Season 2, Episode 10: Exploring the Link Between Food and Mental Health
In this episode, social worker Stephanie Warner, with her expertise in holistic nutrition and eating psychology, delves into the profound connection between our diet and mental health. Discover how the quality of our food impacts our mood and overall well-being, and gain insights into managing mental health issues like anxiety and depression through nutrition. Stephanie shares practical examples of beneficial foods and discusses common misconceptions about food and mental health. She also emphasizes the importance of mindful eating, positive food relationships, and the influence of cultural background. Learn strategies for healthier eating habits, managing cravings, fostering positive relationships with food in children, and much more.
4 Key Takeaways About the Connection Between Food and Mental Health
1. The Quality of Our Food Matters
Quality food plays a critical role in our overall mental health. Our body requires specific nutrients to function optimally, and when deprived of these, it can affect our mood and mental wellbeing. For instance, healthy fats are essential for brain function – you can find these in nuts, seeds, avocado, and fatty fish for example. B vitamins are crucial for emotional regulation – foods like spinach, eggs, beans, and fortified cereals have lots of vitamin B. Incorporating a balanced diet that includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats can significantly help in stabilizing our mood.
2. Food and Life Stages
What we eat and how much we eat are influenced by various factors, including our stage of life and current life circumstances. Stress, illness, emotions, age – these all play a part in our food choices. Food often parallels our experiences, reflecting our emotional and psychological states. Recognizing these patterns can help us make more mindful food choices that support our mental health rather than undermine it.
3. Dispelling Food Myths and Shame
Sometimes, there are harmful messages from the media around food, such as terms like "cheat meals," "clean eating," and "guilt-free snacks." Assigning morality to food can damage our relationship with it. We should strive for a more balanced approach where all foods can be enjoyed without guilt. This perspective is particularly important for parents, as children adopt similar attitudes towards food.
4. Mindful Eating and Awareness
Mindfulness and awareness are important in developing a healthy relationship with food. By paying attention to what we are eating and how we feel during meals, we can shift towards a more accepting and balanced approach. This involves recognizing when we might be eating out of stress or boredom and finding healthier ways to address these feelings. Encouraging children to explore different foods and listen to their bodies is also crucial in fostering positive food relationships from an early age.
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Katherine Hurtig
Welcome to Living Fully, a podcast dedicated to enhancing your mental well-being. Each episode explores valuable insights and practical strategies to help you lead a more fulfilling life. I'm your host, Katherine Hurtig. In this episode, we explore the connection between nutrition and mental well-being. Social worker Stephanie Warner dives into the role that food plays in managing mental health and shares how to cultivate healthier eating habits in your daily life. We'll leave you practical tips and insights to help you balance the enjoyment of food while maintaining a healthy relationship with it. I'm here with Stephanie Warner. She is a social worker at Calgary Counseling Centre. Hello, Stephanie.
Stephanie Warner
Hi!
Katherine Hurtig
Stephanie, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
Stephanie Warner.
Yeah, I would love to. Thank you for having me. So I am a registered social worker. I've been a social worker for longer than I can count now, but I am also very interested in nutrition, which is our topic for today. And I do have a background in holistic nutrition and eating psychology as well. So yeah, I would be excited to share about that with you today.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this. I mean, you know, food and eating, it plays such a big part in our lives, whether to keep us alive. But it's a part of social situations and celebrations and things like that. So. Yeah, let's get into it. So just start at a high level. Like, how what we eat, you know, impacts our mood and overall well-being.
Stephanie Warner
I think this is a great first question because it's really important to understand that what we eat absolutely impacts our overall well-being. Right. Quality food which can be difficult to get or to achieve makes a difference in our overall mental health, right? So what we are eating, and what we are putting into our body does play a role. If you've ever woken up, you know, brain foggy or feeling tired. And you're like, gosh, I don't know why, you know, sometimes it's about, our nutrition and what our body is holding or carrying in terms of nutrients and minerals and all of these little things that we get from different food groups, right?
Katherine Hurtig
Does age have any impact on that? I ask because like I think back to when I was younger, I could eat anything and I wouldn't notice any difference in how I felt, but now I know if I eat too much sugar, I totally feel run down. Or you know if I, you know, have a few heavy meals, I mean physically, but, you know, emotionally as well, like there's that shift. So, have you found that that age plays a role?
