How to choose a mental health care taker

Mental Health Care

Many of us visit the docs regularly for our physical needs, our psychological care can be pushed to the side in light of more pressing issues. However, there are many health concerns that are not physical which still require attention, and they fall into the realm of mental healthcare. Choosing your mental healthcare provider requires some time and effort. After all, you could be spending long sessions pouring out your heart to this person. There are a number of things you should consider to develop your care plan for mental health.

Relationship

Unlike a medical doctor who spends a limited amount of time with you, you need to feel comfortable with your therapist or mental healthcare provider. Observe the personality and mannerisms of the therapist you are considering – you should feel comfortable talking to them, and feel that they respect and support you in what you have to say. A good way to find someone who will be a good fit is to ask friends and family to refer someone they know. This is also the time to think about any preferences in terms of gender, religion or cultural background. National mental healthcare associations can also provide listings of mental healthcare providers in your area. You can sign up for a single session with the goal of getting to know the therapist and his or her traits before signing on long-term.

Experience, Qualifications & Reputation

In addition to personality, be sure to consider what a potential mental healthcare provider is qualified to do. There are a number of professionals in the mental healthcare field including psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists and nurses. Certain individuals may have specialties in certain areas or only treat specific age groups or mental health concerns. Furthermore, only some types of therapists (such as psychiatrists) are legally permitted to prescribe medications, so if you or your doctor suspect that drug treatment may be necessary, you should choose accordingly.

Also take into account the experience and reputation of whoever will be managing your care plan for mental health. It’s an important part of your overall health, so try to choose someone who has adequate experience in the type of treatment you need. Ask your potential therapist how long they have been practicing, or whether they have led any research in the field. Often, those individuals who have a sincere interest mental health will have done research in it as well.

Logistics

In addition to the personal and professional fit you are looking for, make sure your mental healthcare provider also fits your lifestyle and your budget. First, keep in mind that your insurance may only apply to certain types of therapy from certain groups of specialists. If you do not have any coverage but are going ahead with treatment anyway, keep the costs in mind. Second, find out how flexible you need your therapist to be. If you work 9 to 5 and your ideal therapist only works afternoons, you may need to reconsider your choice. Finally, decide if you would be interested in individual, group or family therapy. If so, find out which mental healthcare providers offer this sort of therapy and what the benefits are to you.

Finding the right care provider to meet your needs in the personal, professional and logistical realms is important. By evaluating each possible care provider in these three areas, you will help to ensure that you find someone who will guide you well along the path to good mental health.

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Slow Down Aging with Meditation?

Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.

In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That’s intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age.

"Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being," says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. "These findings are consistent with other studies that demonstrated increased thickness of music areas in the brains of musicians, and visual and motor areas in the brains of jugglers. In other words, the structure of an adult brain can change in response to repeated practice."

The researchers compared brain scans of 20 experienced meditators with those of 15 nonmeditators. Four of the former taught meditation or yoga, but they were not monks living in seclusion. The rest worked in careers such as law, health care, and journalism. All the participants were white. During scanning, the meditators meditated; the others just relaxed and thought about whatever they wanted.

Meditators did Buddhist "insight meditation," which focuses on whatever is there, like noise or body sensations. It doesn’t involve "om," other mantras, or chanting.

"The goal is to pay attention to sensory experience, rather than to your thoughts about the sensory experience," Lazar explains. "For example, if you suddenly hear a noise, you just listen to it rather than thinking about it. If your leg falls asleep, you just notice the physical sensations. If nothing is there, you pay attention to your breathing." Successful meditators get used to not thinking or elaborating things in their mind.

Study participants meditated an average of about 40 minutes a day. Some had been doing it for only a year, others for decades. Depth of the meditation was measured by the slowing of breathing rates. Those most deeply involved in the meditation showed the greatest changes in brain structure. "This strongly suggests," Lazar concludes, "that the differences in brain structure were caused by the meditation, rather than that differences in brain thickness got them into meditation in the first place."

Lazar took up meditation about 10 years ago and now practices insight meditation about three times a week. At first she was not sure it would work. But "I have definitely experienced beneficial changes," she says. "It reduces stress [and] increases my clarity of thought and my tolerance for staying focused in difficult situations."

Controlling Random Thoughts

Insight meditation can be practiced anytime, anywhere. "People who do it quickly realize that much of what goes on in their heads involves random thoughts that often have little substance," Lazar comments. "The goal is not so much to ‘empty’ your head, but to not get caught up in random thoughts that pop into consciousness."

She uses this example: Facing an important deadline, people tend to worry about what will happen if they miss it, or if the end product will be good enough to suit the boss. You can drive yourself crazy with unproductive "what if" worry. "If, instead, you focus on the present moment, on what needs to be done and what is happening right now, then much of the feeling of stress goes away," Lazar says. "Feelings become less obstructive and more motivational."

The increased thickness of gray matter is not very much, 4 to 8 thousandths of an inch. "These increases are proportional to the time a person has been meditating during their lives," Lazar notes. "This suggests that the thickness differences are acquired through extensive practice and not simply due to differences between meditators and nonmeditators."

As small as they are, you can bet those differences are going to lead to lots more studies to find out just what is going on and how meditation might better be used to improve health and well-being, and even slow aging.

More basic questions need to be answered. What causes the increased thickness? Does meditation produce more connections between brain cells, or more blood vessels? How does increased brain thickness influence daily behavior? Does it promote increased communication between intellectual and emotional areas of the brain?

To get answers, larger studies are planned at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Harvard-affiliated facility where Lazar is a research scientist and where these first studies were done. That work included only 20 meditators and their brains were scanned only once.

"The results were very encouraging," Lazar remarks. "But further research needs to be done using a larger number of people and testing them multiple times. We also need to examine their brains both before and after learning to meditate. Our group is currently planning to do this. Eventually, such research should reveal more about the function of the thickening; that is, how it affects emotions and knowing in terms of both awareness and judgment."

Slowing aging?

Since this type of meditation counteracts the natural thinning of the thinking surface of the brain, could it play a role in slowing - even reversing - aging? That could really be mind-boggling in the most positive sense.

Lazar is cautious in her answer. "Our data suggest that one small bit of brain appears to have a slower rate of cortical thinning, so meditation may help slow some aspects of cognitive aging," she agrees. "But it’s important to remember that monks and yogis suffer from the same ailments as the rest of us. They get old and die, too. However, they do claim to enjoy an increased capacity for attention and memory."

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