Mental Health
Our team of registered Psychotherapists, Naturopathic Doctors, and Nutritionists take an integrative approach to your mental and physical health by working collaboratively. and creating a personalized care treatment plan.
We work with patients to provide them with the knowledge and skills to change the way their mind, brain and nervous system reacts to their world.
We offer a simple process to get started. With convenient in-office and online sessions available, we can offer you appointments that work with your schedule.
Our Areas of Expertise
There are many types of anxiety such as social anxiety, panic attacks, and generalized anxiety, however all anxiety is defined by having a sense of fear or uncertainty. Anxiety can start with negative thoughts (but not always), however often there is a sense of over thinking or racing thoughts about the uncertain future. The real issue with anxiety is that once it starts, it primes the nervous system to hyper alert and we often find ourselves trapped in the anxiety, even after the issue has resolved. The approach used at Greystones Health is to naturally calm down the nervous system with lifestyle tools and natural products. We help you gain new skills and not depend on any products to stay calm and confident. We also look deeper into your biology with key lab testing to ensure there is no underlying issue that can often be missed.
Very often panic attacks are a mixture of biology and psychology. If there is a history of anxiety and then there is a new development of a racing heart, for example from low iron anemia, the racing heart will set off a chain reaction. So, it’s very important to look at the biology and psychology at the same time. Panic attacks generally are a perfect storm of many issues coming together to start the attack. With holistic medicine we can see how all the issues come together and stop the panic attacks once and for all.
Depression is a complex mood disorder that can cause feelings of sadness, despair, or loss of interest in activities that the individual once enjoyed. While this condition is more commonly seen in women, it can affect men in different ways such as feelings of irritability, anger, and discouragement. It is also not uncommon to see depression in people as a result of another illness.
Whether you’re taking medication to manage your depression or you want to do it naturally, we will come up with a treatment plan that is right for you. Our naturopathic doctor starts by taking an in-depth medical history and a physical examination. Another important step will be to look at levels of stress in your life, and if necessary, order some lab work to check the levels of your stress hormones. For example, a lot of people who are experiencing burnout may be misdiagnosed with depression. A hormone imbalance such as low testosterone in males, and problems with estrogen in females, can also affect our mental health.
After the initial appointment, our naturopath will come up with a treatment plan that will involve diet and lifestyle modifications, and where necessary, support with natural products. For the short term while the person is healing, we can also use natural products to help boost serotonin levels to help balance out the mood. We prefer to use this as a short term method as our goal is to effect long term healing through diet and lifestyle.
Stress is a normal part of life and we feel best when we have a variety of methods to manage both every day stress and extra high stress with unique events in life. Solutions should involve more than just exercise or meditation. At Greystones health we can talk about a variety of lifestyle options, natural products to either calm down the nervous system or support biochemistry to avoid burn out. Plus, we offer acupuncture, Bowen Therapy, and can assist with improving meditation with the Muse headband. Ask us about how our Stress Well, Rest Well program can help you feel great.
Consult our naturopathic doctors for stress management with naturopathy in Toronto.
Our Plan
We believe in a holistic approach to mental health; one that treats the individual as a whole, looking at the complex connections between the body and the mind that occur during illness and disease. Whether you suffer from anxiety, depression, or any other mental health concern, our goal is the same: to balance the whole individual (body and mind).
What Makes Us Different
Often we need to begin with nutrition and herbal products to help improve symptoms, but we don't stop there. Focusing on a healing path, over the diagnosis, we can identify lifestyle changes that are deep and long lasting. We take a look at the biochemistry and other up-to-date research and combine that with natural and traditional healing such as Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture.
It’s known that the mind can influence the health, but so often we forget how much the body influences the mind. The best example of this is anxiety. Our racing thoughts create physical symptoms such as heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, and hot and cold flashes.
However, anxiety is often connected to digestive problems and science has shown that 80% of our “feel good hormone” serotonin is actually made in our digestive system. With inflammation in the digestive system, often people will experience more anxiety that only worsens the digestive system and a downward spire can start.