5 Mindfulness Practices for Addiction Recovery

A mantra is a simple phrase, sound, or word that you continually repeat during meditation. This type of meditation helps you to achieve clarity and stillness as it calms the mind, reduces stress, and provides a deeper relaxation. It is important to find a mantra that you are comfortable with and that allows you to focus. Meditation can also https://ecosoberhouse.com/ help you deal with protracted withdrawal, which involves symptoms like anxiety, difficulty making decisions and strong drug cravings that last for several months after drug use is stopped. SAMHSA recommends that people find ways to exercise their minds and bodies to prevent themselves from relapsing during the protracted withdrawal phase.

But the struggle will continue as you will face triggering situations in your life. Fortunately, there is a method that can help you stop reacting to such triggers. Effective, lifelong recovery starts by treating the meditation for addiction whole person, not just the substance use disorder. This means treating the underlying mental health issues at the root of addiction and providing patients with tools they need for a healthier, more satisfying life.

What is Drug Tapering for Withdrawal?

Participants are given therapeutic homework, consisting of formal and informal mindfulness practices as well as assignments to self-monitor symptoms like craving and negative affect. First-generation MBIs (ie, MBSR, MBCT) influenced the development of contemporary MBIs for addiction (ie, MBRP, MORE). Extant MBIs designed specifically to intervene in SUD and relapse prevention differ somewhat from first-generation MBIs in their emphasis, didactic content delivered, duration of home mindfulness practice, and style of debriefing. Modern MBIs for addiction typically provide standard focused attention and open monitoring meditations, as well as mindfulness exercises specifically tailored to address substance craving and substance use habits. Below, we discuss general clinical principles for using MBIs to intervene in SUD and prevent relapse.

Meditating in the same place every day or even creating your own personal meditation area can give you peace of mind, especially if it is an environment that comforts and calms you. Stress and anxiety can keep anyone up at night, but taking time during the day to calm yourself can help relieve these pressures before it is time to turn the lights out for the night. Meditation also helps to expand a person’s perspective, allowing them to assess their thoughts and feelings from multiple angles. This can help you “get out of your head” and view your experiences through a more well-rounded and empathetic lens. Mindworks goal is simple—we want to help you discover the transformative power of meditation so that you can live your best life. As a 501c3 nonprofit, your support enables us to bring accessible, authentic meditation guidance to a worldwide community.

Acknowledging Thoughts and Emotions

When you can learn to slow things down with mediation then appreciate your world with mindfulness, you’ll have a much higher chance at lifelong sobriety. No one would expect meditation to be an important part of recovery but learning the breathing and thought techniques of meditation can help you slow the world down and gain perspective during difficult times. Now, just about every treatment center in the country uses some form of meditation to help recovering alcoholics and addicts achieve personal growth and inner peace. Meditation can help you to change negative and destructive patterns of behavior like substance abuse. The more you practice meditation, the more you will become mindful of your thoughts and actions, and the more confident you will feel of avoiding automatic behaviors.

Meditation also assists in regulating feelings activated by stress, lowering blood pressure, improving sleep quality, and reducing cortisol levels. Mindfulness meditation can be helpful in sobriety as it assists the individual in focusing attention, regulating emotions, as well as improving self-awareness. These abilities are vital to recovery as they allow the individual to deal with stress and triggers, handle cravings and manage signs of underlying mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. Thanks to the benefits of meditation, clients in addiction treatment programs can have higher recovery success rates. Meditation also can reduce withdrawal symptoms, including withdrawal-related depression, anxiety, and insomnia. Meditation is a simple but powerful technique that has many benefits for people in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction.

Stress

This area of your brain triggers feelings of happiness, joy, and satisfaction. During periods of drug or alcohol withdrawal, this area of your brain abruptly becomes under-active. This crash often prompts feelings of shame and guilt, as well as episodes of depression and anxiety. Most people with addictions experience intense cravings for drugs or alcohol that can feel so overwhelming that they continue using the substance. Meditation can be an effective means of training your brain to observe cravings coming and going without attachment instead of trying to avoid, ignore, or suppress cravings.

