Manna Mental Health

10/31/2025

👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃

Back in the old timey days, if a woman fainted, flushed, or felt anxious, tired, or “off,” she might’ve been diagnosed with one spooky little word: hysteria.

It was the "everything bagel" of medicine, covering what we’d now recognize as autoimmune illness, trauma responses or anxiety. They didn’t have the language for nervous-system dysregulation or mind-body connection… so they called it hysteria.

Today, we know those illnesses and symptoms are real and treatable. That’s where Lifestyle-Based Behavioral Therapy comes in: blending psychology, physiology, and daily rhythms to calm the immune system, support the body, and restore balance.

As a therapist who also lives with autoimmune challenges, I understand how deeply body and mind intertwine. Therapy isn’t about dismissing your symptoms... it’s about helping you listen to them with compassion and strategy.

10/28/2025

Happy Halloween and Dia de Los Muertos! 💀🎃

10/24/2025

Client: "You're gonna be so proud of me!"

Me, always proud of them:

10/22/2025

It was an honor for Manna Mental Health to sponsor a table at the 10th Annual Journey of Hope Benefit, supporting Brothers in Blue Reentry and LEAD — two faith-based programs working with men and women rebuilding their lives during and after incarceration.

So much of healing — whether from trauma, loss, or the weight of our own choices — begins when someone believes they're still worthy of hope. That’s what this night was about.
Grace. Restoration. The courage to begin again. 💙

10/20/2025

A wonderful weekend!

10/14/2025

https://voyagekc.com/interview/inspiring-conversations-with-tawnya-davis-of-manna-mental-health

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tawnya Davis. Hi Tawnya, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.I would say Manna Mental Health was born out of both wilderness and wonder. For 14 years, I have worked across crisis respite, corrections, inpatient and o...

10/10/2025

Did you know the word “psychology” comes from the Greek word "psyche", which means "soul"?

Somewhere along the way, mental health got reduced to clinical pathology.

Mental health is not just pathology.

It’s your focus, your boundaries, your body’s signals, your sleep, your hormones, your grief, your creativity, your faith, your relationships, your identity, your nervous system…

It’s ALL of you. Every subject. Every story. Every season.

Mental health is the foundation beneath everything we study, build, and become; it holds our capacity to learn, connect, lead, parent, rest, and hope.

Today, let’s celebrate that mental health belongs in every classroom, every workplace, every pulpit, every dinner table.

It’s the thread that runs through the whole human experience.

Here’s to healing out loud. Here’s to wholeness. Here’s to the brave, beautiful work of being human. Here's to soul work.

10/07/2025

⛔️Approximately 1 in 200 people in the United States alone (Tufts University study) has this condition that greatly affects the brain and body.

Some people call them mystery illnesses. Chronic fatigue. Brain fog. Rashes that come and go. Racing heart. Burning throat. Digestive chaos. Flushing. Headaches. Sensory overload. Anxiety that arrives for no reason. Dysautonomia. Sometimes you get a vague lab result, but more often than not, "Your labs look fine."

What do all these have in common? Often, the culprit is something hidden yet powerful: histamine dysregulation.

Histamine isn’t just for allergies. It’s a messenger molecule that touches every system in the body--muscles, joints, skin, eyes and ears, as well as:
🌿 Immune system: overreactive or under-reactive, causing rashes, itching, or inflammation, sensitive to chemicals and environment
🌿 Gut: bloating, reflux, nausea, diarrhea, or constipation
🌿 Brain & nervous system: anxiety, panic, racing thoughts, brain fog, poor focus, hypervigilance, sensory sensitivity, tinnitus, vertigo
🌿 Mood & emotion: irritability, emotional swings, low motivation, depression, tearfulness, frustration, hopelessness
🌿 Heart & circulation: palpitations, dizziness, feeling “wired but tired", heat and exercise sensitivity
🌿 Throat & voice: hoarseness, burning, tightness after talking or singing
🌿 Sleep & energy: light or restless sleep, waking unrefreshed, fatigue
🌿 Hormones: mood swings, PMS flares, irregular cycles, worsened perimenopausal symptoms

For many people with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and histamine intolerance, symptoms look like mystery illnesses, even seeming autoimmune flares that come and go...conditions that doctors can’t always explain. You might have been told: “It’s anxiety. It’s stress. It’s nothing.” But your body knows the truth.

