A healthy lifestyle is necessary for effectively tackling stress and reducing anxiety. Maintaining a healthy mind while battling PTSD may not sound simple, but if you carve your own path to healing, it’s more than possible. Also, whether you believe it or not, your stomach health plays a huge role in the maintenance, behavior, and exacerbation of your PTSD symptoms, and excessive and unmanaged stress, paired with a lack of activity can affect your gut. Arming yourself with knowledge about your disorder and symptoms will give you all the tools you need to conquer it and break free from the vast restrictions and limitations it places in your life.

When your mind is working overtime to help you stay balanced and in control, keeping a balanced and healthy diet and lifestyle will serve as fuel for your brain, not just your body. There are countless healthy choices that can help you feel better and reduce your anxiety, which will put you in a better position to manage your PTSD symptoms and reactivity to stressors. If you don’t try to maintain a balanced diet, you will become irritable and more prone to stress. Your emotions impact your appetite, and the foods you eat impact your mood.

PTSD is a complex disorder that involves potential physiological and biochemical abnormalities in the brain. Nutrition plays an important role in how we handle stress. This is particularly important for those of us who suffer from PTSD and it’s army of symptoms. People with PTSD suffer from hormonal and chemical imbalances in response to stress. Your thyroid and cortisol levels increase, causing you to experience nuances like dizziness, abdominal pain, chest pain, or discomfort in different parts of the body. A good diet is extremely important to help manage the disorder. Yes, your gut can affect your behavior. Stress depletes nutrients, but you can counteract that will a healthy diet and supplements.

The biggest problem with PTSD nutrition habits is knowing how to keep a diet that can help your brain stay at an optimal and balanced level. When you don’t give your brain the fuel that it needs to function properly, it shuts down systems that utilize large amounts of energy. For example your “will-power” is an incredibly critical system in the management of PTSD, as it can help you make good decisions by influencing what you think, feel, and do. Now imagine achieving goals and acquiring coping mechanisms with your will-power running on low energy. Doesn't sound good right? Well, all you have to do is eat right.

Aside from retraining my brain and learning coping mechanisms and skills, a change in diet was a huge battle buddy against PTSD symptoms. In my view, diet for people with PTSD is directly related to the way  they react to stressors. Maintaining a well balanced diet, regardless of your dietary preferences, and keeping proper vitamin levels can go a long way in helping you achieve your goals every day. Please give importance to your diet. Watch what you put in your mouth, and remember it will end up in your stomach and it will have an effect on you. What effect you want it to have is going to be entirely up to you and your desire to win the battle against PTSD.

People who suffer from PTSD must understand the importance of dietary changes to help manage their symptoms. An anti-inflammatory diet that avoids processed foods is highly encouraged. For example, a Mediterranean diet has large amounts of olive oil, unrefined cereals, legumes, vegetables and fruits, oily fish, lean meats, and moderate dairy consumption. Try your best to stick to locally grown foods to ensure freshness and quality.

If you have a physical illness, you are pregnant or lactating, you are an elderly person, or you currently take prescription medicines, please check with a health professional before taking supplements. In some cases, supplements can aggravate certain illnesses or have adverse interaction with medications you’re taking. Make sure you always double check.

This is, by all means, not a complete nutritional guide. It is a basic introduction to a few important nutrition basics that can positively influence your symptoms. Small changes can go a long way in helping you balance and control your PTSD symptoms and how they affect your life, body, and soul.

From sleep difficulties to increased tension and stress, trouble concentrating, fatigue, or low energy, unhealthy living brings a lot of problems. Our lifestyle can have incredible impact on our overall health, and not taking care of ourselves can leave our body and mind vulnerable to anxiety. There are many healthy choices that can help us feel better. This is particularly true for those battling symptoms associated with PTSD. Anxiety plays an intricate adaptive role in our survival. Healthy lifestyle choices are not meant to fully eliminate anxiety, but put a person in a better position to manage PTSD related anxiety.

Tips Before you Begin

SET GOALS: Find changes you want to make or things you want to work on and use those to set realistic lifestyle change goals.

START SMALL: Don't try to change everything at once. Choosing to make one or two changes and sticking to them consistently work as a good strategy. Remember, making small changes can have great impact on your life.

BE PATIENT: As with all in life, changes take time to take effect. Being consistent and patient will help you reach your goals. You can do it!

SET A ROUTINE

Setting specific times for work, housework, meals, quiet and relaxation time, sleep, and others will make your day more predictable and manageable. Setting a routine will also help you remember the importance of making time for yourself, which will be the foundation of your anxiety management.

BALANCED DIET

Eating healthy means having a balanced diet, not skipping meals, and not following other people's diet plans. A well balanced diet is one that makes you feel good. Don't skip meals, include variety in your foods, watch your sugar intake, add fruits and vegetables as much as possible, drink tons of water. Depending on your set routine, three meals plus two snacks could do the job. If that doesn't work, then you can have 5-6 smaller meals throughout the day. Stick to what works for you.

STAY ACTIVE

The outdoors is a great way for PTSD sufferers to stay active, heal, and deal with their symptoms. Regular exercise and activity will have a positive impact on your physical and emotional well-being. Being active is a powerful tool to manage stress and anxiety. It doesn't matter how you stay active, just do it! Whether it's walking, bicycling, gardening, hiking, skiing, swimming, speed walking, scuba diving, dancing, or dog walking, aim for at least 20 minutes of activity about 3-4 times a week. You will be amazed at how staying active will positively contribute to your overall healthy lifestyle living.

SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP

Restful sleep is an alien concept for most PTSD sufferers. Bad sleep patterns or sleep difficulties can increase anxiety levels and decrease ability to implement coping mechanisms. How many hours of sleep you need will be dependent on how rested you wake up. It could be 5, 6, or you could need a whole 8 hours of night sleep to function. The estimate is personal, and only you can pinpoint exactly how much sleep you will need. Some people don't need much sleep to function, others do. If changing your lifestyle habits doesn't improve your sleeping patterns, consulting with a health profession will help you gain ground on your battle against PTSD symptoms.

SOCIAL SUPPORT

PTSD symptoms can make it difficult for many to make and maintain friends and cultivate relationships, but a support system is one of the cornerstones of healthy living is having a solid support system. These are the people in your life you can always count on to talk, to laugh, to eat, to exercise, and to relax with. Numerous studies have linked a good, solid support system with a person's well-being. This is particularly important for people battling PTSD, as having at least one supportive person in your life can make a big difference.

TIME MANAGEMENT

It's no secret that time management reduces stress. Effectively managing your time and day will decrease the chances of your PTSD symptoms taking over. I always recommend checklists. It can be a daily, weekly, or monthly checklist, but creating one to manage your time and responsibilities will help keep you on task and on track. It will also help you make time for the things you need to do, like relax. Your time management schedule should always include a section of time for yourself.

LEARN TO RELAX

By virtue of its symptomatology, PTSD makes it very difficult to relax. But learning to relax is paramount to healthy living for everyone, especially those with the disorder. Using relaxation strategies and techniques can help lower overall body and mind tension and reduce stress levels. How you choose to relax is entirely up to you, but know that relaxation has to be more than just sitting on the couch to watch TV. Deep relaxation through progressive muscle relaxation and calm breathing will help your body and mind achieve a relaxed state so that you can take on your PTSD symptoms like a warrior.

PROBLEM SOLVING

Problems are a common source of stress for humans. For people with PTSD, the symptoms that accompany the disorder can greatly increase anxiety and reduce problem solving skills. They can also make it difficult to tackle problems. Whether they are family, relationship, work, health, or car issues, creating checklists will help you identify and quickly resolve any problems that come your way. Being prepared for any trouble that comes your way will arm you with a secure way of dealing with nuances, and help you reduce any stress associated with the process of problem solving.

REDUCE STRESS

Having a PTSD diagnosis goes hand in hand with high levels of stress and anxiety. Stress reduction should be a priority for everyone battling the disorder. PTSD comes with a set of symptoms that work very hard to ruin your day. The life of a PTSD sufferer can be quite demanding, and not managing and reducing stress levels can have detrimental effects on your overall mental and physical health. Learn do deal with problems. Take the time to reach out to your support system for help, whenever needed. Do whatever you need to do to help reduce your stress: go for a walk, call a friend, watch a funny TV show or movie. Give yourself a little extra time to do things, to get to places, to accomplish tasks. We live in a fast paced world that requires rushing to complete tasks, so be sure to make your life and health a priority because everything else can wait.

Suicide is the ultimate mental disconnect. By definition, suicide is the act or instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally. By my definition, suicide is a person’s refusal, to connect to the world around them in some form, and there is always a way to connect to the world around you. Regardless of socioeconomic status, race, religion, gender, or creed, many people who contemplate suicide do it because they lack an appropriate connection to their surrounding environment, or they are poisoned by the wrong one. Whether it’s through a partner, a hobby, a job, the outdoors, a calling or something else, there is

always a way for a person with PTSD to connect to and with in this world.

Research found a connection between people who experience traumatic events and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. For those who develop PTSD, the risk is higher. When everything around you is different and feels unsafe, finding your connection to the world may need some guidance. If you frequently have thoughts of suicide, please call or chat with someone at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1 (800) 273-8255.

If you have frequent thoughts of suicide, should be under the care of a mental health professional who can help you find options. However, remember that while mental health professionals and pharmaceutical help will assist you in managing the PTSD symptoms that keep you ‘down,’ ultimately it is you who must learn to control them. It is up to you to take on the task and learn to control and master your symptoms so you are not a slave of mental health professionals and biological medicines your whole life.

Suicidal thoughts are reflections emitted by an untrained brain, and the brain can be retrained.

Thoughts of suicide are in the minds of people with PTSD who are highly anxious and stressed, who haven’t found their place in their new ‘world of symptoms,’ who have convinced themselves that there are no options that can help them, and who lack a solid support system. At some point, it has crossed a PTSD sufferer’s mind. Even those who don’t suffer from the disorder have thoughts of ending their lives.

People who think about suicide generally consider the option as a form of relief to their suffering. For them, it is not about dying, it’s about ending or stopping the pain because they cannot cope with it. For many PTSD sufferers, thoughts of suicide are not a sign of weakness, but a sign that the person does not have all the knowledge about their disorder and has not  been able to find the appropriate approach to tackle the symptoms that keep depressing them to the point of suicidal thoughts. Finding, searching, discovering, and learning about all of the PTSD symptoms that affect you at at personal and professional level will give you the necessary tools to tackle the suffering like a pro, and help you understand that suicide is really the ultimate form of disconnect because you haven’t even started trying options to heal.