What is Lifestyle Medicine?

Lifestyle medicine is a specialty that encourages therapeutic lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to prevent and reverse psychiatric and medical conditions.

Lifestyle medicine accepts the same factors and causes of disease as conventional medicine and psychiatry. However, it is unique in its focus on prescribing daily changes in physical activity, specific dietary recommendations, and diverse self-care actions to address common physical and mental health problems. Often, lifestyle medicine is used in conjunction with other medical or therapeutic treatments to pursue optimal outcomes.

A consultation with a lifestyle medicine expert at The Midtown Practice will first identify the aspects of your physical and mental health most amenable to lifestyle modifications and then tailor a program that applies to you. Many of us struggle with which recommendations would be most impactful and how to incorporate healthy habits into our daily lives. Lifestyle medicine takes a highly active and practical approach and will help you separate a fad from an evidenced-based intervention. Your work with a lifestyle medicine clinician might include prescriptive changes such as a whole-food, plant-predominant diet; personalized fitness recommendations; specific actions to enhance restorative sleep; stress management approaches; avoidance of risky substances; and positive social connections. When used consistently, lifestyle medicine can play a major role in markedly improving mental and physical wellbeing.

Who Benefits From Lifestyle Medicine?

Both mental and physical health symptoms are impacted by intersecting factors such as biological vulnerabilities, psychological influences, and social and environmental factors. Lifestyle choices play a critical role in how specific symptoms manifest and in a person’s overall quality of life. While patients at The Midtown Practice have access to the most cutting-edge psychotherapies and pharmacological interventions, those interested in pursuing a multimodal, holistic lifestyle approach would benefit from a lifestyle medicine consultation. Lifestyle medicine treatment can be initiated before, during, or after other treatment modalities (i.e. psychotherapy and psychopharmacology) have been explored, depending on the client’s goals and preferences.