President of the American Psychiatric Association, Ramaswamy Viswanathan, MD, DrMedSc, FACLP, presented Lifestyle for Positive Mental and Physical Health at the ACLP Annual Meeting in Miami today. He described how factors such as types of physical exercise, restorative sleep, certain nutritional interventions, stress amelioration, social connectedness, and avoiding harmful substances, have significant effects on prevention or improvement of mental and physical disorders.

Sourcing global research, Dr. Viswanathan described, for example,  life expectancy gains from different activities based on research in Copehagen—and how tennis scored gains of 9.7 years compared with non-competitive activities such as jogging (3.2 years), swimming (3.4), and cycling (3.7).

He pointed to the loss of life expectancy by as much as 10-25 years among those with psychiatric illnesses  who had poor health lifestyles. He quoted research that showed that 80% of health care spending in the US was attributable to the treatment of people with unhealthy lifestyles. And he described research indicating the increased volume of hippocampus from exercise, the reduction in stroke risk from nutritional dietary interventions, the benefits of restorative sleep, and how patients can adopt small measures to improve their life expectations, such as eating broccoli when cooked appropriately to protect against cancer.

ACLP member Dr. Viswanathan has this subject as his theme for his APA presidential year and is lecturing on it globally.