Three days of Zoom training equals literally three days of Talking Heads (unfortunately, not the musical ones). Without resorting to fancy words like psychoneuroimmunology, here are the highlights from the 33rd Annual Conference on Behavioral Health:
Good food equals good mood. Moving your body is da bomb.
Chronic inflammation is bad for you/your brain in every single way you can think of.
Human beings did not evolve nor are we wired for the sedentary, indoor, screen focused, isolated lifestyle that dominates much of western culture. Thus, it’s bad for us.
Having trouble starting or sticking to an exercise program? Sure you are, because exercise isn’t natural. We move because it has a purpose, be that purpose to get food, build shelter, or to engage in meaningful and pleasurable activities. So grow some food, build something and go do fun things that move your body. Add in a social component, get points.
Mono-therapy bites; holistic integration of poly-therapies is the way. Because everything in your body and brain is connected, and there are inter-related networks and systems involved in every diagnosis. Can you say, interactions?
Take care of your mitochondria and your mitochondria will take care of you. Same with the brain in your head and in your gut.
We seriously have got to stop animal experimentation. Completely. From feeding rats a high fat diet to giving electrical shocks to dogs to ripping baby monkeys from their mothers and replacing mothers with wire caregivers, and more. No amount of data warrants these methodologies. They do however beg the question: What in the world is wrong with humans?
Secure attachment (available at any age if you didn’t get it as a kid!) and a healthy vagus nerve for each person equals world peace (my takeaway, not explicitly expressed in the conference).
If you have questions about secure attachment or how a healthy vagus nerve helps each of us, please add them in the comments.
Meanwhile, eat well, move your body, take care of your gut and listen to it, too!