We look at the whole picture, the entire lived experience that influences health.
Our work examines health through many lenses that intersect, and it often helps people who are underserved or experiencing trauma — for example, veterans suffering from PTSD, children with serious illness, low-income residents grappling with systemic racism and neglect, and others.
This evening of community cooking was part of Five Times a Feast, a program of the Institute for Integrative Health that’s aimed at breaking down barriers to healthy home-cooked meals, such as affordability and a lack of time, knowledge, and comfort in the kitchen.
According to behavioral cardiologist Michael Miller, MD, listening to music, attending a comedy show, and enjoying a bowl of fresh blueberries are a few ways you can improve your mood and, in turn, prevent or heal cardiovascular disease.
Week five of Mission Thrive Summer culminated in the much-anticipated cooking battle, a half day competition between four teams, the Wolf People, Pandas, Elephants, and Pucks, in which each team’s lunch meal was evaluated by three judges.
In addition to farming, nutrition, and healthy cooking, Mission Thrive Summer introduces students to important life skills including money management. During week three students learned that every penny counts.
Mission Thrive Summer participants concluded their second week by playing Rose-Bud-Thorn, an exercise in which they named their best and worst experiences of the week.
This week, 30 Baltimore City high school students began Mission Thrive Summer, our program designed to empower youth with tools for making healthy decisions.
Mission Thrive Summer crew leaders have been farming and training for the past two weeks, and plan to spend the next five weeks working alongside the program’s youth participants by leading, teaching, and mentoring them. This year’s team includes a former student participant and a few new faces.
The Institute for Integrative Health’s community programs team was present, giving a tour to participants of Five Times a Feast, a program of the Institute that empowers community members to prepare healthy meals on a budget.
According to certified culinary nutrition expert Rachel Druckenmiller, MS, when we shift our mindset to view food as fueling, healing, and nourishing rather than a biological nuisance we begin to find pleasure in our meals.
Eating fermented foods and playing in the dirt are just two of the many tips a panel of experts shared during our Immune Health Boosters and Busters event.
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RT @VCUFamMed: Critically important work for #PrimaryCare by our own Dr. Etz and the @GreenCenterOrg. Read More
This is a timely look at the dire need for increased collective empathy as we... Read More
"Gun violence, then, is clearly a problem. To paraphrase former Surgeon General David Satcher ...... Read More
Over the past thirty years, we’ve been part of a movement to shift the primary approach to health from a focus on disease to a more complete approach. As reflected in our tagline, “For Health of People, Places, and Planet,” how we are building on “person health” and looking at the context of peoples’ lives and communities as well as the health of the planet we all share.
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Healing is facilitated through safety, persistence, and trust.
Resources support us as we heal. They include reframing, responsibility, and positivity. “Making connections enabled participants to acquire and refine resources and skills that were essential in their healing journey. People also brought their own personal strengths to the journey.”
“Connection to others was an essential part of all the healing journeys.” Humans are social creatures, and even the most introverted of us need close relationships. Friends and family add meaning and value to life and help support us, in good times and bad. When we experience relational trauma, relationships can feel scary, but reestablishing safety and trust in relationships is where the healing happens. (To be clear, we do not mean reestablishing safety and trust with abusers, but rather finding other healing relationships.) “When safety and trust had been established, people were able to connect with helpers. The nature of the behaviours of helpers that fostered healing ranged from small acts of kindness to unconditional love.”
Healing probably means different things to different people, but one definition that emerged from the study is: “The re-establishment of a sense of integrity and wholeness.” Healing was an emergent property that resulted from each individuals’ complex healing journey, a result of bridged connections between resources and relationships. Healing, in this sense, does not mean cured—none of the study participants were cured of their ailments—”but all developed a sense of integrity and wholeness despite ongoing pain or other symptoms.” In varying degrees, “they were able to transcend their suffering and in some sense to flourish.” When we begin to heal, we find increased capacity for hope, renewed motivation to help others, and are more able to accept ourselves as we are.
Wounding happens when we experience physical or emotional harm. It can stem from chronic illness or by physical or psychological trauma for which we do not have the tools to cope, or a combination of those factors. “The degree and quality of suffering experienced by each individual is framed by contextual factors that include personal characteristics, timing of their initial or ongoing wounding in the developmental life cycle and prior and current relationships.”
