July 2026
Happy July from Inspire Behavioral Health! We offer high quality and compassionate care to people living in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia both virtually and in-person with offices in Vienna, Fairfax, Sterling and Bethesda. Experienced and dedicated psychiatrists and psychotherapists at Inspire strongly believe that we all have solutions within us and that it is a matter of learning how to tap into these solutions so that we can enhance the lives we live. Providers at Inspire Behavioral Health help people heal by allowing them to focus on their strengths and harness their available resources while treating symptoms and encouraging more effective techniques for coping with life’s struggles and building resilience to help maintain mental health. Call us for more information and to schedule an appointment with one of our providers at 703-592-4600.
So, on behalf of all of us at Inspire Behavioral Health, Happy 250th Anniversary of our Nation and Independence Day, 2026! We hope you proudly enjoyed a wonderful celebration of our United States of America!
Please consider celebrating this special month by investing in your mental health today and calling us to schedule an appointment. Happy July! Happy 250th Anniversary of the United States! Happy Independence Day!
July 3, 1775: George Washington took command of the Continental Army.
July 2, 1776: The Continental Congress declared the United Colonies free and independent states.
July 4, 1776: Adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress.
July 2, 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, prohibiting racial discrimination.
And, did you know this strange and patriotic fact? Three of America’s founding fathers perished on a Fourth of July. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died five hours apart on the same Fourth of July in 1826. James Monroe passed on the Fourth of July in 1831, exactly five years later.
Mental Health
It is important to remember that anyone experiencing a mental health crisis can call, chat or text 988 to speak with a trained crisis counselor 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Taking care of your mental health is just as important as taking care of your physical health. Remember your insurance covers mental health and Medicare covers many mental health services to support you.
A primary care provider is a good place to start if you’re looking for help. Your doctor can refer you to a qualified mental health professional, such as a psychologist, psychiatrist, or psychotherapist, who can help you figure out next steps.
How to Find a Counselor
Once you decide to get professional health for a personal struggle, whether it is anxiety, depression, grief, a mood disorder, an addiction, sexual or relationship issue, finding the right type of provider and service can be daunting. We can help because Inspire Behavioral Health is home to many caring professionals, and we are confident you will find the provider who specializes in addressing your particular issues. Please visit our website to read about our providers and their expertise. If you are in a rural area, you may have difficulty finding a mental health professional nearby, so remember that all of our clinicians are available to you virtually.
Substance Use and Addiction
Men are more likely than women to use almost all types of illicit drugs, and illicit drug use is more likely to result in emergency department visits or overdose deaths for men than for women. “Illicit” refers to use of illegal drugs, including marijuana (according to federal law) and misuse of prescription drugs. For most age groups, men have higher rates of use or dependence on illicit drugs and alcohol than do women.
Inspire Behavioral Health also offers a full range of services for people struggling with substance use and process additions with medications assisted therapy such as Suboxone as well as Naltrexone and other anti-craving drugs, along with individual, couple, family and group therapy. Nearly eight million adults in the United States experience co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders, in fact, of adults with a mental health diagnosis nearly twenty percent also have a substance issue and of adults diagnosed with a substance use disorder, nearly forty precent also have a mental health issue. Many of our providers offer treatment for both issues concurrently. Patterns of substance use among MSM (men who have sex with Men) vary depending on demographic factors, substance type, and MSM subgroup. Bisexual men have higher rates of substance use than other subgroups of MSM. Methamphetamine use is associated with high-risk sexual behaviors and HIV transmission. Call us to talk about making healthy choices.
Spravato-assisted Psychotherapy Services
Psychotherapist, Sarah VanThompson, LCSW, is offering intention-setting sessions prior to or at the early phases of Spravato treatment along with weekly/biweekly integration sessions as a means to optimize your response to Esketamine. Please call Sarah at Inspire for more information. 703.592.4600.
USA 250 The Future of Health—From Head to Toe
IBH is interested in whole-body health and so we hope you read this important article from the Wall Street Journal by Tata Parker-Pope on July 3, 2026. If you missed it, here is a summary.
