Community Health

Florence Crittenton’s Psychiatric Community Health:

Community programs which highlight seven key strategies to metabolize stress and bring balance to the body. These services not only help individuals feel their best in the present, but also protect against future negative health effects.

The science is clear. Early adversity dramatically affects health across the lifetime. But new research helps us understand how to interrupt the progression from early adversity to disease and early death. We can not only interrupt the progression, but we can restore health through key protective factors. Toxic stress is treatable! It is beatable!

–Nadine Burke Harris, MD, MPH, FAAP California Surgeon General

Impact of Stress

Over the past decade, the field of mental health has evolved as the growing body of research has increased our understanding of the impact of adversity and toxic stress on not just the mind, but the body itself. The Centers for Disease Control have linked these toxic stress experiences to over 40 negative health outcomes later in life. Addressing toxic stress at a body level, is critical to restoring health.

MITIGATING STRESS

Our team has become experts on treating the biology of toxic stress through a research-based protocol that includes seven core components: movement/exercise, sleeping well, eating healthy, building supportive relationships, integrating mental health services, practicing mindfulness/yoga, and spending time in nature. Emphasis is placed on strengthening the parasympathetic nervous system (also known as the rest, digest, and repair system) to slow down overactive stress responses. By targeting the limbic system, we can mitigate the long-term effects of toxic stress. These interventions rewire the stress responses of the body and become protective factors to buffer against future health problems that are associated with holding stress in the body.

OPTIMAL HEALTH

One of our biggest mistakes as a society is normalizing chronic stress as part of life without an appreciation or understanding for the devastating consequences.  There are proven interventions that help us metabolize stress and buffer against toxicity. Â