, curiously unique to the United States.

In the next post, Part 3, we consider five essential strategies that studies show reduce anxiety and depression naturally. Here, we first consider five factors that can elevate stress in the mind and body to toxic levels, and that must be addressed in treatment to successfully eliminate or lower the toxic levels of stress that can feed anxiety or depression.

The position of this therapist is that depression and anxiety are serious problems with affect regulation that are learned neural associations or chemical-reaction patterns, rather than genetic diseases.

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’?

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:

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.