Stephanie Warner
Yes, I also think it's stage. So like its age and stage. And so if you think about, you know, when you're sick, for example, and you're maybe recovering from the flu, you don't necessarily eat the same thing as when you're trying. To, you know, run an endurance race. Yes, right. And so the stage that we're in absolutely plays a role, but also what we eat over time impacts us, right? And you think about the different levels of digestive struggles that people have and, you know, so much of our body works in the gut, right and so our ability to digest and our ability to move through experiences like that all plays a role in how we process food too. And then what we eat also influences that, right? So if you are maybe noticing over time that you're struggling with different foods that you didn't before, it's a curious thing to think about it in a broader perspective, what else is happening. So for example, you know, if I'm super stressed out and I've got, you know, a lot of things on the go, maybe I'm less likely to eat, maybe I forget to eat. Right. And then I feel tired and I'm dizzy and I'm like, oh, God, I don't know why. Right, because that has an impact over time. Or maybe the opposite end of the spectrum, maybe I'm somebody who finds myself completely checked out and binge eating and then I'm like, Oh my gosh, I ate an entire bag of Oreos. What happened? Right. So it does evolve, and it does shift based on where we're at. Absolutely.
Katherine Hurtig
For sure. In your experience and expertise what role does food in general or certain foods, certain nutrients, how do they play a role in mental health? I’m thinking, like some of the common reasons that people come to see us are, like anxiety and depression.
Stephanie Warner
Hmm, our brain needs healthy fat to survive. When we are deprived of healthy fat, it impacts our brains. What does our brain regulate? Our mood. Our thoughts. It regulate so many things in our system and if it is deficient then of course we would feel more anxious, more depressed, more like we are under threat. So you know there's a whole bunch of available foods that have these really important things that help us naturally regulate. Right. So walnuts for the brain if you think about, you know, B vitamins, B vitamins are essential to our mood and our overall well-being. They play a big role in regulating our emotions and helping us to combat depression. If you go to a doctor a doctor might say, you know, are you taking a B vitamin complex? Which would be a great question. Is that something? Are you getting enough B Vitamins. Where do we find B vitamins? In our leafy greens, our vegetables, our fruits.
Katherine Hurtig
This could probably be a whole other conversation on its own, but talking about how quote un quote healthy fats, just made me think of it like the diet industry, diet culture. How there's always something that is kind of pegged as the enemy, and for the longest time it was fat. It's like, you know, you've got to eliminate that. You have to have as little as possible. And then it was carbs and sugar. And like, it's. Yeah, it's a tricky thing to navigate. But it's true. Like our body needs all of those things. Yeah.
Stephanie Warner
Well, and if you think about the macronutrients, so fat, carbohydrate and protein. As you know, there's no morality assigned to food, right? Yeah. You know, I'm gonna own it - I love gummy candy, right? I do. I love it. It's great. I don't eat it all the time. But when I do, I enjoy it. But it's not that the gummy candy is out to get me. No, it's not bad. I'm not a bad person because I want to eat gummy candy sometime, right? So if I'm eating that all the time and that's what I'm going to that adds to the craving. Right. Because it becomes something consistent, and reliable that we start to associate with a particular emotion, a feeling, a sensation, a coping tool. So there's no morality in food. And I think the diet industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, right. There always has to be something to point a finger to. I've got a quick fix. I've got this thing right, but when we start to remove entire groups of macronutrients. We are under-functioning in our bodies in some way. And so carbohydrates are what gives our body the power to move, right? If I'm moving my hand, if I'm talking that is fueled by carbohydrates, fat is kind of like the vehicle for all the other nutrients in our body, it's like. You know the way that things are delivered to different places that are in need, right. Fat supports our brain, healthy fat supports so many things in our body. Is there a difference between healthy fats and maybe trans fats or saturated fats? Sure. But we still need healthy fat. Protein is essentially broken down in our bodies into amino acids and those are the building blocks of our tissues and our muscles, right?
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah. And like what you're saying about morality. You know it's turned around where there's all these emotions attached to it. Like for the term of like, a cheat day. So it's like there's feelings of shame or guilt if you eat a certain way or a certain thing or a certain amount.
Stephanie Warner
Absolutely. And let's talk about the label clean eating. So if I'm eating clean, the opposite is dirty. So if I'm not eating clean, I'm eating dirty.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah. And there's a whole set of, like, feelings around that.
