Living Well: Nutrition and Lifestyle for Psychological Wellness

By Tom Steward

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669861232

Tom Steward

Tom Steward is a Licensed Psychotherapist in Northern New Mexico who seeks to facilitate the healing of himself and others by using tools and practices from ages past and also the latest developments in energy healing. This book is his latest effort to provide practical tools so the reader is set on a course of discovery, recovery, and transformation.

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Copyright © 2023 by Tom Steward.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/28/2022

Xlibris

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www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

1 Introduction Why This Book Was Written

2 A Pandemic of the Mind

3 Behaviors That Promote Wellness

4 What You Eat: Nutrition for Psychological Well-being

5 Condiments for the Mind What You Put in Your Food

6 A Day in the Life

7 Supplements for Brain Health: When What You Eat Doesn’t Give You All You Need

8 Inflammation and the Brain

9 Herbs and Supplements for Depression, Anxiety, and Sleep

10 The Emotional Body

11 The Mental Field

12 Essential Activities for a Healthy Lifestyle

13 The Calm Response

14 Social Connection

15 The Spiritual Life

16 Conclusion

1

Introduction Why This Book Was Written

Why This Book Was Written

This book is written with the following objective in mind—to consider the nutrition and lifestyle factors that lead to mental illness and emotional issues, and then explore what you can do to achieve optimum health and mental health.

What is offered here may help you with any of the health conditions you may have, yet this writing is more focused on psychological wellness.

I am curious how we, as humans, found ourselves here. The here I refer to is the marked increase in mental disorders of every kind. Depression, anxiety, sleep issues, psychosis, mental decline via dementia and Alzheimer’s, addictions, autism, ADHD, and more have gradually increased over the last few decades at alarming rates.

Why is this so? I hope to answer that question in this writing. Even more, I hope to provide answers to how you or anyone can begin to experience more emotional, mental, psychological, and spiritual soundness.

Someone has said, Disease enters the body through the mouth. What we eat causes illness and even death. In this writing, we will more closely examine diet and nutrition for health and mental health. We will also look at lifestyle and how we live and feel and think and behave as ways to promote wellness on every level.

On a personal level, not only have I been exposed to clients who suffer from mental illness, I have been diagnosed with certain mental conditions. I have also watched as close family members struggle with life-debilitating psychiatric maladies that were difficult to overcome.

When one of my sons began to struggle with mental illness in 2006, I engaged in exhaustive research to determine how to respond to this crisis in our family. It was during this time that I found the field of Orthomolecular Psychiatry. This exposed me to the work of Linus Pauling, David Hawkins, Abram Hoffer, Carl Pfeiffer, Michael Lesser, and others.

Orthomolecular Medicine is an alternative medicine approach that uses nutritional supplementation to alter brain and body chemistry. Dr. Hoffer’s work was particularly intriguing because he would systematically eliminate single items from the diets of schizophrenics to see if that substance was causing issues impacting the brain.

I also devoured Dr. Lesser’s book, The Brain Chemistry Plan, and then noticed he put his phone number in the back of the book, so I called him. Within a couple of weeks, our family drove all the way to Berkeley California, so my son could have a consultation with Dr. Lesser. This started us on the road to altering my son’s brain chemistry through supplementation, at times referred to as megavitamin therapy.

I am not a medical expert, and what is presented here is more anecdotal. I simply present what I have done to help myself and others. I don’t claim to have the answers and I certainly do not know what is best for you.

Please receive what is written on these pages with an open and discerning mind, then consult your health or mental health professional as necessary.

I will present a lot of information about diet, nutrition, lifestyle, and activities, yet I will not be specific about how this can be applied to your life. That will be up to you.

Please note that I have reviewed the literature and found much research on the health benefits of various foods and lifestyle practices. I have chosen not to provide direct citations throughout this book because I would like to encourage you to do your own research. It is my aim to present writing that is smooth in the reading and not so choppy.

I very often engage in a Google search on my device to glean information about the seemingly unending questions that can be asked about nutrition, food, and diet. I return often to the very helpful resource, Healthline, which can be found at the following website: https://www.healthline.com.

I have learned a lot while pursuing and completing my certification with the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. I have completed the Certified Integrative Mental Health Professional Training Course with Dr. Leslie Korn. I finished a course called: Remedy—Ancient Medicine for Modern Illness, with Nick Polizzi, who is the founder of Sacred Science. I have also listed below books that have influenced me in the area of orthomolecular medicine or psychiatry.

What I have done since I was a teenager is to consider diet to address physical or mental issues that have impacted me and others. Most everything written on these pages has been gleaned from my decades-long search to find a cure for whatever ails.

I hope you find this writing helpful and that you can begin to experience wellness in every area of your life.

• The Brain Chemistry Plan by Michael Lesser

• Nutrition and Mental Illness: An Orthomolecular Approach to Balancing Body Chemistry by Carl C. Pfeiffer

• Orthomolecular Treatment for Schizophrenia by Abram Hoffer

2

A Pandemic of the Mind

I am sure you have noticed that stress and emotional overwhelm are a given for most everyone in the current climate of our world. So many of us just seem to be buzzing with the vibration of anxiety like the humming of a telephone wire. Countless people suffer from sadness and depression as well as disorders of the mind that usher the person into a sense of unreality.

There are many individuals who are contending with their thoughts and emotions. We seem to default toward negativity as thoughts maneuver ungraciously in the mind with their own unceasing momentum. Many are plagued by emotional states arising seemingly out of nowhere, at times very abruptly.

Quite a few have experienced some version of a crisis in their lives. This includes trauma as well as grief, loss, and sorrow. In trauma, we gain that which we don’t want and in grief, we lose what we did want. For some, this sequence appears to be on a repeat cycle.

Many have what may be termed a psychological disorder requiring medication treatment and involvement with a mental health professional. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists are having trouble keeping up with the needs of the hurting and their schedules are loaded to the brim.

Addictions and overuse of chemical substances are also on the rise. I have heard of three people recently who have been arrested and jailed for driving under the influence of alcohol. This is something that none of them had experienced before.

I know several individuals in my small town who have died or almost died from complications with alcohol. Treatment centers for addictions are bolstering their programs to accommodate what has become a growing crisis of substance abuse.

I’m not telling you anything new. We all know how much we are suffering. What is not often known is how to manage the onslaught that has now become our lives.

Can we really overcome the painful circumstances we are living in? Are there tools and skills that would support healthy lifestyle habits? Even more, is it possible to live beyond emotional and psychological challenges, even a life-encompassing psychiatric diagnosis?

I am here to say yes. I struggled with many issues in childhood and in the first half of my adult life that required treatment, strategies, and tools to overcome. I have close family members who have experienced debilitating psychological challenges, including psychosis and delusions and psychiatric hospitalizations. These dear ones to me have traversed through to the light on the far side of the onslaught. I am here to report what they did to recover from serious mental challenges.

Is this possible for others, anyone, or are most people who have been labeled with a psychiatric diagnosis of whatever variety stuck with this for the rest of their lives? Are the medications you have been prescribed your only option and will you