Welcome to Mind Wise, an audio and video podcast exploring holistic perspectives on mental health care, psychology, neuroscience, spirituality, and wellness. I am your host, Dr. Ron Parks—a writer, teacher, and physician. Today, we’re going to explore: “Lifestyle Psychiatry: A New Paradigm for a Holistic Approach to Mental Health and Well-Being, with a focus on the importance of lifestyle, connectedness, and embodiment as key elements in sustainable change and transformation.”
With such rapid advances in knowledge and scientific discovery, we may be entering an age in which there is a greater possibility of disease prevention, improvements, or cures; of sustaining longer periods of wellness and well-being; and even of the deep transformations needed to enhance longevity.
A Beginning and the Foundation
Early in my career, I completed a residency in internal medicine and then in psychiatry. The most notable aspect was the teaching and academic component, which required absorbing a large volume of information and concepts about the practice and administration of care and treatment, as reflected in the consensus of the day’s educational and scientific community. The second component, initially interwoven with the first, involved working with patients, practicing the art of diagnosis and care, and setting up treatment plans—mostly centered on the psychotherapies considered mainstream at the time, and prescribing medication and other physical-oriented therapies.
There was hope and intention on the part of the residency programs and senior faculty that the teachings, concepts, and wisdom from experienced teachers would be incorporated into our memories for future application. It was further expected that the blending of the remembered with hands-on experience would be more deeply embodied and shaped into remembered, actionable, and ethical behavior to best serve future patients.
Exploration and Change
During these days of exploration and change, I came across an interesting book in a local bookstore about a journalist’s transformative experience with yoga. It sparked my interest in holistic healing. Inspired, I began studying and practicing yoga alongside my medical and clinical training. My curiosity and new explorations broadened my perspective as I read and studied other traditions and cultures, including Buddhism, Zen, Sufism, Macrobiotics, Kabbalistic traditions, and more. These philosophies were rich in ideas about mental, physical, and spiritual flexibility, as well as healthy, ethical, and peaceful living.
Retreats with yoga and spiritual teachers proved especially transformative, featuring community work, meditation, and mindfulness. These experiences revitalized my health and perspective, shaping my integrative approach to psychiatry and medicine. I was reminded of childhood moments when I was at my healthiest, invigorated, and spiritually attuned. The wisdom gained from yoga and other cultures enriched my life and underscored the importance of working together and group support in nourishing my growth, making healthier choices easier, improving my attitude toward my life and career, and strengthening my personal health.
Lifestyle Psychiatry: A New Paradigm in Mental Health
Related to my own interests and development, I’ve been interested in a new, emerging medical area of practice and study called Lifestyle Medicine, and now also Lifestyle Psychiatry. Changes in program and practice names over time reflect the evolving perspectives of people in the health care field, as evidenced by terms such as alternative, complementary, holistic, and integrative, as well as today’s lifestyle psychiatry and medicine. There is always a search for terms considered more acceptable and grounded in evidence-based research, and therefore scientific. It is hoped that the newer designation will hold its ground better against more conventional ideas and practices that still lean toward singular or limited therapy modalities, medications, and procedures rather than toward the importance of lifestyle choices, spiritual/religious beliefs, and holistic practices.i
Lifestyle Psychiatry is an emerging field focused on preventing, treating, and potentially reversing chronic physical and mental health conditions through evidence-based lifestyle interventions. Its core pillars include physical activity and exercise, nutrition, restorative sleep, stress management, reducing toxic exposures, and fostering connectedness.
Connectedness is understood to include self-connection and connection with oneself and the wider world, as seen in a holistic approach to well-being.
The concept of connectedness has been expanded to include happiness, purpose in life and meaning-making, empathy and compassion, social connection and community, nature, spirituality, and religion. Adopting a broader definition of connectedness can help practitioners design more sustainable interventions that reduce adverse health outcomes, boost resilience, and support emotional growth.
Collaboration and Motivational Interviewing
One of my close family members, exceptionally talented and a complement to me in many of my undertakings, has taught me over the years the value of connectedness and collaboration. In my professional work, I often find that collaboration is more effective than mere supervision, authoritative direction, or advice-giving. The benefits of connectedness and collaboration support a person’s sense of agency and empowerment to take risks toward change and healthy, life-enhancing behaviors.
Motivational interviewing, now an accepted psychotherapeutic intervention, was initially widely used in the substance use disorder field. It emphasizes effective listening, active engagement, and collaboration to motivate positive behavior. The hope is that change will occur in a sensible direction when an individual seems open to exploring or doing what can help sustain healthy changes.ii
Collaboration among health care professionals is often cited as lacking and as contributing to less-than-desirable outcomes. Practitioners, as well as the people they care for, need to embody the lessons of connectedness and collaboration in ways that best serve everyone.
Narrative Medicine and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
Two other emerging paradigms in health care are Narrative Medicine and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy. Narrative Medicine encourages practitioners and people receiving care to develop skills such as deep listening and relatability by reading and listening to shared narratives, whether written or spoken. The benefits of Narrative Medicine include fostering mutual respect and understanding between providers and health care recipients, enhancing connectedness and collaboration, and improving the therapeutic experience.iii
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a psychotherapeutic approach that emphasizes psychological flexibility and action to enhance mental health, wellness, and well-being. ACT comprises six components that enhance psychological and emotional functioning and flexibility: acceptance, self-as-context, values, committed action, and cognitive defusion.
Cognitive defusion has proven beneficial in creating psychological distance from overpowering, attention-dominating thoughts. This helps individuals perceive thoughts as passing events rather than absolute truths, fostering present-moment awareness and freeing the mind’s attention to engage more broadly with the current reality. Cognitive defusion techniques, such as mindfulness and metaphor, can effectively reduce the impact of distracting thoughts, allowing greater flexibility in responding to unplanned events.