The good news? You can train your nervous system and behavior to reduce flare intensity and improve resilience. Therapy utilizing a behavioral medicine and integrative approach focuses on:

-Somatic awareness: noticing early tension or inflammation cues in the body
-Self-regulation skills: paced breathing, mindfulness, and grounding practices
-Activity pacing: balancing energy expenditure with recovery windows, boundary setting
-Cognitive strategies: reframing “mystery symptoms” to reduce anxiety and hypervigilance
-Sleep hygiene and circadian rhythm support: behavioral adjustments to stabilize rest and recovery
-Behavioral tracking: symptom journals to identify triggers and patterns, mindset around lifestyle changes to manage the condition

In behavioral medicine, we see that histamine sensitivity mirrors hypervigilance in the nervous system. When the body is “on alert,” mast cells stay primed, leading to joint pain, fatigue, and inflammation that track with emotional stress. This puts you in a hamster wheel of hypervigilance over symptoms-->stress hormones from the hypervigilance contribute to mast cell excitability-->excited mast cells contribute to symptoms-->health anxiety and distress due to symptoms-->hypervigilance.

Restoring calm isn’t just emotional; it’s biochemical medicine too.Your sensitivity is your wisdom. Your “mystery” is your body trying to be heard.

09/30/2025

Back in the old timey days it wasn’t unusual for a doctor to hand you a prescription that simply told you to spend a weekend at the sea.

No complicated treatment plan. No long list of side effects. Just go sit by the ocean. Breathe. Rest. Let the salt, the sun, and the rhythm of the waves do their quiet work.

Of course, science has caught up and shown us why this actually works: fresh sea air is rich in negative ions, the sound of waves slows the nervous system, and walking barefoot on the sand helps regulate your body through grounding.

09/28/2025

🌲✨ Back in my homeland. ✨🌲

There’s something about being in Oregon—the air feels different here, like it carries both memory and possibility. The evergreens, the mountains, the rivers, the ocean and of course, family and friends...they remind me of where I come from, and why roots matter in healing. Landscapes carry memory, identity and belonging.

Coming home isn’t just about geography. It’s about remembering who you are, where you’ve been carried, and what nourishes your spirit.

Being here is a reset for me. A return to softness. A reminder that the land itself can be medicine.

09/24/2025

✨ Did you know? Some medical conditions are mental health diagnoses too—and I’m licensed to treat them? In fact so many health problems we see today are related to lifestyle and stress that more physicians are referring their patients to therapists for adjunct care.✨

As a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) and a Certified Integrative Mental Health Professional (CIMHP), I bring together the best of traditional therapy and integrative approaches to help clients find healing that feels whole.

What this means:

I am licensed to diagnose and treat certain medical conditions listed in the DSM-5, including:

Chronic pain & somatic symptom disorders

Sleep-wake disorders (insomnia, hypersomnia, circadian rhythm issues)

Stress-and trauma-related conditions that impact the body

Sexual dysfunctions and hormone-related mood disturbances (like premenstrual dysphoric disorder, perimenopausal changes, or mood shifts tied to endocrine issues)

Neurocognitive and neurodevelopmental conditions that overlap with health challenges

Adjustment disorders related to medical diagnoses

Health anxiety

I use behavioral medicine approaches like lifestyle, stress regulation, nutrition awareness, and nervous system work to help clients manage both mental health and health-related challenges.

I integrate mind-body-spirit perspectives to support sustainable healing.

I specialize in exploring how stress, trauma, nutrition, sleep, and nervous system health all connect.

⚠️ Important Note: I’m not a medical doctor nor should I replace yours. But as a licensed professional with specialized certification, I am trained to address the ways medical conditions and mental health overlap--helping clients find strategies that support the whole person.

At Manna Mental Health, it’s about nourishing your mind, body, and spirit in an integrative, compassionate way.