71: How to Support Your Clients with Depression and Anxiety with Dr. Christina Bjorndal

Integrative Women's Health Podcast

[TRIGGER WARNING: Sensitive topics, including suicide]

“Our thoughts drive our nervous system, and when you’re in a sympathetic state, it’s very difficult to achieve true healing.” - Dr. Christina Bjorndal

Diet and lifestyle are crucial elements of our overall health and well-being, but we have to consider that they’re part of a larger puzzle. While you can help your clients make significant progress by focusing solely on the physical level, real, lasting change only comes when you start to incorporate the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects.

Fewer and fewer people have the support and resources they need to be able to recover from mental health struggles. As health and wellness professionals, this is where we can really be of service. We need to start leaning into creating spaces for human connection. It's an essential part of medicine. By holding space and allowing your clients to feel, you are a form of medicine for them.

Today, I’m joined by naturopathic physician Dr. Christina Bjorndal to further explore the connection between mind-body medicine and mental health. Dr. Bjorndal not only works with patients with mental health diagnoses, but she has also dealt with severe mental health challenges herself, which ultimately led her to discover the power of a holistic approach to healing.

In this conversation, Dr. Bjorndal and I discuss her journey from corporate executive to naturopathic physician, the severe mental health challenges she faced, integrating mind, body, and spirit in healing, the power of community and recognizing love, how to start taking small steps in recovery, the role of movement and human connection in overcoming depression, why we need holistic approaches to supporting mental health and well-being, and more.

Enjoy the episode, and let's innovate and integrate together!

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Learn more or watch the video version of this conversation at https://integrativewomenshealthinstitute.com/how-to-support-your-clients-with-depression-and-anxiety-with-dr-christina-bjorndal/.

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