Anxiety, Depression and Stress Management

A Practice Focus for Dr. Jennifer Bunzenmeyer ND

Anxiety

Anxiety is a common condition that can become generalized to be severely debilitating in a person’s life.  I have a special interest in working with people who have anxiety and, through the years of learning about anxiety, have developed a deep understanding of how anxiety affects the body from a physical and emotional perspective.  I have learned through my work how to recognize triggers of anxiety including mental/emotional factors, nutritional deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, dietary and neurotransmitter deficiencies.  My approach with anxiety includes educating you about the physiological responses in the body during anxiety and then working on ways we can alleviate that physiological response through anxiety management techniques, meditation, and calming herbal & homeopathic remedies.  It is also imperative to address underlying triggers such as balancing blood sugar, nutritional deficiencies including co-factors for the production of serotonin and other neurotransmitters that aid in quelling anxiety.

My approach and goals when working with anxiety is two-fold:

  1. To provide acute relief to help people cope with the acute, often constant anxiety in daily life.
  2. To work on the underlying factors that are causing anxiety to help a person heal fully and through time feel optimally well and anxiety-free.

Depression

Naturopathic medicine offers many therapies and treatment options for depression.  In my practice, I work with many people who have depression and I focus on a multi-faceted approach to treating depression.  I bring a gentle, caring attitude in my approach with people and recognize that everyone heals in different ways.  I like to find out the underlying causes of why depression is affecting you.  Often, there is a time or event that brought on the depression.  I want to examine all possible reasons that could be underlying including mental-emotional circumstances, low energy levels, stress history & ability to manage this stress, dietary changes including balancing blood sugar & food intolerances, nutritional & neurotransmitter deficiencies and hormonal imbalances.  Naturopathic therapies offer a natural solution for depression addressing the above underlying concerns.

Stress Management

We live in a world full of stress but remarkably we all differ in how we perceive this stress.  Each person manages stress in their own unique way that differs from person to person.

When working with you, I work on first learning how you deal with stress and assess where weaknesses are.  We then work on those weaknesses to strengthen you and how you adapt to stress.

I also look at stressors that you may not even realize are stressing your body.  These are things like nutritional stress from poor dietary choices, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, excess toxic load (internal and environmental), pollution, pesticides, and structural stress (posture, trauma, excess work).   We then formulate a strategy to address these stressors through a naturopathic plan.  Support can come in many different forms - dietary suggestions, adrenal/thyroid/liver support, detoxing & cleansing, meditation techniques and lifestyle changes when you are ready to work through these.