Soon, early detection for all sorts of ailments will allow doctors to treat conditions before a lot of damage is done
When it comes to the diseases that threaten to steal our healthy years—Alzheimer’s, heart disease, cancer, arthritis—they all have one thing in common: By the time we get diagnosed, often much of the damage is already done. But a wave of new scientific advances have the potential to shift that timeline far earlier. In the near future, doctors may be able to predict the speed at which your individual organs are aging, and detect cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases long before you develop symptoms. GLP-1 drugs, now used for diabetes and weight loss, might be prescribed to protect your heart or brain or to treat a range of chronic conditions. And instead of a knee or hip replacement, you could get new bone and joint treatments designed to reverse physical decline entirely by regenerating tissue in damaged joints.
Experts say the speed at which these changes are happening is rapid, and within the next five to 10 years, healthcare will already be shifting to better risk prediction and earlier interventions. Some of these medical advances are in limited use now, while others are expected to enter clinical trials in the next few years. Here’s what the future of health looks like, head to toe.
Brain health
We’re close to a future when a simple blood draw may not only reveal your genetic risk for Alzheimer’s but will help predict exactly when the symptoms will appear. That sounds scary, but the hope is that knowing your risk early, will allow time for treatments that will actually slow or even prevent mental decline.
This year, Scripps Research will be conducting a new randomized clinical trial of 1,200 high-risk participants to study whether lifestyle interventions including exercise and better sleep can have a meaningful impact that could lower the risk for developing Alzheimer’s.
GLP-1 drugs may one day be used to lower Alzheimer’s risk. Already, studies of veterans with diabetes, electronic records of patients prescribed semaglutide, and a meta-analysis of randomized trials, suggest that GLP-1 users are less likely to be diagnosed with dementia or cognitive decline.
A positive result from a lifestyle or drug trial may make early testing routine in five years or even sooner.
Heart disease
Better risk prediction and early detection, fewer pills and one and-done treatments are on the horizon for heart disease. To start, heart-risk screening is going to happen in some surprising places in the future.
Mammograms may be used to reveal calcification in breast arteries. Eye exams can flag subtle vascular changes that reflect heart health. And AI tools are expected to improve heart risk assessments, detecting patterns not visible to the human eye.
Yale researchers have developed an AI tool that reads electrocardiograms to identify asymptomatic people at risk of heart failure long before their symptoms appear.
Early detection only matters if treatments follow, and those are on the horizon too. GLP-1 drugs, which are already used to lower heart risk and treat sleep apnea, are expected to be more widely used for cardiac protection. Other drugs are in development. New RNA-based drugs target the genetic instructions inside cells to lower cholesterol or blood pressure, while therapies based on Crispr, a gene-editing technology, will permanently switch off genes that drive heart disease. The advantage of these treatments is that patients won’t have to take daily pills, instead receiving treatments every six months, annually or some may even be done after one treatment.
A recent study found that a one-time Crispr-based therapy lowered LDL cholesterol and triglycerides by about 50%. Given that many patients stop taking cholesterol medications within the first year, doctors are excited about the possibility of a one-time treatment.
Breast cancer
For women with breast cancer, a continuing worry is whether the disease will come back, even if it was caught early. The future of breast-cancer care includes earlier detection of microscopic cancer recurrence, long before it would ever show up on a scan. New blood tests that measure circulating tumor DNA—tiny fragments of cancer DNA shed into the bloodstream—are already in limited use and offer a way to detect relapse months or even years sooner, when treatments should be more effective.
In one new trial, Baylor researchers are using one of these tests to identify certain breast cancer patients who may be at high risk of recurrence, and then treating them with tirzepatide, the GLP-1 drug marketed as Mounjaro and Zepbound. The hope is that by reducing body fat, improving insulin sensitivity, and lowering chronic inflammation, GLP-1 drugs create an inhospitable environment for tumors to regrow.
