DK - Mental Wellness: Neals Yard Remedies Mental Wellness

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the authors

Pat Thomas is the consultant editor for this book. Pat is a qualified psychotherapist and an advocate for natural health, sustainable living, and a clean environment. She is a journalist and is author and editor of the Natural Health News website. In addition to her own books, such as the guide to alternative healthcare: What Works, What Doesnt , she has contributed to several Neals Yard Remedies titles, including Healing Foods, Essential Oils, The Beauty Book , and Complete Wellness .

Inna Duckworth MSc, MNIMH, is a practising medical herbalist, who started her herbal journey over 15 years ago. She now teaches herbal courses and is collaborating with Neals Yard Remedies. Inna is a member of Perimenopause HUB, featured on the BBC, and is a founder of Perimenopause Naturally , a resource for women in their 40s experiencing various symptoms linked with hormonal changes. She researches herbal application for mental and spiritual health extensively.

Victoria Plum has been an aromatherapy and massage practitioner since 1996 and feels there is still so much to learn. Victoria specializes in the field of mental and emotional health, which developed and refined her hands-on massage work and led her to train as a craniosacral therapist. She is also a reiki practitioner. She taught for the Tisserand Institute from 1999. When the school closed in 2005, she was invited to teach courses for Neals Yard Remedies. She believes that practice and teaching the practice feel like mutually inspiring and beneficial activities.

Daphne Lambert is a nutritionist, chef, and author who has cooked, studied, taught, and written about food for most of her working life. Daphne is the founding member of Greencuisine Trust, a food education charity, which runs innovative programmes, projects, and events cultivating the food knowledge and skills that enable people to take charge of their own health, eat well, and look after the planet.

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Foreword

One in four of us will be affected by poor mental health at some point in our lives. The spectrum of experiences and symptoms ranges from the transient ebb and flow of mood, energy, sleep, and social interactions to life changes such as upheaval, separation, and grief, to serious issues such as chronic depression and anxiety, anger, self-harm, despair, and social withdrawal.

Health authorities such as the World Health Organization argue that there is no health without mental health. As well as a human and social cost, mental illness has an economic cost, as overburdened health services struggle to cope with rising rates of depression, anxiety disorders, aggression, eating disorders, and addictive behaviours. This recognition has led to increasing efforts to encourage more of us to feel comfortable talking about mental wellbeing and to end the stigma around mental ill health.

Raising awareness and talking about mental health are important, positive steps. But we also need to look to a wide range of resources to help people cope, wherever they find themselves on the mental wellness spectrum.

Neals Yard Remedies has a long history of encouraging and supporting self-care, through nutritious food, natural remedies, and complementary therapies that focus on the whole health of the person, rather than reducing an individual to a collection of symptoms.

A whole-health approach to wellness recognizes that body and mind are connected and constantly influencing each other. Many people who experience mental or emotional ill health, for instance, also experience a range of physical symptoms, such as digestive problems, skin rashes and irritations, headaches, respiratory distress, and chronic infections.

Ongoing scientific research means that our understanding of the two-way communication between body and mind is becoming much clearer. Key systems in the body the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which regulates a range of hormones and nervous system activity, and the gutbrain axis control interactions between the mind and the physical body and different emotional states have been shown to affect, and be affected by our hormonal, immune, and digestive systems.

We also know now that certain foods, especially those that feed good bacteria in our guts, can significantly impact mental wellness. All of this underscores the importance of viewing health challenges in a holistic way.

This book recognizes that self-care whether by eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep, or using complementary and alternative approaches can help to manage many mental health symptoms, and may prevent some from worsening.

Written by experts with years of experience in natural health, nutrition, herbal medicine, and aromatherapy, the following pages provide sound guidance to help you understand the fundamentals of mental wellness and to make sense of any symptoms you are experiencing.

Suggestions are given for managing symptoms with herbs, essential oils, foods, exercise, and therapies. Step-by-step techniques show you how to make herbal remedies and essential oil blends, and ideas are given for simple nutrient-dense recipes that help energize and balance moods.

The remedies, recipes, and therapies can be used alone to manage mild or transient symptoms, or alongside conventional approaches to support you on the journey to mental wellness. Wherever you are on that journey, we wish you the best of health.

PAT THOMAS

A holistic approach to mental wellness recognizes that our bodies and minds constantly influence each other.

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UNDERSTANDING MENTAL WELLNESS

UNDERSTANDING MENTAL WELLNESS | CONTENTS

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