In this post:
- The Importance of Acceptance in Mental Health
- How Ketamine Therapy Enhances Acceptance
- The Power of Support Systems in Mental Wellness
- Professional Support When Family and Friends Fall Short
- Support and Acceptance at Avesta Ketamine and Wellness
Mental health is a multifaceted aspect of well-being with two crucial elements: acceptance and support.
Acceptance helps people navigate painful emotions and challenging circumstances with greater resilience. Techniques like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and ketamine treatment empower people to embrace discomfort while pursuing meaningful, value-driven lives.
Support, on the other hand, provides the foundation for mental health by fostering connection and belonging. Whether through family, friends, or mental health professionals, a strong support system is a lifeline during difficult times.
In honor of Mental Wellness Month, this article explores how acceptance and support can transform mental health, offering research-backed insights and actionable strategies.
The Importance of Acceptance in Mental Health
From a mental health perspective, acceptance is taking an active and nonjudgmental stance toward external circumstances and internal experiences, such as painful thoughts, emotions, and sensations. It also includes embracing one’s whole self, including perceived strengths and weaknesses and positive and negative qualities.
Acceptance is a radical act of mental wellness that helps people reduce avoidant behaviors, or the attempt to bypass challenging emotions and events, even when the attempt causes psychological harm. Acceptance also enhances emotional regulation and fosters resilience in the face of adversity.
Key facets of acceptance include:
- Acknowledging
- Allowing
- Non-judging
- Non-attachment
Acceptance is not about endorsing, liking, or passively resigning to mental health challenges, tragedies, or personal shortcomings. Rather, it’s about acknowledging their existence as part of reality and directing energy toward meaningful aspects of life that one can influence, such as relationships, careers, and healthy habits.
Acceptance research
Research into the role of acceptance in mental health reveals that it has a profound impact on reducing distress and improving well-being.
From rumination to value-driven actions
In 2017, Dindo et al. reviewed studies on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which teaches acceptance as the cornerstone of its mental health approach. The review focused on ACT’s role in enhancing psychological flexibility, or the ability to adapt to change, accept emotions, and stay aligned with personal values.
Results showed that people who practiced acceptance experienced reduced distress and improved mental health by shifting their focus from symptom elimination to value-driven actions. Examples of these actions included:
- Health-Related Behaviors: Participants with chronic conditions engaged in medical treatment adherence, improved dietary habits, and incorporated physical activities like walking or exercise into their routines.
- Interpersonal Actions: Participants prioritized spending time with loved ones or mending strained relationships. Some sought to deepen connections by engaging in shared activities or practicing open communication despite discomfort.
- Work and Career: Participants pursued meaningful career goals, such as returning to work, seeking new opportunities, or completing tasks they previously avoided due to anxiety or self-doubt.
- Behavioral Engagement: People facing anxiety or chronic pain re-engaged in activities they previously avoided, such as social events, hobbies, or volunteer work, even while experiencing distress.
- Addiction Recovery: Participants reduced or stopped substance use, replacing avoidance behaviors with meaningful activities like joining support groups or pursuing hobbies aligned with their values.
Accepting daily stressors
Another key study by Ford et al. (2018) explored how habitual acceptance influences emotional responses to daily stressors and long-term psychological health.
Researchers initially tracked 222 participants over 14 days using daily diaries to record their most stressful events each day and corresponding emotional responses. Six months later, participants completed measures of psychological well-being, life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms.
The findings: People with higher habitual acceptance experienced significantly lower negative emotions during daily challenges like arguments with partners, car trouble, missing deadlines, or running late for essential obligations.
How Ketamine Therapy Enhances Acceptance
Ketamine therapy is a meaningful tool for garnering acceptance by promoting neurobiological changes that facilitate openness to challenging emotions and experiences.
Studies suggest ketamine’s effects on the default mode network (DMN), the brain region associated with rumination, and glutamate signaling, a neurotransmitter involved in learning and emotions, play a significant role in this process.
