Introduction to Lifestyle Psychiatry

Mental health and lifestyle are dynamically interconnected. Current global trends in the prevalence of mental illnesses and chronic disease indicate the need for a transdiagnostic approach to public health that addresses symptomatology, social determinants of health, and individual lifestyle factors to improve health outcomes on individual- and population-level scales. Lifestyle psychiatry is a relatively new but rapidly expanding evidence-based field of medicine that targets health behavior change and patient well-being through the lens of the biopsychosocial model of health. Lifestyle psychiatry may serve as a timely vessel through which lifestyle medicine clinicians can utilize a patient-centered approach to healthcare that enhances mental health, physical health, and overall well-being. Clinical applications of lifestyle psychiatry integrate the foundations of lifestyle medicine, neuroscience related to personality and individual factors, cognitive-behavioral approaches, positive psychology, psychopathology, neurobiology, and health neuroscience.