Health Psychology: Diving into the Mind-Body Connection

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You are listening to the National University Podcast.

Kimberly King (00:08.568)

Hello, I’m Kimberly King. Welcome to the National University Podcast where we offer an holistic approach to student support, wellbeing, and success: the Whole Human education. We put passion into practice by offering accessible, achievable higher education to lifelong learners.

Today we’re exploring the rise of health psychology, field that’s transforming how we understand the connection between mind, behavior, and physical health. From stress and lifestyle habits to prevention and patient care, health psychology has grown into a powerful force shaping modern healthcare. Recent article features and Frontiers publication, Health Psychology is a multidisciplinary field that explores complex relationships between

psychological factors and physical health. This is going to be very interesting and relevant topic. Join us.

On today’s episode, we’re talking about health psychology and joining us is Dr. Sherry Rieder, an associate professor and academic program director for health psychology at National University. Dr. Rieder began her teaching career over 25 years ago as a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and has taught at various higher education institutions.

With over 20 years of experience in online formats, she is also a licensed clinical psychologist in South Carolina specializing in clinical health psychology. Dr. Rieder has provided psychological services in hospitals, outpatient clinics, and private practice. And we welcome her to the podcast. Dr. Rieder, how are you?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (01:51.374)

I’m doing well. Thank you so much for having me. I’m delighted to be here.

Kimberly King (01:54.922)

Well, welcome. It’s nice to, I can’t wait to talk about this. I think somebody like you in your profession would be in demand right now in the world we live in, I would think. So I wanted you to see if you could fill in our audience a little bit on your mission and your work before we get to today’s show.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (02:13.038)

Absolutely. So the work of health psychology is pretty straightforward and it sounds simplistic, but you know, health is wealth. Health is what we all strive for and without health we can all struggle and it’s just really looking at health and maximizing it for everybody.

Kimberly King (02:31.202)

Yeah, and it’s true. I think, you know, that’s really the shift you hear about health and wellness. And I come from a law enforcement family, so they’re really talking about that in law enforcement, military as well, but it’s everywhere now. So, my daughter was thinking about, what do I study in school? So she has a minor in psychology, but I’m like, you’re always going to be in demand. It’s like a job security, I would think, too. Today, we’re talking about health psychology. And so Dr. Rieder, what is health psychology?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (03:03.246)

So health psychology is a subfield within the broader field of psychology, and it just studies how psychological, biological, and social factors influence health, illness, and health care. So it’s the idea you can’t really understand health by considering any one of those factors by themselves. If you want to know how healthy someone is, it does make sense to consider their physical health, know, does somebody have a chronic health condition or something like that. But it’s also important to consider their psychological health, their attitudes, their moods, and their social environment. Do they live in a supportive home life? All of those things really come together. And we sometimes call that the biopsychosocial model in health psychology.

Kimberly King (03:48.598)

This is interesting. So what is meant by the mind and body connection?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (03:55.032)

So this is another really key idea in health psychology. And it kind of sounds simple on the surface, but it’s really the recognition that the mind and body are part of one system. You can’t have one without the other. And we try to tend to separate them out. But really, that doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t work that way. You can’t have a mind without a body. You can’t have a body without a mind. So there’s no separating one from the other. And essentially, I like to use this example. It’s the recognition that what’s going on in your

in your body is going to have an effect on your psychology, on your mind. So we’ve probably all heard of being hangry or hungry, slash angry. So if you’re hungry, that is, if your physical state is hunger, that is going to have an effect on your attitude, some of us more than others, but it’s going to have an effect on your attitude and just how you interact in the world.

Kimberly King (04:48.45)

You know, and I just, my kids are grown now, but I remember when they were young and they would come home from school, we’d be around the dinner table. And if they were complaining where the nagging was going on, I’m like, okay, kind of going back to being grateful or, you know, do a mind shift a little bit and talk about, you know, three things that made your day, you know, and it was kind of getting them around that. So I love that example too, about being hangry. It is true. It makes the difference. It’s connected.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (05:13.814)

Absolutely. And let me give you one more really common example of the mind-body connection, which is stress. That’s a big topic in health psychology. And of course, everybody experiences stress. Everybody knows what stress is. But if you’re in a stressful situation, like if you’re being evaluated at work or something, there are going to be physical responses to that. Your heart might race. You might sweat. So there’s really just that clear connection between the mind and the body.

