I am a mental health therapist treating all types of mental illness for 25 years. I’ve had an interest in nutrition and its effects on mental health for even longer than that. I also teach psychology and sociology both online and face-to-face at the University level. I live in rural Montana with a dog, 2 cats, and 2 horses. I enjoy drinking coffee in the morning by the goldfish pond, listening to the waterfall and the birds and watching the sun come up spreading light across the farm fields and mountains. I grow organic vegetables and enjoy being in the outdoors. When I studied psychology in college, I was astounded to find that psychology programs do not include courses on nutrition. There is no emphasis on the interface between nutrition and mental health even though the connection is well established. In the same way that most traditional physicians know little about nutrition and its role in curing and preventing many diseases, mental health practitioners typically know even less about the effects of nutritional deficiencies on mental illness. There is a growing body of research supporting what some of us have known for a long time – that how we think and feel is directly related to what we eat. The incidence of mental illness in this country, particularly depression and anxiety related disorders, has drastically increased in direct relation to the increase in consumption of processed food and decrease of eating whole, natural food. Evidence strongly suggests that we could significantly decrease mental illness if we started eating a healthier diet. This blog is about using nutrition from natural, healthful whole foods to enjoy the good mental health that results from nutritional balance.
Member of National Association of Social Workers, American Society for Nutrition, and American Nutrition Association.
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