ACT shows great potential as a psychotherapeutic intervention to support the development of essential skills for navigating life’s complexities and to improve mental health and overall quality of life.iv
Embodiment: Concepts and Wisdom for Sustained Change
Building on the concept of connectiveness, I would also support adding the idea of embodiment. Embodiment embeds learning in memory, making it consistently available, actionable, and enduring—enabling evidence-based learning for healthier, intentional activities that promote lasting changes and long-term benefit. This helps practitioners and those engaged in their self-work translate and hold what is taught or instructed as lifestyle choices and practices.
To achieve embodiment, it can be helpful and reinforcing to combine emotional, experiential, and rewarding elements that foster remembrance and sustainable positive health behaviors. This process can be strengthened by engaging in activities that promote well-being, happiness, connectedness, and a sense of calm and peace.
In my use, the term embodiment refers to the process of taking in what is taught or expressed by others, or what is profoundly experienced, and then using and implementing the held, internalized learning about mental, physical behavior, and action. The process of embodying wisdom, teachings, and concepts can lead to wise choices; active engagement in cognitive, physical, and spiritual health-enhancing practices; and ultimately to making those practices sustainable behaviors and habits. Embodiment is essential on the path to wellness, well-being, and longevity.
Transformative Experiences
Expanding the state of mind—or at least a temporary release from the imbalance caused by overly intellectual, reductive cognitive thinking and overly captivated attention at the expense of open perspective-taking—can strongly reinforce and aid the embodiment of more lightly or vaguely held teachings and information, bringing greater clarity and setting them in memory for retrieval or for the repetition of health-enhancing behaviors.
Almost anyone has the potential to experience heightened states of well-being and unfettered perspective expansion that can bring opening—even for the most recalcitrant or inflexible—and, most importantly, to deeply embody health-positive ideas and experiences in brain areas and memory, fostering long-term growth and change through positive neuroplasticity. So, you don’t have to be a yoga practitioner, an advanced spiritual seeker, a mystic, or even a hallucinogenic drug user to have an awakening or growth experience. For many, it requires proper guidance and sustained practice, but for some it occurs spontaneously amid synchronistic circumstances.
An intense awareness, growth, and enlightening experience can be a release from inflexible, limiting, reductionistic, and narrow-minded thinking and focus. To some, the experience can be frightening or even traumatic. It is a release from left-brain or intellectual patterning and conceptualizing that often inhibit the receptive, perceptive parts of the brain, which are needed for deeper awareness, wisdom, and experiencing beyond our limited perception of ourselves as a separate being, a bubble floating on the open sea—the experience of freedom, connection, peacefulness, and liberation.
Profound changes in my life choices and an ongoing orientation toward my career’s work and lifestyle emerged through immersion, consistent practice, and finding a supportive community and network to sustain and reinforce my ideas and practices. With support and nurturance, my interests and positive experiences helped me to embody my learning and experience into sustained change and practices. The reinforcement of these changes came from the opportunity to take time off from the busy training and career activities to travel, either alone or with my wife, to seminars or to the mountains for retreats led by respected teachers of the day, or to nutritional weekend potlucks that gathered holistically oriented friends.
Actions to Consider and Points to Ponder
1. When possible, a return to balanced brain and emotional functioning brings greater awareness and a more optimal state of cognitive functioning and reasoning, including better ability to plan sensibly, pursue essential needs, experience less fear and worry, increase flexibility and acceptance of change, and be more open to the moment. If helpful, find a guide, teacher, or program to support you.
2. The term holistic always seemed to me an expression better suited to capturing the essence of life—with its challenges and conflicts: the mental, physical, and spiritual issues that arise and the difficulty of balancing secular demands with the natural needs for more ease, peacefulness, connectedness, and spiritual attunement. But maybe holistic medicine and psychiatry are too abstract for most. In contrast, perhaps lifestyle psychiatry is a more relatable name, with less of an abstract feel, less “heavy” on alternative medicine and spirituality, a closer embrace of science, and a stance that is less open to charlatans and misinformation.
For complete articles with references or inquiries, go to parksmd.com and the library of all posts: https://parksmd.com/library-of-all-posts/ Psychiatry
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I appreciate your interest. Please share with others. Thanks to Shan Parks, editor and project manager, for his valuable contributions and editing. All content is created and published for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical services or guidance. Always consult a healthcare provider for care related to medical or mental health conditions. This communication does not provide medical diagnoses, recommendations, treatment, or endorsements.
Thank you!
i What is Lifestyle Psychiatry? https://www.psychiatryredefined.org/what-is-lifestyle-psychiatry/;
https://www.mhe.cuimc.columbia.edu/narrative-medicine/education-and-narrative-medicine/principles-and-practice-narrative-medicine;
https://www.thepermanentejournal.org/doi/10.7812/TPP/23.116.
ii Motivational Interviewing https://motivationalinterviewing.org/understanding-motivational-interviewing
iii Narrative Medicine: The Power of Shared Stories to Enhance Inclusive Clinical Care, Clinician Well-Being, and Medical Education
Michelle Loy, MD https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9935-6888 mhloy@med.cornell.edu, and Rachel Kowalsky, MD, MPH;
Charon R. The patient–physician relationship. Narrative medicine: A model for empathy, reflection, profession, and trust. JAMA. 2001;286(15):1897–1902”. https://doi.org/10.7812/TPP/23.116.
iv Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Psychological Well-Being: A Narrative Review
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11837766/
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