Conscious Connections

How cultivating a relationship between the mind and the body can create better mental health

BY TONY ZIMBARDI-LE MONS

This is the first installment in a two-part series on psychotherapy and the mind-body and mind-spirit connection. This installment will examine how what we do with our bodies, and the things we put into our bodies, can aide and abet the psychotherapeutic experience.

Much has been written about the mind-body connection, so for the purpose of this article, I’d like to examine the role in which diet, drugs, exercise, yoga, and mediation play in your goal to achieve optimal mental health. Many people may not realize for instance, that substance use can lead to mental illness, or conversely, mental illness can lead to substance use. Likewise, diet can affect the neurotransmitters produced in your brain, affecting your mood states. Recent research also indicates a strong link in mind-body integration through practices such as yoga and mediation. So let’s explore these factors and how they may help or hinder your personal therapeutic goals.

Exercise: It is a well established fact that cardiovascular activity lowers your resting heart rate and raises endorphins, our natural opiates/feel-good chemicals. Exercise actually boosts activity in the brain’s frontal lobes and the hippocampus. Studies have found that exercise increases levels of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, more of those natural feel-good chemicals that our brain produces. Research shows that endorphins do not cross the blood/brain barrier easily, but exercise has proven to be one of the sure routes. More recently, we’ve read that weight training is an excellent source of cardiovascular activity as well. This is due to the up-and-down process of raising and lowering your heart rate through resting and re-starting “sets” during your workout.

Diet: Did you know caffeine can raise your heart rate, and therefore, could invoke a panic attack? Drug-like foods such as sugars, carbs, and alcohol can all trick your brain into thinking it need not produce more neurotransmitters including: dopamine and norepinephrine, those natural energizer and mental focusers; GABA (gamma amino butyric acid), our natural sedatives; endorphins, our natural painkillers; and serotonin, our natural mood stabilizers and sleep promoters. Your brain also relies on fats and protein, the only food source that creates amino acids, which create those mood-enhancing chemicals. Be aware, if you happen to be on a low-fat or low-protein diet, you could also be contributing to your depressed mood.

Drugs: Research shows that cocaine and methamphetamine can lead to anxiety, paranoia, depression, and sleep deprivation. As a hallucinogenic, it’s possible for ecstasy to bring on a psychotic episode (seeing or hearing things not actually in the environment). It’s been reported that both can leave the user with longer-term problems with memory and depression (see the www.thesite.org for more information). So you can see that it’s possible for your substance use to lead to a mental disorder; likewise, for a mental disorder to lead to substance use. It’s been found that many meth addicts, for instance, are actually treating their undiagnosed ADHD; and many individuals experimenting with uppers (like cocaine, speed, meth, etc.) are treating, undiagnosed depression.

Yoga: The term yoga comes from a Sanskrit word, which roughly translates into “union,” referring to the union between the individual and a divine consciousness. The goals in exploring this exercise often include personal transcendence and enlightenment. As an adjunct to psychotherapy, we might see this practice as mind/body/spirit integration. Research has shown that brain scans of yoga practitioners show a healthy boost in levels of the neurotransmitter GABA, immediately after a one-hour yoga session. Low brain levels of GABA are associated with anxiety and depression. In part, due to the research findings on yoga, Zenel Segal, professor and chair of the psychology/psychiatry department at the University of Toronto, has instituted a program called “mindfulness-based cognitive therapy,” where yoga is used as well as mindfulness meditation as therapeutic tools.

Meditation: Meditation can be seen as the complete bridge of the mind/body/spirit integrated approach to self-care. Meditation can be defined as an engagement of contemplation of a spiritual nature. Meditation lowers the resting heart rate and increases oxygenation to the brain. Likewise, it brings about that “Zen state” that Buddhists talk about in terms of accepting the good and the bad with equal grace. Meditation has been shown to do this by reducing adrenaline and dopamine levels (our natural “speed” chemicals), which in turn reduces the “fight or flight” response. Yoga has also been shown to reduce levels of serotonin and dopamine, which, like any chemical substance, can be too much of a good thing. For instance, research has shown that too much serotonin or dopamine can increase hyperreactivity and aggression.

Let me suggest that in taking an integrative, balanced approach to psychotherapy via adjunctive mind/body work, you can create a more centeredness or “Zen state,” resulting in more positive outcomes from therapy. For instance, your therapy combined with the philosophies and physicality of both yoga and/or meditation can help you go from a person who bounces from the extremes of happiness vs. depression, optimism vs. pessimism, or self-absorption/indulgence vs. self-hatred, to someone free of these dichotomies. If the purpose of psychotherapy is to alleviate human psychological suffering and the purpose of spirituality is to explore questions such as: Who am I? What am I? Why am I here? Then mind/body work can be a bridge to mind/spirit exploration. I’ll conclude with a quote from Arthur J. Deikman, M.D on the topic of psychotherapy and meditation: “If the therapist engages another human being in an extended therapeutic process, the problem of meaning will eventually arise. Then, the spiritual has much to offer the psychotherapeutic. And what the therapist understands of both will play an important part in the outcome.”

In the next installment, I will explore the role of spirituality in the therapeutic relationship.

Tony Zimbardi Psy.D. is a psychotherapist in private practice in West Hollywood. More of his writing can be found at www.drtonyzimbardi.com.