5 Mindfulness Practices for Addiction Recovery

Meditation can help you learn to stay centered and keep inner peace. Mindfulness is a state of mind and way of understanding the world that is reached through the practice of meditation. Mindfulness is also showing great success in addiction treatment. When we’re stressed, it’s easy to get sucked into a damaging spiral of self-defeating thoughts. We need to actively take care of our emotional health in these moments. Focusing on the breath can restore a sense of calm and control that keeps our recovery on track.

Then there’s the 2,500-year-old therapy option

That might end up being first thing in the morning, right before bed, during a busy commute, or during your break at work. Bingham recommends beginners start with five minutes of guided meditation, three times a week, and slowly increase the minutes as meditation becomes a consistent part of your routine. Meditation is an umbrella term for the many ways to get to a relaxed state. There are many types of meditation and ways to relax that use parts of meditation.

How to Practice Mindfulness and Meditation in Recovery

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. Being mindful is about being present, increasing our awareness, and opening our eyes to the reality of now. Yet when our attention is continually somewhere else, we go through life on auto-pilot, never really seeing the richness of life or fully realizing our own potential.

• The top evidence-based SUD therapies include dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), motivational interviewing, contingency management therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
• You can repeat the mantra loudly or quietly, and the repetition allows you to focus on the environment around you.
• Meditation also might help if you have a medical condition.
• If you never get up to 30 minutes a day, don’t sweat it— meditating for even 10 or 15 minutes every day offers benefits.

Promoting cognitive control over automaticity

Recognizing when your mind has wandered away is actually a good thing —it means you’re developing awareness. With a steady meditation practice, you’ll typically begin to see benefits in time. Be sure to talk to your healthcare professional about the pros and cons of using meditation if you have any of these or other health conditions. Sometimes, meditation might worsen symptoms linked to some mental health conditions.

Get Professional Help

Giving us the advantage of time and simultaneously the opportunity to make a different decision, possibly even a healthier decision. The even better news is that mindfulness training can change the brain, making people less reactive and better able to regulate their emotions. In sum, MM may promote self-awareness and self-regulation of drug-use action schemas, cue-reactivity, substance-seeking behaviors, and substance consumption. By developing trait mindfulness over the course of participating in an MBI, an individual with a SUD may become more aware of how automatic substance use responses operate in daily life. The individual may then evoke the state of mindfulness through focused attention or open monitoring mindfulness practice and choose to respond with a more adaptive coping strategy. Over time, the individual may develop the motivation to reduce substance use or abstain entirely, at which point mindfulness may be useful for preventing relapse.

• Meditation is a valuable part of these services for interested clients.
• You’ll still need to undergo professional treatment and support for long-term sobriety.
• 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.
• In 2014, a randomized control trial (RCT), the gold standard trial for evaluating the effectiveness of interventions, was conducted by Bowen and colleagues.

• For many people with substance use or mental health disorders, emotional-focused coping is the norm.
• In sum, MM may promote self-awareness and self-regulation of drug-use action schemas, cue-reactivity, substance-seeking behaviors, and substance consumption.
• Ready to take your recovery from alcohol and drug addiction to a whole new level?
• According to the Addiction Policy Reform (APF) Survey, 1 in 3 report changes in treatment or recovery support services due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• For recovering addicts who are used to partying and having a wild time, sobriety may seem a bit dull.

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 https://ecosoberhouse.com/ substance craving and substance use habits. Below, we discuss general clinical principles for using MBIs to intervene in SUD and prevent relapse. Researchers and clinicians have begun to explore mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for intervening in SUDs and relapse prevention. Evidence supporting the efficacy of MBIs as an intervention for SUDs and for relapse prevention is growing.

Physical & Other Health Benefits

Recent evidence found mindfulness-based interventions like meditation could reduce the consumption of alcohol, cocaine and amphetamines. Mindfulness practice may also reduce the risk of relapse, as it teaches the practitioner coping methods for discomfort such as drug meditation for addiction cravings or the negative effects of substances. Meditation is a valuable part of these services for interested clients. Contact The Recovery Village to learn about admissions, treatment options and how our programs can help you begin living a substance-free life.

I check in about the sites I go to, exactly what I see, how much time I spend, and what I do. Sharing in meetings about my middle-circle experiences frees me from worrying about my image, allowing me to stand openly in the light of day. What’s more, incorporating mindfulness exercises into treatment is especially helpful for those of us who have struggled with addiction to alcohol, drugs, porn, unhealthy relationships or other destructive behaviors. Although it has many forms, meditation is usually practiced by sitting and quietly observing your body or thoughts. Some people focus on their breath, and feel it swell inside their chest before they slowly exhale.