Kimberly King (05:43.643)

And all these studies lately about stress and you know how it can take years off your life and everything I mean there’s just been so much more research about that. So that’s a really great example. I love that you’re bringing that up. How long has health psychology been around?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (05:59.608)

So health psychology is one of the newer disciplines within the field of psychology. It formally began to emerge in like the 1960s and 70s. It officially became a division of the American Psychological Association in 1978. But the ideas within health psychology, this idea of the mind and the body being connected have been around for a long, long time.

Going all the way back to Freud, he was kind of famously interested in hysteria or conversion disorder, which of course he at the time was talking primarily about women, but this idea that you could have these physical symptoms, like you could suddenly have paralysis in an arm or lose your vision based in psychological trauma or psychological issues. So the mind-body connection has really been around in psychology for a long, time.

Kimberly King (06:54.926)

That is interesting and I guess we never really think about, you know, going all the way back to Freud or whatever and maybe things have shifted, but there’s a baseline there. So how is health psychology different from clinical psychology?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (07:09.624)

So that’s a great question because clinical and health psychology are often related and there is some overlap between them. Both clinical and health psychology professionals would consider mental health as something important to know about someone, an important factor to focus on.

But clinical psychology primarily focuses on diagnosing and treating mental disorders. Whereas health psychology, there’s always also a physical, a biological component in what we’re looking at. So we might be interested in somebody’s mental health as it relates to maybe the diagnosis of a chronic health condition or something like that. So there’s always that physical health component. And health psychology professionals don’t undergo clinical training, so they wouldn’t be doing psychotherapy or things like that.

Kimberly King (08:02.4)

Interesting. I was just with a friend of mine yesterday and she’s telling me about her daughter who, yeah, has something going on, you know, health-wise, but it really has translated into how she’s living her life now, just having a hard time motivating. And so there’s a little depression in there. So I can’t wait to talk to her about the new shift with this health psychology and how it’s different.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (08:27.52)

Yeah, absolutely. And again, whatever is going on physically has an impact on all aspects of your life. And coping is something, the stress and the coping are big topics in health psychology.

Kimberly King (08:39.758)

How about since COVID? Just I’m throwing this out there to you. Do you see a shift in this and maybe a bigger need just because of COVID?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (08:48.552)

That’s such an interesting question on so many levels. I think there were some shifts. I mean, a lot of things we were recognizing when COVID was happening, was certainly the level of stress in general, but also the level of stress among healthcare providers. I mean, they were really hit hard, but for better or worse, a lot of that has kind of, since COVID has thankfully gone away, know, the focus has kind of also cutting those spread back out among a variety of topics, certainly burnout and are things we’re still interested in, but probably not as much of that focus.

Kimberly King (09:26.382)

Well, it’s such a stressful time because nobody, we didn’t know what we didn’t know and so navigating through there. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, as a healthcare professional, you do probably get burnt out, tapped out, you know, so what an interesting time we live in, huh? What type of topics or populations are focused in on health psychology?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (09:49.816)

So health psychology really runs the gamut and it looks at all areas of health from prevention through like management of chronic illness up to end of life issues. So some of the big topic areas and in addition to the stress and coping, we’ve already talked about our pain management, cancer, health disparities, differences in health among different populations.

Nutrition, exercise, and obesity, tobacco and alcohol use, and even looking at medical settings and the relationships between patients and providers.

So in addition to those kind of broader areas, we also look really heavily at chronic illness and chronic illness management. And I like to point out the example of cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of mortality in this country and worldwide. So it is…

Kimberly King (10:43.95)

For men and women? I’m sorry to interrupt, but both men and women-?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (10:47.052)

Yeah, absolutely. is the number one out there, unfortunately. And the American Heart Association actually recommends that the best defense against heart disease are healthy habits. So the kinds of things we focus on in psychology, habits, things like not smoking, exercise, eating healthy, and getting enough sleep. So, you know, even the most deadliest chronic condition out there, we can really address that from a mind, body, a health perspective.

Kimberly King (11:19.416)

I love where this is going – and again, I think job security – my son is a police officer but he is so health conscientious and he’ll come over to the house open the refrigerator and he’s like this has got to go and this has got to go and so I think this next generation coming in has been very vocal thankfully, um,  you know growing up and I’m in my 50s but I am like mortified, I look back at all the sugary cereals I ate growing up and it’s time to get back on the right track. And so I think my body health is just good for you. I love that.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (11:55.702)

Yeah, well, something I think many of us can relate to. You know, it’s about finding the right balance and we’re still learning so much about what’s the best or and not even always about being the best, but just what makes sense for balance.