Stephanie Warner
And so it elicits all of these beliefs and all of these ways that we start to internalize our relationship with food, and it becomes very rigid. Right. So is this good food? Is this bad food? Am I doing good enough? Am I good enough? It starts to show in the choices that we're making with our food and it's fascinating because there's so much wrapped into the relationship with food and it starts so early.
Katherine Hurtig
Let's talk about that starting early, like we could go a few places here.
Stephanie Warner
Wherever you want to go I'm up for it.
Katherine Hurtig
What do you recommend? Like how do parents start their kids off with a healthy relationship with food.
Stephanie Warner
So I think the key here is that as parents, we have to have a healthy relationship with food. Yeah, because our experience with food is undoubtedly going to rub off on our children, right? So if I am very rigid and I feel like, you know, we can't have any cookies in the house because cookies are trouble for me and they're bad, you know, your child will no doubt develop a sense of…
Katherine Hurtig
They’ll pick up on that.
Stephanie Warner
Or they kind of swing to the opposite, where when you're not around, they're going to overindulge, right? And so the way that we talk about food, the way that we interact and communicate about that and about our bodies and what food means to us is important. And I think when we're working, you know, as parents to try and give our kids these ways of experiencing, and exploring that it has to be safe to explore, right kids are naturally going to not like some things they're going to want to you know they're going to be picky and peanut butter is going to be fine one day and not the next. And you know that's all normal. And we also have to give them permission to explore, right? And to be able to have experiences that are moderated with different foods - and I mean, I'm not sitting here saying go give your five-year-old a cup of coffee. But it's the ability to say, hey, we can do this. We can healthily do this. It doesn't have to be taboo. We don't have to hide it. We can enjoy it because food is meant to be enjoyed.
Katherine Hurtig
Can you give any examples of how we kind of set up that conversation around our kids, like when we're talking about food and our bodies, like the types of things we should or shouldn't say?
Stephanie Warner
I think it's really important to leave our assessments of our physical bodies out of the conversation, right? So if I am super focused on my physical appearance and an idea of perfection. I can't eat this because it will make me fat. To be conscious of how we're talking about that in front of kids or even if we have those kinds of conversations in front of kids because they do pick up on it. You know, I've seen 6-year-olds who are making comments about if they're fat or not, which is sad because that's, you know, you know, not a six-year-old worry right? At least I hope that that's not any six-year-olds worry. But I think being able to talk about food is something that can be exciting, that can be fun, that is enjoyable and our taste buds change all the time. You might not like something now, but in a couple of weeks when our taste buds change, you might like it. So always continuing to foster hope and…
Katherine Hurtig
curiosity.
Stephanie Warner
Yeah, exactly. You took the word right out of my mouth. To be able to try new things right? Because if we get stuck in a rigid way of thinking, if you think about it, food is one of the only things…, maybe not one of the only things, but it is a thing that we can have a lot of control over. I can't force you to eat anything you don't want to. You can't force a toddler to eat anything you don't want to. I don't know if any parents are listening here and they've ever tried to give their kiddo something and you know, kiddo says no thanks. Right. And it can be a tantrum. And that's a child's way of expressing their own autonomy. And being able to make decisions for themselves in a world where they are plucked from thing to thing, to thing, to thing. Right, so food can become a way that we control our external world, right? When we feel out of control, this is how eating disorders develop.
Katherine Hurtig
It's so tricky. Like, as a parent, I'm thinking about my experiences with my stepson. And like, obviously as parents, you just want the best for your kids. You want them to be healthy and happy and you know, so we try to limit his sugar. But I'm sure we've, you know, said some questionable things around that and kind of made it seem like it's bad if you have too much. And yeah, it's hard to kind of have that balance of instilling healthy behaviours, but also not framing it in an emotional way if that makes sense?
