Whose mental health?

I just read a very interesting article concerning our mental and emotional health: Good Grief! Psychiatry’s Struggle to Define Mental Illness Goes Awry. Psychiatrists primarily use a manual (called the DSM) to categorize and diagnose mental illness. This manual describes patterns of behaviors and clusters them into mental illnesses of one sort or another. In an effort to keep current, a panel of psychiatrists constantly revises the DSM and every so many years publish another update. Things gradually change in the DSM (in one of the more famous examples, early editions of the DSM defined homosexuality as a mental illness), and this article reports about a controversy in the upcoming edition. The DSM editors want to label ‘grief’ as a form of depression, primarily with the goal of prescribing anti-depressants to treat it, but others worry this makes an ‘illness’ out of a normal psychological process. Indeed, one of the critiques of the DSM relates to psychiatrists tailoring the DSM diagnoses to fit into a medical model, designed to maximize drug prescription!

It’s important to recognize that the doctors writing the DSM have their own biases and agendas, leading to certain conclusions about mental health which may not be truly objective. So who then defines and determines our mental health? From the point of view of awareness, we do! Awareness gives us a very powerful tool for working with our minds and emotions, enabling us to see our mental activity directly, without the need for labels or experts. As we begin to increase our space of awareness, we recognize that it forms the basis for insight (literally inner sight). Insight gives us the ability to reflect on our thoughts and emotions, and over time understand our psychological make-up, with its’ strengths and weaknesses. Of course there may be times when we seek some outside assistance (such as a counselor or a psychiatrist) to assist us with some of our issues, but through awareness we become the source for knowing and improving our mental health. On our path to wellness, that’s not a bad place to start!

Yoga and Wellness

Over the past several decades yoga has become increasingly popular in the United States and throughout the modern world, drawing more people to take and teach it (as reported in an article last year: Yoga Teaching Increasingly Popular as Second Career - US News and World Report). In 2011, almost 15 million people in the US took yoga classes, in places such as businesses, health care facilities, schools, fitness clubs, or senior centers. Many styles of yoga have emerged emphasizing a particular approach. Some classes take place in a hot room (not surprisingly known as ‘hot’ yoga!), others use a lot of props, or are very gentle in their methods, while others require an advanced level of strength and fitness. There seems to be a yoga class to fit everyone’s needs.

Yoga has steadily increased in popularity due to the simple fact that it makes us feel better, both right after we do it, as well as later on in the day or week. It’s a very beneficial form of stress reduction, and brings ease, relaxation and a sense of vitality. Most people taking part in a yoga class will learn to do yoga poses such as the bow, cobra or forward bend. These naturally have their benefits as discussed above, but they stop short of the original intention of yoga practice. For the word ‘yoga’ traces its’ meaning to the same root as that of the word ‘yoke’. So the intention of yoga is to ‘yoke’ ourselves to something, but what? What do we want to join ourselves with?

The answer to this question doesn’t come from something outside of ourselves, for whatever external object we think we need to join with (whether a person or thing) inevitably changes and deteriorates over time. So instead yoga proposes joining (or ‘yoking’) yourself to something internal and unchanging: awareness. This awareness remains separate and untouched by all of our outward circumstances, a continuous thread of presence throughout our lives. The yoga poses we all know so well bring the benefits of stress reduction and relaxation, but their role in the overall purpose of yoga concerns their ability to balance our bodies. As a result of this, when we do awareness practices, our bodies don’t get in the way through discomfort, stress or illness. A relaxed and balanced body allows us to go inward more easily, to get in touch with our core of awareness. Notice how calm and centered you feel after a yoga class: why not try some awareness practices (such as meditation) at this time, and see how it goes?

Let's be proactive

I want to follow up on the issue of Bisphenal A’s (BPA’s) prevalence in our daily environment. Unfortunately, it appears to be commonly used in all cans as a lining to prevent the leaching of metals into food (substituting one contaminant for another!). I recently read another article expressing concern about the leaching of BPA into food stored in plastic containers Bisphenol A in Plastic Bottles, Food Containers and Canned Goods - Local Hazardous Waste Management Program in King County (this article also offers helpful suggestions concerning alternatives to these containers). It surprises me that a substance that continues to get banned (the above article referred to two newly implemented Washington State bans) remains so ubiquitous in our society.


Our Federal government has noticed this issue. As the above article mentioned, in ‘January 2010, the Food and Drug Administration revised its position on BPA's safety, noting "some concern" about its effects on children and infants. Previously, the FDA had held that trace amounts of BPA from food containers are not harmful. The FDA plans additional studies over the next several years’. But since other countries have acted on this, why risk this exposure for now and the future? As the FDA’s stance on BPA reveals, ‘trace’ amounts of BPA used to be OK by them, but now they have changed their minds! So we can’t depend entirely on governments to protect us from chemical exposures.

More significantly, I come across so many articles related to potential health risks in our food supply it’s hard to keep up. If I reported on each one the blog would be solely concerned with this issue! This prevalence relates to modern society’s belief that science can improve nature, so additives and chemicals of all sorts get added to our food supply (and environment in general). To name just a few more:

•Non-stick cookware leaches the chemical PFOA into our bodies. The EPA is investigating this as it causes developmental and other adverse effects in laboratory animals.

•Most preserved Deli meats contain sodium nitrites. There are concerns about its’ cardiac and carcinogenic effects.

•Thousands of commercially produced foods contain hydrogenated oils, a product linked with heart disease, heart attacks and strokes. Many countries in Europe (like Denmark) have banned hydrogenated oils.

But we can be proactive in minimizing these exposures! The principle of ‘nature knows best’ can guide us as we investigate the presence of chemicals in our lives. Instead of assuming we can ingest these chemicals and then find out later what effect these have on us, it’s better to avoid them in the first place. Consuming natural, organic foods makes the most sense. Why use non-stick cookware when stainless steel products don’t have this chemical? Why eat meats with sodium nitrites when you can eat them without it? Why consume hydrogenated oils when you can easily find alternatives? We don’t have to fixate on or fear chemicals, but we can make the necessary lifestyle changes to eliminate or minimize contact with them. Of course we benefit from the role chemicals have in our modern world, we just don’t want them in our bodies! You can start on this journey to educate yourself about chemical exposures today, eliminating many of these long-term health risks from your life. What is one simple step you can start with?