The Essential Diet

The Essential Diet: Eating for Mental Health is your guide to healthy and simple recipes that will change how you feel physically, mentally and emotionally. The recipes on these pages are meant to support you in your mental health by ensuring you are eating the correct amount of the essential nutrients required for mental well being. When you address mental health with the proper nutritional foundation, the likelihood of feeling depressed or anxious decreases. In addition, by following the recipes outlined in The Essential Diet, you will have:

• More energy
• Improve digestion
• Reduce risk factors for other chronic health conditions (eg Type 2 diabetes, heart disease)

Learn to love healthy eating, find the joy in cooking and feel better in your life!

Dr. Christina Bjorndal is a licensed Naturopathic Doctor.  A graduate of the University of British Columbia and the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM), she is the owner of the Natural Terrain Naturopathic Clinic, a multidisciplinary health clinic in Edmonton, Alberta. In clinical practice, her focus is on mental health - anxiety, depression, anorexia, bulimia, bipolar disorder (types 1 or 2), addiction, schizophrenia, ADD/ADHD, OCD, etc  and she utilizes nutrition, natural therapies and orthomolecular medicine to support the physical foundation of health. She has additional training in five types of counselling (Gestalt psychotherapy, Cognitive Behavioural therapy, Compassion focussed therapy, Mindfulness based therapy and Integrative reprogramming technique) as she feels that in addition to supporting the physical level of health with diet and nutrition, it is important to address the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of health as well. Dr. Chris is passionate about mental health and well-being and has appeared on many podcasts and television, and is a sought after public speaker where she shares her story of regaining her mental health using naturopathic medicine. Dr.Chris's vulnerability, enthusiasm and experience inspires her patients to achieve their health goals.

Dr. Chris is the author of Beyond the Label: 10 Steps to Improve your Mental Health with Naturopathic Medicine; Moving Beyond: A Journal into Self-Discovery and creator of the Moving Beyond course. 10% of the proceeds from all her books goes towards the Natural Terrain Mental Health Scholarship at CCNM. For more information please see: naturalterrain.com