• For example, transcendental meditation has been used to reduce drug, alcohol, and Nicotine abuse and the risk of relapse.
• These are often taught in yoga classes during a period of rest while gazing meditations encourage you to keep your eyes open and focus on a single object, such as a candle flame or image.
• During this exercise, participants are instructed to hold a piece of chocolate close to their nose and lips and become mindful of the arising of craving as they refrain from eating the chocolate.
• Restful awareness allows your body to heal, and the physical impact of the fight-or-flight response—such as elevated blood pressure, suppressed immunity, and an increased heart rate—begin to normalize.
• Consider the case of a man in partial remission from alcohol use disorder who has recently stopped drinking.

It’s a gentle way of opening your mind to greater awareness; to a truer, deeper understanding of yourself and your world. Simply focus on bringing your thoughts back to your breathing to ground yourself. Beyond helping with reducing stress, meditation has also been shown to help boost a person’s mood. This can help create a more consistently positive mindset as you conduct your daily activities. The intersection between modern trauma theory, addiction & mindfulness The problem of addiction is not just a problem for people… Meditation as a path to understand addictive behavior Mindfulness is a centuries-old contemplative practice that can help you develop awareness,…

Staying in the present moment was a concept completely beyond my comprehension. For an addict in active addiction or early recovery it’s common to have a “washing machine” head – unwanted negative thoughts on repeat, swirling around and around. Research has shown that meditation can significantly reduce stress and anxiety, common triggers for addictive behaviors. By practicing meditation regularly, individuals experience a relaxation response in the body, leading to a decrease in stress hormones like cortisol. It helps individuals to manage stressors better and lowers the likelihood of turning to substances as a coping mechanism. Using mindfulness meditation, and the help of some guided instruction, we can learn to observe our minds in a state when there is no craving and when there is, and learning to better manage these cravings through repeated meditation practices.

• Practicing mindfulness can help you to retain peacefulness no matter what is happening around you.
• Alternatively, think of all the times you felt loved or were appreciated by others.
• Meditation is a powerful yet simple technique with many health benefits, including reducing stress and anxiety.

Whether we notice them or not, our thoughts are the driving force behind our feelings and actions. What we think about ourselves and others determines how we carry ourselves in the world, how we interact with people around us and how effectively we manage life. Try taking small, mindful “breathing breaks” throughout the day—while you’re at a stoplight or waiting in line, for example, or before you open your email or go to a meeting. Inhale through your nostrils and exhale through your mouth, making your exhalation a little longer than your inhalation. Notice the sensation of air entering and exiting your body again and again, always there to calm and sustain you.

Just as important, meditators dopamine levels remained at an optimally healthy range when not in meditation. A landmark 2002 study at the John F. Kennedy Institute (Kjaer et al) found that the dopamine levels of participants were boosted by a whopping 65% during meditation. Meditation will stimulate and train your brain to be happy and feel good naturally, without the need for any addictive substance. Thoughts like “I’m no good” or “Everyone’s against me” drain the hope and energy we need to sustain positive change in addiction recovery. Recognizing and then challenging these damaging thoughts allow us to see ourselves in a more hopeful, more accurate light.

Anastasia Stephens outlines the latest developments and gives practical tips on meditation and psychotherapy, which can be speedily put into practice. Everyone in recovery should learn basic meditation to help stop the screeching train that your brain can turn into. Let’s learn some basics of meditation and how you can pair mindfulness for even better results.

What Kind of Meditation is Right for Me?

These apps offer various meditation styles, timers, and reminders to support daily practice. Even in cases of prolonged substance abuse and addiction, the brain has a powerful ability to adapt and repair the damage it causes. Through a process called neuroplasticity, the brain builds new neuron cells and creates neural pathways, allowing it to grow, modify and restructure itself.