Kimberly King (12:09.932)

You know, and it just, think everybody talks about it now too, whereas it was different. We didn’t have the internet then and everybody, you know, doing the deep dive and the research. So how does health psychology fit in healthcare in general?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (12:24.942)

So this- health psychology really fits into modern medical perspectives on healthcare. So I already mentioned the biopsychosocial model, and this is really being increasingly recognized across medical fields. So, you know, it’s one of those areas of real progress, I’d say. And it’s taking that multi-component perspective on healthcare.

So for example, if a healthcare provider prescribes you a medication, well, of course, taking that medication is a good first step. But where other factors come in is, are you actually going to take that medication as prescribed? And that’s something that, again, psychology focuses on. How do we make sure people, it’s called medication adherence, how do we make sure people take their medication as prescribed? And we look at things like, well, do they believe it’s important? Do they believe it would be effective and things like that.

And let me do a little spiel on adherence here because it’s such a big topic and it’s a behavioral topic, one of those health psychology topics. Lack of adherence is a very common problem in health care, whether it’s taking medication or following your health care provider’s advice about what to eat, how much to exercise, all of those sorts of things. But there are estimates of up to 50%. So up to half of Americans don’t take their medications as prescribed.

And this really contributes to a lot of problems. It can contribute to up to 25 % of hospitalizations, up to about 125,000 potentially preventable deaths per year. And all of that’s related to $500 billion in avoidable health care costs. So, you know, there’s really a lot of detriment that can come from lack of adherence.

Kimberly King (14:16.94)

You know, and that is another great, interesting topic to talk about. You’re right. I mean, I do think about, you know, accidental deaths or whatever, just, you know, I think we’re in 2026 now and, you know, they call it the practice of medicine. But you would think by now we know from the research and everything, you know, what works and you’re always adjusting medicinal levels and whatnot. But that’s interesting. So now you, you on your side have done the research on

you know, how are they going to stay with taking the medicine and how are they going to, you know, stay on top of it? That’s really interesting.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (14:54.444)

We’ve done all this great research to find out what works. Now we’ve just got to put that into practice in the real world.

Kimberly King (15:01.154)

Yeah, and what are the reasons? What are you finding? Why they don’t adhere to recommended prescriptions?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (15:07.544)

There are so many different reasons and it can relate to things like attitudes. Like, I don’t think this is important. I don’t believe this is going to work. It can be education. I, you know, someone may not really understand, is this going to work? It could be economic. I can’t afford that medication this month. So there’s a host of reasons that can come into play.

Kimberly King (15:30.676)

Interesting. And things we just probably take for granted, never even really thought about. And it is, again, with the new generation coming up, it’s the why and, you know, show me, prove it to me kind of thing. Whereas, you know, in my age category, I would never question medical advice, but now I think it’s out there, right? So that might have something to do with it too.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (15:54.178)

Absolutely, and I think those are good and fair questions asked. Why should I expect this to work? And, you know, I think as consumers get more educated, as patients get more educated, we can improve health care all around.

Kimberly King (16:07.19)

Yeah, 100%. But I love that you have guardrails around that and you’re asking those questions. Tell me, what is integrated care?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (16:15.992)

So this is another kind of newer term that’s out there, a newer idea in terms of formally implementing integrated care, but it’s basically the application of the biopsychosocial model in healthcare. So it’s really simply, collaboration between professionals from multiple disciplines to provide complete treatment for a patient.

So you’re looking at teamwork among a group of providers, and that can be a group of physicians, nurses, psychology professionals, dietitians, exercise physiologists, occupational therapists, social workers, whoever can be involved in helping a person be more healthful.

Kimberly King (16:57.368)

So you’re a team, and I love that. I think that’s a brilliant way for practice management, I think. I saw the first time I saw that or understood what integrated care was, my dad had pancreatic cancer. And it was several years ago, but he did have a team come in. And you’re right, there were doctors. They would talk about each case individually. The nursing staff was in there. They had a concierge provider that would come in. And I was like, wow, and it makes you obviously as the patient, you’re like, wow, I have a great team around me. But I love that they’re talking about, you know, one person’s healthcare journey.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (17:35.85)

Right, and that they’re collaborating and talking with each other, not just have them go here, go there, and nobody’s talking. So you can really coordinate the care.