Stephanie Warner
You know, and I think it can be important to help kids understand the idea of balance. In terms of OK, so you want to have the chocolate bar. OK, well, can you maybe have a fruit too or some veggies? Can you have a cup of water with that? If you want to have the chocolate bar, can we then go have some time when we're active? Yeah, right. And so then it starts to frame it as not as bad. We all know the impact sugar can have on our little people and it can change their overall experience. And there's no doubt about that. It's also helping kids understand that you know, I don't always have to choose the chocolate bar. There might be times when my body is saying that maybe I need an apple, right? And making sure that kids have options and access to that. So it's not that they can't have the chocolate bar, they could also have the other things. And of course, there are different circumstances and different experiences and different reasons why you would limit or moderate, or maybe have a little bit more control over that makes total sense. But I think if we are in a situation where we are continually moderating that then we sort of risk flipping to the other side and it starts to happen in secret. And I think that that's equally a concern. So, you know, I think that there's a lot of conversations about what balance looks like, right, and if we're gonna do this, what are we gonna, what else are we going to do? Or how are we going to sort of , you know, make it even?
Katherine Hurtig
Makes sense.
Stephanie Warner
Yeah, rather than it being good or bad.
Katherine Hurtig
Exactly. How can someone identify if they might have a bit of an unhealthy relationship with food?
Stephanie Warner
You know, I think that when we have an unhealthy relationship with food, we probably know. Right. It looks a lot like extremes. I'm going to eat everything. I'm gonna eat nothing. Some foods are really bad, and these foods are really good. And I can only eat these things over here. And when we start to attach our food choices with our assessment of who we are, right? I'm a bad person because I ate this bad thing. When we find ourselves scouring the pantry after we have an emotional conversation or something and we are looking for something to calm that stress or regulate that stress and we're looking to something external to be able to do that such as food. I think those are really good indicators, right? How do I feel after I eat something? And for a lot of people who struggle with food, they're not necessarily aware of their feelings because we have to be in some state of disconnect to have the physical experience of undereating or overeating, right? Because it is physically uncomfortable, right? So we have to in some way be disconnected from ourselves in order to go there.
Katherine Hurtig
I don't want to turn this into a full-on conversation about eating disorders, but yeah, talking this way reminds me, because I experienced one when I was 14 and it's so hard to shift out of those thinking patterns. Thinking that certain foods are bad or, you know, feeling bad about yourself and I still catch myself like with certain things. It's like I just have such a hard time like I can't go there because I would think negatively about myself.
Stephanie Warner
So often our assessments of ourselves show up in our food choices. It can be so damaging, right? And I think it's really important to acknowledge the role socialization plays in this. Right. The way that bodies are critiqued or criticized or spoken about. The images on social media, the influence AI is having on what ideal is what standards of beauty are and as we grow and we develop these ideas of what we should be in comparison to what is out there, sometimes we don't realize that these assessments are not real and are arbitrary. And I think that there's also this immediate assumption that skinny or thin is healthy and that's not actually true all the time. There are different bodies that are capable of different things. And there are people who are quite thin and are quite unwell. Right. And some people have different bodies that are extraordinarily healthy. And that there is not one single assessment of what that is, and I think that it is so important to look at how our relationship with food plays into these ideas and what is showing up in our relationship with food. Right. And I mean if we think back to infancy, right when a baby cries, there are usually a couple of things that happen. Baby gets a diaper change, baby gets cuddled, and baby gets fed, right? So our ideas of love and comfort are no doubt wrapped up in food nd nourishment, right? And food can bring so many of those feelings, those emotions, those experiences of comfort. The same is true if you know anybody who really likes chewing on crunchy things. Chips, carrots, whatever it is. That crunch actually helps us process unreleased anger in our body, the clenching of the jaw.
Katherine Hurtig
Wow. I have never heard that. I love chips.
Stephanie Warner
So there are all of these different ways that our bodies are entwined with food and the action of eating and so much is wrapped up in that it would be so difficult to try and completely dismiss that.
Katherine Hurtig
Of course, yeah. If we know this about ourselves, maybe we have some of these patterns of thinking or ways of being around food that isn't so healthy. How do we change that? How do we take that step to improve our relationship with food?
Stephanie Warner
I think the first and one of the bravest steps is starting to be mindful of it and noticing what is happening when we're eating. What are the thoughts we are having? What are the feelings? You know, are we completely disconnected when we're eating? Right. Are we somebody who is on our phones while we're eating? Are we working while we're eating? Are we watching TV while we're eating? Do we even have the capacity to be present with food? Right. And so mindfulness and being aware of food and what we're doing, how we are experiencing food, I think is important. Because we can't, you know, everybody can say, you know, we have so much self-awareness and as a culture, we probably do have a lot of self-awareness. And then how do we accept what is happening, accept what has happened so that we can do something different, and mindfulness can help us shift into acceptance. So we might have had this relationship with food, and we can recognize it. And we want to do something about it. But we also can't change what has happened. Right. But we can do something different as we go forward, Right. And then it's not going to be perfect.
