Addiction is perhaps one of the most devastating physical experiences. There’s a great deal of mental and emotional trauma that occurs as well. For some, meditation can facilitate a healing process across all areas. Meditation offers an opportunity to connect the mind and body to improve well-being and quality of life. How can meditation help you?
How Does Meditation Help in Addiction Recovery?
Meditation is a holistic treatment option available to you during addiction treatment. It is never the only tool used to encourage recovery, but it can be an important way for you to find some level of inner peace. Here are several ways it can help
- Create a Natural High: With practice and focus, meditation can provide a natural high. Meditation stimulates your brain in a positive way, helping you detach from cravings and physical symptoms of withdrawal you may feel.
- Control Thought Patterns: With meditation, you’ll learn how to gain better control over your thoughts and the feelings they inspire. Meditation teaches you to observe your thoughts and feelings without judging them or attaching to them. You’ll learn to enjoy the freedom you have when you realize you don’t have to let your thoughts control your moods or behaviors
- Control Stress: Stress is a factor in everyone’s life. If you cannot learn to manage stress, you will be more likely to relapse. Meditation gives you a way to calm your mind and work through difficult situations in a relaxed way that supports your sobriety.
- Reveal Underlying Concerns: Meditation, especially when facilitated by a therapist, can help you uncover some of the reasons for your drug or alcohol use. If you suffered some trauma in your past, for example, meditation can help you uncover what happened in a safe way. You can learn to understand your behavioral patterns and how to release them.
Focus on the Good
During your recovery, you have the opportunity to achieve new goals and to live a life you didn’t know was possible. What do you see in your future? What do you want to achieve? Using meditation, you can “see” these good outcomes and create a plan for achieving them. Instead of focusing on the negative, meditation can help you to focus on your positive outcomes.
What Else Can Meditation Do for You?
Every person’s needs are different, but most people will see some type of benefit from adding meditation to drug and alcohol treatment. Benefits include:
Improved concentration
Better management of anxiety
Improved emotional stability
Improved ability to learn
Better results at school or work
Less risk of acute withdrawal symptoms
Meditation can also help during detox or when you are feeling withdrawal symptoms. It doesn’t replace the therapy you need, but it does help you to work through those difficult and sometimes painful experiences.
Meditation therapy also is important when dealing with mental health problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression. It may allow you to fully grasp what’s happening to you and the steps you need to take to heal.
Finding the Right Type of Meditation
Finding the right type of mediation for you is important, and our consultants can help provide local resources. Types of meditation include:
Mindfulness meditation, a process that works to improve concentration and awareness of what’s around you
Guided meditation, in which you’ll visualize various images, with the help of your therapist, to improve thought processes and outcomes
Zen-style meditation, which encourages you not to react to things around you in a negative manner.
When you enter into meditation, you are taking one of the biggest steps of addiction recovery – you’re actively working to control the outcome of your thoughts. For many people, this can lead to an improved overall quality of life. It can also mean you’re reducing some of the risks for relapse.