Kimberly King (17:44.878)

100%, I love that, that’s interesting. Okay, so what is lifestyle medicine? I’m hearing more and more about this now.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (17:53.896)

Yes, and it’s a great idea and one that makes a lot of sense. So lifestyle medicine focuses on those lifestyle habits, some of which I’ve already mentioned, that are key to health. So some of the big ones are eating, exercise, sleep, substance use, all of those things tend to be important to multiple areas of health. And we in health psychology, we focus on either changing those or just kind of optimizing those to address different health conditions.

And I’d like to kind of point out how these have become more important over time. And going back in history a little bit again, if we look back to like 1900, so over 100 years ago, the number one cause of death in the United States was infectious diseases. So people were most likely to die of flu or tuberculosis or things like that.

Well, today it’s a different story. Chronic conditions are the number one causes of mortality in the United States. So things like heart disease and cancer and those chronic long-term conditions are things that are managed over time and that’s where the lifestyle factors come in because it’s something that is long-term and that’s when habits and behaviors really have a big impact.

Kimberly King (19:15.436)

Yeah, interesting. Again, it does make you think going back all those years in the 1900s. It was like the flu or pneumonia or whatever.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (19:26.7)

Yeah, it’s been, when you stop and think about it, really hasn’t been, it’s been over a hundred years, but to have such a different health landscape, in many ways, it’s still a much newer health landscape than everything that came before it.

Kimberly King (19:41.196)

Well, and it seems like it’s going faster now that we have, you know, the internet, just all of this research. And you think about 100 years from now, hopefully cancer will be wiped out and, you know, what will it be? You know, where are we going with this? But we seem to have those ideas now of how to combat or change your health routine, like you’re saying, with the fitness, exercise, sleep is, I see sleep come up all the time on how important that is and the lack of stress.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (20:07.445)

Absolutely.

Kimberly King (20:09.486)

So you just talked about it, but the benefits of a lifestyle medicine, I don’t know if you can expand on that.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (20:16.91)

Absolutely, there are because there’s just such a wide variety of benefits in terms of cost, quality of life. And another one I think is really important is accessibility to underserved populations. Because the more good health behaviors we have, like, you know, good sleep that you mentioned or exercising, we really haven’t found anything that sleep and exercise are not good for, whether they’re physical or psychological.

But the more good behaviors that are healthy behaviors a person engages in related to those, the lower their health care costs are going to be and the better the quality of life. So not only are they going to be paying less for medical care, they’re going to feel better. They’re going to be able to do more. In terms of lifestyle medicine being a great equalizer, many of the

lifestyle medicine factors. So things like exercise are things that are not related to cost or related to being next to you or in proximity to this great medical center. They’re things you can do on your own. So they are really available to everybody. Recently, there’s been some information that’s been coming out about the best treatment for osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis is the most common joint disease in the world, and you probably won’t come as any surprise. The best treatment is not surgery, it’s not medication, it’s exercise. And that is available to everyone, basically. So it can be a great equalizer, the lifestyle medicine factors.

Kimberly King (22:01.314)

I love that too. We were skiing just about a month ago and the people we stayed with are in their early 70’s and they ski every day. I was like, wow, that’s impressive. Because I think back to my parents and my grandparents and my mom did have a little bit of osteoarthritis and it’s probably, yeah, that lack of exercise. You’re right, it’s available to all of us, but it’s that education and understanding and even in the underserved areas. You know, get out and walk if you don’t have a gym membership or do, you know, lift some weights or something, right?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (22:34.382)

Absolutely, and you were talking about the wonders of the internet. There are a million exercise videos on YouTube, and so there’s really no excuse not to be able to do that.

Kimberly King (22:45.326)

Right. Well, my son will come over and yell at me if I don’t get out there today too. So what are the social determinants of health?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (22:56.462)

So this is another great, kind of newer concept, and it’s part of the biopsychosocial model of health. So the social side, obviously. And let me just kind of go over the definition, the official definition from the US offices of disease prevention and health promotion. It’s kind of a mouthful, but it really covers a lot.

So they define social determinants of health as the non-medical community-wide social, economic, and environmental conditions where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age. So a big definition, but it’s really meant to be comprehensive and it does cover that wide variety of social factors that often come into play in health.