Gut health
Imagine going to the doctor for a colonoscopy and leaving with a complete view not just of your gut or colon-cancer risk, but of your overall health status. Over the next decade, the gut will emerge as a central hub to treat multiple diseases and protect organs across the body.
The gut contains trillions of microbes that help regulate immunity, metabolism and even brain signaling. Researchers are now developing therapies designed to reshape this ecosystem, from introducing beneficial bacteria to more precisely designed microbial treatments. Already one exploratory study on probiotics and Parkinson’s symptoms led to modest improvements in nonmotor symptoms like constipation and fatigue, along with faster response to Parkinson’s medications.
Another study found that higher citrus intake was associated with increased levels of beneficial gut bacteria and a lower risk of depression, suggesting a link between diet, the microbiome and our mental health.
Knee arthritis
Today, painful wear and tear on your joints typically is treated with pain medication and ultimately, a knee or hip replacement. But a slate of research teams around the world are on an ambitious quest to cure arthritis, developing therapies that regrow cartilage and rebuild underlying bone to heal damaged joints.
The big shift will be from repair to regeneration. Human trials in Europe are already under way, testing engineered cartilage implants developed at the University of Basel. Doctors take a small sample of cartilage from a patient’s nose, use it to grow new cartilage in the lab, and then surgically implant it into damaged knee joints. Results are expected in three to four years.
Researchers at Duke and the University of Colorado, Boulder, are developing injectable therapies that regenerate joint tissue. At Columbia, scientists envision a future when they will use a patient’s own cells or donor cells to grow new bone and cartilage as a new form of total joint replacement.
We are living in amazing and optimistic times and Inspire Behavioral Health is here to help you on your journey to better health. Please call us today.
The June solstice occurs on Sunday, June 21, at 4:24 A.M. EDT.
This solstice marks the official beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, occurring when Earth arrives at the point in its orbit where the North Pole is at its maximum tilt (about 23.5 degrees) toward the Sun, resulting in the longest day and shortest night of the calendar year. (By longest “day,” we mean the longest period of sunlight hours.) On the day of the June solstice, the Northern Hemisphere receives sunlight at the most direct angle of the year.
Men’s Education and Therapy Group
Men in this group offered at Inspire Behavioral Health and led by Psychotherapist, Ed Andrews, are taught the basic skills necessary to help manage life’s stressors and manage your physical health. This is done in a framework that helps men understand that we are doing the best we can while recognizing that there are new strategies we can learn that will be more effective than what we are doing now.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a compassionate type of behavioral therapy that is intended to help people move toward a more mindful, aware and purposeful life. Learn the four pillars of DBT which are Core Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotional Regulation and Distress Tolerance. When you learn these four pillars and their accompanying skills and you will have to tools you need to build a “life worth living.”
This group is a safe, confidential place for men who are sustaining their recovery from substance (alcohol or drugs) and/or process (pornography, internet or gambling) addictions, or coping with chronic illness such as Prostate or other cancers. aging, managing stress, anxiety and/or depression, accommodating change in their lives, coping with loss and transition, dealing with sexual issues including identity and ED, and who are seeking support and growth. This is a place where men can explore their grief, sustain their recovery, talk about their role as a dad or new dad, and about how change, aging and growth can mix.
Please contact us for more information about this important group. Call Ed Andrews for more information about this program.
Thank you for being part of Inspire Behavioral Health, we appreciate you and wish you a happy July!
Office Location:
Vienna: 2110 Gallows Road Suite D, Vienna, VA 22182
Fairfax: 11211 Waples Mill Road Suite 150, Fairfax, VA 22030
Washington, DC: 3000 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 137, Washington, DC 20008
Sterling: 46090 Lake Center Plaza, Suite 103-104, Sterling, VA 20165
Bethesda: 6203 Executive Boulevard, North Bethesda, MD 20852
Ed Andrews, LPC, LMFT, Newsletter Editor
703-592-4600
info@inspirebehavioralhealth.com