The New Year is full of new beginnings and resolutions. Some of the most popular resolutions are include losing weight and kicking unhealthy habits through mindfulness. You, as a physician, can help your patients stay on the right track and accomplish their goals.
Here are our top 10 articles to help your patients live healthier and happier lives in 2016:
As holistic practitioners, we know that treating the root causes of disease is the most effective way to elicit positive long-term change. In the treatment of obesity, no other physicians have better training to put the physiological pieces of the puzzle together. We understand inflammation, hormones, neurotransmitters and other factors that play a role in weight. However, when it comes to counseling our patients about food and emotions, some of us feel lost. This article will explore some of the emotional and behavioral issues around food, so we can be effective in helping patients not only to lose weight and keep it off, but also to experience peace in their relationships with food and freedom from the ineffective cycle of dieting…
2. A Comprehensive Naturopathic Weight Loss Program
Recent estimates suggest that by 2030 half of all Americans will be not just overweight but obese.1 As NDs, we know that weight loss is far more complicated than simply burning more calories than one consumes. Our thorough patient intake allows for a more detailed assessment of all the factors that may be causing or contributing to obesity in our patients and provides a more comprehensive and lasting treatment approach…
The prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased dramatically in recent decades. Currently, about 34% of adults in the United States are considered obese (body mass index; BMI > 30.0 kg/m2),1 with a combined estimate of 65% being overweight (BMI 25.0–29.9 kg/m2) or obese.2 Prolonged caloric restriction (CR), without malnutrition, and regardless of macronutrient ratio,3 is the most effective means for body weight reduction and maintenance, and has been associated with a myriad additional health benefits, including: extended mean and maximal life span; delayed onset of cancer; reduced cardiac risk factors; improved insulin sensitivity and lipid parameters; and improved mitochondrial function through reduced oxidative damage and enhanced cellular autophagy…
4. Holistic Techniques for Managing Stress and Chronic Disease
As NDs and allied integrative providers, we seek to attend to a patient’s physiological complaints, mental currency, and spiritual longing. Body, mind, and spirit are the fundamental components of who we are, and these components are invariably compromised with chronic disease. While stress has not yet been proven to cause disease, it has been linked to the exacerbation of various chronic illnesses. Stress is also a harbinger of ill health to come for those who are otherwise considered healthy…
5. Intention in the Practice of Meditation
There are incredible benefits to learning the skill of relaxation. With regular practice, we as human beings can learn to follow the rhythm of the breath and find the mind becoming calm, peaceful and clear. In this state of relaxed alertness, we may find a great deal of healing, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The turbulence that characterizes modern society has made it very difficult for us to feel the natural joy that comes from a mind grounded in the heart and body. However, as we continue to meditate and practice relaxation exercises, we may not necessarily be getting the benefits we had hoped for. Life may seem more turbulent than ever before. There may be higher highs and lower lows. Why is this the case? How do the intentions and motivations brought to meditation practice affect the results?
6. Tobacco Smoking: Impacts of Health and Tips for Cessation
The Royal Society of Canada has described addiction as a strongly recognized pattern of behavior characterized by the repeated self-administration of a drug in quantities that recurrently produce reinforcing psychoactive effects, and one which includes difficulty with voluntary long-term discontinuation of use, even when motivated to discontinue.1 The use of tobacco products containing nicotine is well established to meet these criteria. The question now revolves around how smoking exposure causes addictive behaviors…
7. Helping Patients Achieve Permanent Weight Loss
Most people engage in emotional eating at one time or another, but when it becomes a regular habit it can lead to weight gain. Emotional eating is when a patient eats for reasons other than genuine hunger: boredom, stress, anxiety, depression, food cravings, energy boost, etc. There are many ways to address emotional eating. One includes understanding patients’ biggest emotional triggers and issues. Emotional eaters use food as a drug, as a way of self-medicating their negative emotions. You can teach patients emotional coping techniques like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), where energy meridian points are stimulated on the body by tapping on them with fingertips instead of with needles. EFT is an easy energy psychology technique that can zap negative emotions in minutes, with permanent effects. My weight-loss program uses a wide variety of emotional techniques on patients, including EFT, hypnosis audios, relaxation and meditation techniques, and principles from popular self-help books for patients like Loving What Is by Byron Katie…
A relatively new clinical application of mindfulness has emerged called “mindful eating,” which brings a non-judgmental attitude right to the dinner table.3 With training, individuals become more attuned to hunger and satiety cues from their bodies and use these to gauge how often and how much to eat. They bring full attention to the present moment by using all of their senses in the dining experience, and observe their mental and emotional responses to different foods without judgment. By slowing down the pace of eating to savor foods and assess levels of fullness, mindful eaters also develop an awareness of “mindless” eating behaviors, such as unconsciously eating when depressed or bored…
9. Meditation: Classifications, Mechanisms, and Clinical Applications
The term “meditation” encompasses a broad variety of mental training practices that vary among cultures and traditions, ranging from techniques designed to promote physical health, relaxation, and improved concentration, to exercises performed with farther-reaching goals, such as developing a heightened sense of well-being, cultivating altruistic behaviors, facilitating evolution of consciousness, and, for some, attaining enlightenment. Meditation can be conceptualized as complex emotional and attentional regulatory practices in which mental and somatic events are affected by specific mental training practices. Meditation is typically associated with a concurrent state of heightened, vigilant awareness and reduced metabolic activity, allowing for improved physical health, psychological balance, and emotional stability…
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a common illness that can disrupt quality of life and impact overall sustainable wellness. Anxiety in patients presents as a mood disorder or can present with physical symptoms only. Because of its diverse and individualized symptom profile, it can be difficult to diagnose and treat. An integrative approach that employs scientifically validated nutrients and herbs provides naturopathic doctors with safe and efficacious options to consider for this patient population. The integrative protocol for GAD is a multi-pronged approach designed to address underlying causal factors. Given the high safety profile and scientific efficacy of this approach, these therapeutic options should be considered as viable first-line treatments in many cases of mild to moderate GAD…