Katherine Hurtig
So what's the next step? We're working on that mindful approach, where do we go from there?
Stephanie Warner
I think then we have to work on learning how to be balanced. And I think we have to do some work, you know, with our thoughts on what is good and bad. Like, why do we assign a particular value to something and why does it say something about who we are right? Like I use the example of myself as eating gummy candy, right? Sure, I love gummy candy, but I don't think eating gummy candy makes me a bad person. I don't think it makes me less worthy. I don't think it makes me unlovable, but if I had those thoughts, why? And so being able to start to see what our thoughts are? What are our actions? What are our behaviours with food? Am I somebody who's eating, you know, I don't want to eat in front of anybody else because I'm worried about what people will think. Where does that come from? Right, so being able to start to shift into changing our narrative around food.
Katherine Hurtig
You said this earlier when it comes to kids and I like this idea, I've kind of heard it, you know, with a few other areas of mental health. But just this idea of approaching it with curiosity, because I think that kind of takes like the judgment or morality, as you said out of it, it's just approaching things with that curious mind and asking those questions. I think that’s really productive.
Stephanie Warner
Yeah. I mean I do personally have the belief that you know curiosity forces us to suspend judgment. Right. It's really hard to have both of those things at the same time. And so when we can be curious about and especially with kids, well, you know, what did you love about that pizza? What was so good about it? That helps us build an understanding in our self-awareness.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah, right. We can ask ourselves that too.
Stephanie Warner
Absolutely. But it also helps kids to start to be able to articulate what is happening for them. Why they like something, why they don't and we might just be having a conversation about food. But let's not pretend that that conversation doesn't open the door to 100 other conversations that are going to be important when they grow, right? And if we can ask kids, well, what is it that you love about this? Or what didn't you like about the broccoli? It also permits them to be open. To express what is happening to them and why. And it signals to kids, hey, your thoughts and feelings matter to me. Right. OK. So you don't like broccoli today. OK, cool. You tried it. Awesome. We'll try it again in a few weeks
Katherine Hurtig
So yeah, I said in the beginning, food, it just permeates every aspect of our life and a lot of that is very social. Like you have a party, there's a cake. You have people over, you're going to order dinner. So let's talk about that and how food is intertwined with, you know, our relationships or family, that kind of thing.
Stephanie Warner
Yeah. I mean, I think that food is kind of a pivotal part of connection, right? You look at so many cultures and their traditions and their experiences with food. And how different that is in maybe collectivist cultures versus individualistic cultures and you know the importance of sharing food together and building that sense of community. Right, so I think that it's really important to think about this and you know you've ever been to somebody's home and there's, you know, maybe a gathering or a party or something is happening. People convene in the kitchen, right? It's almost inevitable. It's where people hang out. Like, there's all the soft seating in the living room, but we're all going to stand around the kitchen counter because this is where all the snacks are. That's where the chatter happens. That's where the heart of the party is. Right. And so I think it's really important for us to be able to honour and acknowledge those traditions and to be able to carry them forward, right, food in a way, can break the ice in many conversations.
Katherine Hurtig
And I can think of so many like you're saying about connection. I can think of so many memories that I have, like important memories, where food plays a big part. You know, I remember a time during COVID where my husband taught me and my stepson how to make perogies from his bubbe’s recipe. Or yeah, just going out for a great dinner with a couple of good friends or yeah. We often kind of think that I think food takes a back seat and it's more about those conversations. But it is a really important part of those memories.
Stephanie Warner
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, sometimes food gives us a way to channel some of our energy, to take the focus off being so intense. It allows us to do something while we are connecting. And I think that that can be important for a lot of people. It does open the door as you think about celebrations and the way that we celebrate and you know, let's have a nice meal or let's do something special. And there's like this specialness attached to that, right. Or you know what you want for your birthday dinner? Right. Like, these are important things. And it kind of sets the foundation for the event or the experience. Right. There's, like, this looking forward to this hopefulness of this good thing that's coming.
