Mental health services urgently need to address lifestyle
Mental health services need to increase investment in lifestyle interventions to improve care and narrow the 15-year life-expectancy gap for people with mental health conditions, according to a new report by The Lancet Psychiatry Commission. Interventions focusing on exercise, diet, sleep, and smoking cessation are essential to mental health care, not optional extras, the report says. Produced by a team of 30 authors from 19 countries, the report builds on a 2019 Lancet study showing that people with mental health conditions have their lives shortened by 13 to 15 years, mainly due to preventable illnesses such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Lifestyle
‘Our lifestyle influences the course of both our physical and our mental health,’ says co-author Jeroen Deenik, a researcher at the Mental Health and Neuroscience Research Institute at Maastricht University. Many people with mental health conditions face obstacles to staying active, maintaining a healthy diet, sleeping properly or giving up smoking. These difficulties can make mental health problems worse and contribute to physical illness.
‘When it comes to lifestyle, the focus is often on changing individual behaviour. But precisely for people with mental health conditions, what’s needed is systemic change that provides lasting support for health and wellbeing,’ Deenik says. ‘They are more often and more severely affected by barriers beyond their control – such as stigma, side-effects of medication, and limited access to appropriate support. Yet they are the people who stand to benefit the most, given that lifestyle affects not only their physical health, but also their mental wellbeing and recovery.’
Mental health services
The report, Implementing lifestyle interventions in mental health care, sets out a roadmap for improving services worldwide, from engaging nutritionists and exercise specialists to changing attitudes within care teams. ‘Mental health organisations have traditionally focused on medication, crisis care and therapy. For a long time, lifestyle had little priority – not in training, not in funding, and not in practice,’ says Deenik. ‘But the evidence for the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions is now clear.’
Mental health problems are an increasing public health priority, with a significant social impact and a greater disease burden than most physical illnesses. ‘This will require commitment and investment now, but in the long run it could substantially reduce costs and ease pressure on mental health care services and on society,’ says Deenik. ‘To achieve this, it’s vital to remember the importance of lifestyle in care, particularly for people with mental health conditions.’
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