If you have a mental health disorder with or without substance abuse disorder, ketamine therapy combined with other holistic wellness strategies may help. This is because ketamine therapy helps treat depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Combined with holistic treatment options, it can help individuals undergoing treatment gain better self-awareness, reduce stress, and achieve a better mind-body connection. Let’s take a look at how combining ketamine-assisted therapy with holistic treatment strategies may give you a better chance of achieving improved long-term health and wellness.
Ketamine Benefits for Mental Health Issues
Ketamine-assisted therapy helps with anxiety, depression, and PTSD by reducing the symptoms associated with these mental health issues.
Depression
Ketamine microdoses may help improve the symptoms of treatment resistant depression, major depressive disorder, and bipolar depression. For these mental health issues, ketamine microdoses can help reduce suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and it’s been known to work in a matter of hours and days rather than weeks.
Anxiety
Ketamine therapy is particularly useful for individuals with social anxiety, which affects about 12 percent of adults in the United States. It works by regulating glutamate, a neural transmitter involved in human anxiety and stress responses, and by improving the brain’s neuroplasticity, which is its ability to form new neural connections. Like for depression, ketamine works in a matter of hours or days instead of weeks.
PTSD
Flashbacks and recurrent memories of intrusive and traumatic memories characterize PTSD. This can cause the individual to react as if those memories are occurring again. It’s estimated that 8.7 percent of the population of the United States has PTSD. Ketamine benefits individuals with PTSD by disrupting the emotional intensity of past traumatic memories, regulating glutamate and restoring proper neurotransmitter balance, and improving neuroplasticity. It also tends to start working within a matter of hours or days after the individual’s ketamine treatment.
The Importance of Combining Ketamine Therapy with Holistic Wellness Strategies
When ketamine therapy is combined with holistic wellness, it creates a comprehensive approach to treatment. This is because it treats the body, mind, and spirit, which can improve overall health and wellness.
Improves the Mind-Body Connection
When ketamine sessions are combined with holistic wellness treatments, including yoga, meditation, and massage therapy, the connection between the mind and body improves. This is because individuals become more aware of their thoughts and emotions and can better regulate them.
Helps Reduce Stress
Stress is the body’s natural response to internal or external perceived threats. If you’ve ever heard of the body’s ‘fight or flight’ response, it’s related to stress, and in past times, it was most often caused by physical danger, like a wild animal attack. Modern humans still have a fight or flight response where the body releases adrenaline and other hormones to give the body increased strength and speed to deal with the situation.
Today, however, the fight or flight response may be due to arguments with family members, increased pressures at work, financial problems, or self-imposed expectations. If the stress is chronic, it can lead to numerous health issues, including heart problems, a weakened immune system, stomach problems, insomnia, and depression and anxiety.
Ketamine treatments combined with holistic treatment options can help reduce stress. The ketamine works by regulating glutamate and helping the brain create new neural connections. Holistic therapies, like yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and deep breathing, can help calm the mind and the body so that the individual can relax and focus and develop healthy coping strategies for their daily lives.
Helps Improve Emotional Stability
Ketamine therapy and holistic treatment options can help individuals learn how to regulate their emotions. For example, if you’ve ever heard that it’s better to go for a walk than act on your extreme anger, that’s a coping strategy for dealing with unwanted and extreme emotional responses. Ketamine therapy and holistic treatments can help individuals develop better emotional awareness, process their emotions more thoroughly and give them an outlet for self-expression.
Focuses on Self-Care and Self-Empowerment
Holistic therapies focus on self-care and self-empowerment by prioritizing the individual’s physical and mental well-being. This means that these therapies emphasize getting enough sleep and exercise while focusing on eating a diet high in macro and micro-nutrients. They also focus on finding joy, solstice, and fulfillment in everyday activities. Individuals can take control of their wellness journey by being self-aware and self-empowered.
Tips on How to Integrate Ketamine Therapy into Holistic Wellness Routines
Individuals can integrate ketamine therapy with their existing holistic wellness routines by speaking with their healthcare providers and holistic wellness practitioners to gain insight into how the treatments complement each other and how to integrate both therapies into a holistic approach to wellness. Additionally, they can:
- Ensure proper communication between all their healthcare providers by ensuring that the relevant information about the treatments and progress is shared between providers.
- Ensuring that the scheduling of the ketamine and holistic therapies are properly timed to be complementary. For example, the individual may want to meditate before or after their ketamine treatment to fasciate mindfulness and self-awareness.
- Practice self-awareness and staying in the moment during their ketamine session to gain insights into themselves.
- Practice mindful breathing before, during, and after the ketamine session.
- Write down any thoughts or feelings they have during and after the ketamine treatment so that they can reflect and process them.
Holistic Wellness Strategies for Mental Health
Holistic wellness strategies focus on being mindful and practicing good self-care. This often starts with getting enough exercise, eating a healthy diet, and prioritizing getting enough sleep each night. In fact, these three things often form the core of holistic health and wellness.
- Find Creative Outlets – As humans, we are designed to be creative. The trick is finding the proper creative outlet that helps you express yourself. Some options might be writing, art, music, gardening, painting, or woodworking.
- Try Some Stress Reduction Techniques – This can be as simple as walking if you feel stressed, even if it’s just around your desk, or you can practice mindful deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, yoga, Tai Chi, or massage therapy.
- Practice Self-Care – This could mean taking a long hot bath at the end of the day, setting healthy boundaries in your daily life, and engaging in activities that bring you joy.
Get Help for Drug Addiction and Mental Health at our Ketamine Wellness Center in Franklin, TN
If you need help with your mental health or drug addiction, we can help at Mind and Body Wellness in Franklin, TN. We offer ketamine therapy, counseling, psychiatry, recovery coaching and intensive outpatient.
To learn more about our mental health and addiction services, give us a call at 615-637-1532.
