Seasonal Affective Disorder

Seasonal Affective Disorder: Beating the Winter Blues Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that affects millions of people around the world. It’s most common during the winter months, when the days are shorter and there is less sunlight. People with SAD may experience feelings of sadness, hopelessness, fatigue, and loss of interest…

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The Dangers of Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions that can lead to severe physical and emotional harm. The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) defines eating disorders as “serious and often fatal illnesses that cause severe disturbances to a person’s eating behaviors.” Eating disorders can take many forms, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder.…

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Why a Healthy Thyroid Matters

Thyroid function is one of the standard health assessments at Empowered Health. Why? Thyroid health affects energy levels and metabolism. Various factors can negatively impact thyroid function resulting in fatigue, weight gain, anxiety and hair loss (to name a few). For those unfamiliar with the thyroid gland, it sits in the anterior portion of the…

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GeneSight Psychotropic Testing

At Empowered Health, we offer many precision medicine advanced testing tools that include a deeper awareness to provide the most educated medical decisions for the persons’ individual health journey. Psychotropic genetic testing is another advanced test that we utilize across all age groups. GeneSight psychotropic testing analyzes how your genes affect medication outcomes by important…

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Improve Your Health with Indoor Plants

indoor plants

Plants Provide Mental, Physical & Emotional Health Benefits It is widely known that spending time in nature and green spaces can reduce stress and improve a person’s mood. This can be a challenge during the winter months because of the shorter days, more darkness, the bare landscape and poor weather restricting time outdoors.  When winter…

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What is the Vagus Nerve?

Meditation

The vagus nerve is one of twelve cranial nerves that link the brain to other parts of the body. These nerves can send signals that involve sensory functions (smells, sights, tastes, and sounds) or they can be involved with movements or have motory functions. The vagus nerve is one of a few that can do both of these functions and is…

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Understanding Inflammation

What is inflammation? Our immune system’s response to protect against infection, disease or injury. In most circumstances this is a normal part of our immune health. During this complex process, the cells release chemicals to alert the immune system. In the short term, our body may be fighting off a cold or healing a wound…

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What is the HPA Axis? Part 2

This is the second installment of our two-part blog post on the HPA Axis. The Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis is your stress response system. It’s that internal system that triggers the fight-or-flight response when you find yourself in a dangerous situation. How can you influence the HPA axis to your benefit? Prolonged activation of the HPA…

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What is the HPA Axis? Part 1

The Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis is your stress response system. It’s that internal system that triggers the fight-or-flight response when you find yourself in a dangerous situation. For example, imagine you are hiking a trail on Badger Mountain when you suddenly hear that tell-tale sound of a rattlesnake. Your first response is to freeze and listen…

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Preventing & Treating Depression

Depression

Depression refers to a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. Also called major depressive disorder or clinical depression, it affects how you feel, think and behave and can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems. You may have trouble doing normal day-to-day activities, and sometimes you…

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