Kimberly King (23:45.368)

Wow, is a big definition on there. I have a question for you outside of that. So we’re hearing so much about the GLP-1s, now the GLP-3s with the peptide. That’s a huge craze right now on the peptides. You know, when they’re taking this injection to lose weight and then trading the side effects, feeling better, what are your thoughts about that? Does health psychology look at these new trends?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (24:12.038)

To some extent… I could talk for an hour about this. Just because- so these are interesting medications on a variety of fronts. It will help you change your behavior and can be a great aid in changing behavior while you’re taking them. But if you are not learning new habits when you stop taking them, you know there can be huge rebound effects, which we see when people stop taking them.

And some of the statistics out there are that the majority of people, like I think up to 70%, stop taking them within a year. And it’s new enough research that we don’t really know why that is. It can be cost, it could be, you know, some people do have side effects that- they’re just not pleasant. So there is a lot of lifestyle factors that we need to consider just changing to be healthier, and adherence to that medication to make it effective. Certainly they’ve been a game changer in the field of obesity, you know, but if they’re still so new, I think there’s a lot we don’t know yet.

Kimberly King (25:21.194)

It is interesting because again, the peptide craze right now too. I see it everywhere, all over the internet. And I guess, you know, maybe Hollywood has been on this for a while, but I don’t know. Again, still probably not enough information out there, right? It’s not FDA approved.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (25:36.32)

Right, yeah. we’re, you know, and that is one of the benefits slash challenges of the internet. There’s lots of information out there, but being able to evaluate it and know, you know, what makes sense, what has support is key, especially when it comes to health, because you can go down a lot of roads that will endanger your health. And then certainly we never want that.

Kimberly King (25:57.984)

Right, again, interesting. What, tell me what kind of people… Who works in health psychology?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (26:06.894)

So most people who work in psychology, obviously are interested in helping people. They’re interested in people, they’re interested in helping people. Those who are drawn to health psychology are those who are also interested in the physical side of things, the mind-body connection. So they really want to help people maximize their health from that holistic perspective, not just looking at the psychological side, but taking the complete picture of what’s going on.

Kimberly King (26:32.6)

You know, and I don’t know, I could be wrong about this. My daughter was, both kids actually were college athletes. And from an athletic standpoint, they’re both very, very interested, you know, obviously on a day-to-day basis in what they do. Does that have anything to do with it sometimes if you played a sport in college too or?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (26:51.278)

Absolutely, just anecdotally a lot of our students in our program, they definitely have their own interests. Some of them have had their own health concerns growing up, but a lot of them are just interested in maximizing their physical potential, which fits right in with the field.

Kimberly King (27:09.794)

Yeah, that’s good. Interesting. My last question to you is what can you do with a degree? What do you call it? is the degree in health psychology and like yourself, where else can you spread these good news and help others out?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (27:24.482)

So health psychology, professionals in health psychology can work in a really wide variety of settings. More obviously hospitals or universities, clinics, government health agencies, and just really focusing on any way to help patients cope with health-related issues, manage stress, and adopt healthier behaviors.

They can also work in business or corporate settings on workplace wellness programs. That’s another area, and there aren’t as many health psychology job titles out there, but there are variety of job titles that do go along with a health psychology degree. So things like health educator, health coach, health promotion specialist, patient advocate, public health specialist, and health service manager, patient education coordinator, community outreach coordinator… So lots of different, different positions within health fit with a health psychology degree.

Kimberly King (28:23.116)

You know, and that’s good. I love that. I think this is great. I have so many ideas out there and I just love that. Yeah, again, you’re in demand right now, I would think. Just, I like that you also said going up with corporate mental health and wellness, like it is so needed today. And so, and is the actual degree called health psychology?

Doctor Sherry Rieder (28:43.79)

Masters in Health Psychology, correct. We also offer a doctorate in Health Psychology, specialized in Health Psychology.

Kimberly King (28:51.694)

Well, this has been so interesting and I really appreciate you can see your passion and we appreciate you sharing your knowledge. If you have or want more information, you can always visit National University’s website, which is nu.edu. And again, doctor, thank you so much for your time today. We really truly appreciate it.

Doctor Sherry Rieder (29:12.482)

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.

Kimberly King (29:15.918)

Thank you.

Kimberly King (29:20.002)

You’ve been listening to the National University Podcast. For updates on future or past guests, visit us at nu.edu. You can also follow us on social media. Thanks for listening.