What Our Anxiety Is Telling Us

“We’re just not taught these days to feel our feelings,” says psychiatrist Ellen Vora, MD. In her New York City practice, Vora takes a holistic, functional-medicine approach to mental health. She sees symptoms—anxiety and depression, hormone and gut issues—as “our really beautiful, brilliant body’s way of communicating to us.” And to communicate back, Vora focuses on food, sleep, stress, and other lifestyle changes. She meets patients where they are; she works with people who are on antidepressants and who are tapering off of SSRIs. Her most important work is not fixing a problem but helping us to hold space for the full human experience.