The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on our collective mental health. We’ve adjusted how we live life in many ways — from small habits like never leaving the house without hand sanitizer, to more significant changes, like missing out on lifetime celebrations. These changes have indeed impacted how we think and feel about ourselves and our world.

Most of us understand the idea of mental health, but this year for World Mental Health Day we asked Alexis Lyon-Claus, LMFT, behavioral health manager at Dignity Health Mercy Medical Group, to help explain behavioral health and share advice on what you and your loved ones can do to continue to navigate your mental health journeys through the pandemic.

This flu season, it is important as ever to protect ourselves and our loved ones against both the flu and COVID-19. We spoke to two Dignity Health Medical Group physicians who shared what you should know this flu season.

With increasing concern for COVID-19 variants and cases spiking across the country, it’s clear that the pandemic is not over. That’s why it is even more important to keep up on your regular check-ups for yourself and your family. Dignity Health Medical Group clinics are open and ready to serve you. If you’re headed into one of our clinics for a visit, here are some reminders on the enhanced precautions we’re taking to create a safe and welcoming environment for our patients and health care workers.

Your health can be affected by the environment around you, and this includes elements of weather like temperature and air quality.

Over the past few months the western region of the U.S. has experienced extreme weather patterns that have contributed to periods of high heat, dry, drought conditions and wildfires. To help you understand the potential effects of high temperatures and air quality on physical health, we’ll address both topics with the help of Dignity Health Medical Group physicians.

It may surprise you to know that there is a system in your body so complex that it contains almost 500 million neurons, linked to your brain. Would you ever guess that it is your gastrointestinal (GI) system, otherwise known as your gut? To help shed some light on the importance of gut health for the whole body, we talked to Jagrati Mathur, MD, a gastroenterologist with Dignity Health Medical Group — Saint Francis/St. Mary’s.