Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes for Anxiety and Depression

For over 30 years as a Navy doctor, general practitioner, psychiatrist and now child & adolescent psychiatrist, Dr Peter Parry has developed a psychoeducative approach that encourages people to enact what others have called “therapeutic lifestyle changes” (TLC's) and what he also refers to as employing “natural antidepressants”. The information comes from reading the literature and absorbing information at conferences and workshops. In his clinical practice, he has synthesised this information and adjusted it according to responses from clients and their families. To be effective one has to use both an entertaining as well as educational approach. The first half hour of this video provides a theoretical underpinning about the autonomic nervous system and the physiology of breathing in particular. The rest of the presentation is delivered as a psychoeducation session to a 15 year old client who presents with anxiety, school refusal, reversed sleep-wake cycle, social withdrawal, substance use and depression. Dr. Parry provides a narrative that conveys in a somewhat simplified form a biopsychosocial understanding of stress and relaxation, the autonomic nervous system, limbic emotional system, and frontal executive lobes and how they all interact. But more important is to convey an understanding of why - in terms of evolutionary biopsychology and sociology - the nervous system is structured this way. Anxiety and depressed mood and clinical depression are thus explained within a broader context that is ultimately more empowering to the client. The importance of an array of “natural antidepressants” or TLC's as to how they bring about recovery becomes evident. These include different breathing manoeuvres (both instinctual and voluntary), light, circadian rhythm, sleep cycle and architecture, exercise, diet, time in nature, attachment theory and socialization, positive touch, behavior activation and challenging fears. The concept of mindfulness is conveyed using a visual metaphor and a mindfulness meditation is incorporated in the presentation in the way I teach it and the “ujjayi” (victorious) breath technique to his clients. Humor and impersonations of wildlife documentarians, lizards, rabbits, dogs, horses, tigers, stone-age men, politicians and sports stars are part of the whole presentation. The narrative is of course a somewhat simplified version of evolutionary neurobiology, psychopathology and sociology - but it is practical. Practitioners should find aspects they can incorporate into their own psychoeducative narratives to their clients.