- Neuroplasticity and Emotional Regulation: Ketamine increases neuroplasticity, or the brain’s ability to adapt and rewire itself by forming new neural connections. This mechanism supports emotional regulation by enhancing the brain’s capacity to process and adapt to stress.
- Reduced Cognitive Rigidity: Ketamine decreases activity in the brain’s DMN. This reduction helps people step back from negative thought loops and accept their thoughts and emotions without judgment.
- Altered Perception of Self: Ketamine induces a dissociative psychedelic state that can help people psychologically detach from their pain or distress and view it with greater objectivity. This altered perspective can lead to a deeper understanding of emotions and reduce the urge to suppress or avoid them.
- Increased Psychological Flexibility: By reducing avoidance and promoting acceptance, ketamine supports engagement in valued actions, even in distress. One licensed therapist called this phenomenon a ketamine-driven “go-mentality.”
The Power of Support Systems in Mental Wellness
Support systems, alongside acceptance, play a crucial role in enduring mental health.
Emotional and social support create a foundation of connection that allows people to face adversity and even live longer healthier lives. Social support also alleviates feelings of isolation, which is one of depression’s primary driving forces.
Emotional support
Friends and loved ones provide emotional support by offering empathy and encouragement that can make overwhelming feelings more manageable. When someone listens with care or reassures a struggling friend, they help build emotional resilience and foster a sense of security.
Emotional support helps people feel seen, heard, and understood–especially during tough times.
Social support
Social support anchors people to their larger community.
Groups like families, cultural and professional clubs, and faith-based organizations offer a critical sense of belonging that helps people feel part of something bigger than themselves.
Such participation reduces isolation and hopelessness and improves one’s sense of meaning and purpose.
Research proves that support matters
Research proves that social and emotional support is critical for mental and physical health, while lack thereof is detrimental.
Mental health
A study by Fiori and Denckla found that women experience fewer depressive symptoms when they receive emotional support from both family and friends. For men, emotional support didn’t show the same clear link.
However, having someone available to support if needed mattered a lot for both men and women. If someone needed help but felt they had no one to turn to, they showed the highest levels of depressive symptoms.
On the flip side, people who felt they didn’t need support at all had the lowest levels of depression.
Physical health
Studies show that people who reported rarely receiving social and emotional support had more days of insufficient sleep, pain, and physical distress. The same people smoked more, exercised less, drank alcohol more heavily, and had higher obesity rates.
On the other hand, people with sufficient emotional support experienced less stress and inflammation and better immune function.
Professional Support When Family and Friends Fall Short
Family and friends provide a vital foundation for emotional and mental support. Yet, professional helpers like mental health counselors and coaches offer unique benefits beyond what loved ones can provide.
Professionals bring specialized expertise that enables them to navigate complex mental health challenges with evidence-based strategies, like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Therapists offer a judgment-free space where people can openly share hidden thoughts without fear of burdening loved ones or facing stigma. Their consistent availability ensures support even when personal networks are inaccessible.
For many, the guidance of a skilled helper becomes a lifeline that fosters growth, resilience, and long-term mental well-being.
Support and Acceptance at Avesta Ketamine and Wellness
Support and acceptance are at the heart of every treatment Avesta Ketamine and Wellness (Avesta) provides at its clinics in McLean, VA, Columbia, MD, Bethesda, MD, and Washington, D.C.
Support: Avesta’s compassionate ketamine team creates safe, non-judgmental spaces where patients never feel alone. They ensure patients feel held and ready to confront emotional and psychological challenges.
Acceptance: Avesta’s innovative ketamine treatments foster neuroplasticity that promotes emotional flexibility, acceptance, and self-awareness.
Avesta’s mission is to provide every person with the tools and resources they need to thrive and achieve mental wellness.
This Mental Wellness Month, take the first step toward acceptance and healing. Contact Avesta Ketamine and Wellness to learn how we can support your journey.