Katherine Hurtig
And we've talked a lot about potentially negative emotions around like an unhealthy relationship with food. But there's a lot of joy there as well, yeah.
Stephanie Warner
Absolutely. And I think that it's like if you look at cultures that focus on having a food focus, right, like all over food and there's, you know, extended conversations and connections and you know how close families are through that. And you know the importance of that connection at that time, right? It's like mealtime in a family. Do you have the ability to sit down together as a family, even if it's for 10 minutes and connect? Right. And some families do and some families don't. And it's not about judgment. It's about what each family has available to them. And I think that it's, you know, when we can find those times food is a really good gateway.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah. Like you said, it just kind of breaks the ice almost. Yeah.
Getting into maybe some specifics. Are you aware of any specific foods that are particularly beneficial for mental health?
Stephanie Warner
Like I would say kind of yes, I think our veggies and fruits are really important because they contain all of our B vitamins, right? But veggies and fruits also need those healthy fats to be able to absorb right. And so like the fat-soluble vitamins, right? Anything that is going to be high in all the b’s is gonna support your mental health overall. Healthy fats like omegas, you know, are often found in, you know, our nuts and seeds in fish and those kinds of foods. Our protein is still really important. And those healthy sort of options as much as we can right, recognizing the limitations and you know the cost of food and you know the worries and the very real worries of food insecurity and access to those, the more opportunities we have to have those, even if it's like frozen veggies, right? You know, if you aren't in a situation where you can access fresh vegetables or fresh fruits, frozen or dried, it still has nutritional value. So the opportunities where we can make things at home and we can be able to maximize that nutritional value I think it's important.
Katherine Hurtig
On the flip side, are there any foods that you think can exacerbate aspects of our mental health, like I'm thinking of anxiety. Like I know for myself, if I'm feeling particularly anxious, I know to kind of steer clear of caffeine because that will make me so much more jittery. Like, are there any other things that you can think of that might negatively impact how we're feeling?
Stephanie Warner
Yeah. I mean, caffeine can be one of them. I think that it's important to notice what foods might create inflammation in the body because inflammation can have an impact on our overall well-being. So if our system is dealing with trying to fight that, then it doesnt have the capacity to function optimally. Sugar like, there's so much research on how sugar impacts the body and our systems and also creates inflammation and what it does to our gut health. And you know, so much of our, you know, hormone production is made in our guts, and so it's really important to take care of that. You know, so there are lots of things. But again I think it comes back to steering clear of this assessment of good and bad and like really the dose.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah, that balance.
Stephanie Warner
Right so. You know, coming back to my old faithful gummy candy, right, I'm going to eat the gummy candy, and I'm probably not going to stop myself from eating the gummy candy, but where do I balance that? Right. What am I going to do to support that? Right. If I know I'm going to have this influx of sugar, you know, how am I going to manage that in my body? Yeah, right.
Katherine Hurtig
Stephanie, is there anything else? Any last thing you want to leave our listeners with on the idea of food and mental health.
Stephanie Warner
Yeah, I hope that people can take away this idea of food isn't moral, right? It's not a moral choice like it says nothing about you. Or the idea that what we eat is who we are and I think that we can work on separating those things. And you know, we all have different experiences and different access to different things. And we can do the best we can with what we have and that's OK and that's enough and that we don't have to, you know, be so critical and judgmental of ourselves based on what we eat. It's a learning process for a lot of people, so there's a lot of people going through this struggle with food.
Katherine Hurtig
Thank you so much, Stephanie. I've learned so much today.
Stephanie Warner
You're so welcome. I'm glad to be here.
Katherine Hurtig
You've been listening to Living Fully, a Calgary Counselling Centre podcast. Thank you for tuning in.
This episode was produced by Luiza Campos, Jenna Forbes, and by me, Katherine Hurtig. A special thanks to Stephanie Warner.
To stay up to date on our latest episodes. Be sure to subscribe. We're available in your favourite podcast app, Living Fully as a production of Calgary Counselling Centre and recorded in Calgary on Treaty 7 territory.
Living Fully podcast is not a substitute or alternative for professional care or treatment. Calgary Counselling Centre and Counselling Alberta provide effective counselling for anyone in Alberta with no wait list and no financial barriers. Find us online at calgarycounseling.com or counsellingalberta.com for help across Canada and the United States call 211. If you are outside of Canada and the US seek help from your general medical practitioner.