Addiction is not an easy disease to fight. Along with posing a significant risk to an addict’s life, it also takes a toll on them emotionally, socially and financially. It can cost them their job and eventually lose their family due to their ‘irresponsible’ behavior. This is why people battling addiction are more prone to depression and other mind related disorders. Since these people are constantly in a state of chaos, it is imperative for them to find peace within themselves.
Meditation makes up for the perfect therapy for people who are struggling to focus on their recovery process. Meditation is all about using the wisdom of the body and gain better control over the mind. It will help them to calm their nerves and deal with their emotions more positively. These people witness a decrease in their frustrations and stop blaming external factors for their unhappiness. This begins their journey towards their own betterment and a hope to change the future if not the past.
At Americas Rehab Campuses, we use ‘Guided Meditation’ in adjunction with traditional therapies for an addict’s overall recovery. This allows us to treat the mind along with the body which has a larger role to play in addiction. There are four major types of guided meditations offered at our establishment which are:
Mindfulness Meditation: The most significant type of meditation, mindfulness meditation refers to attaining the present time ‘awareness’. Once we realize what is happening, we can start working on changing that.
Compassion Meditation: Compassion meditation is all about making us feel comfortable in our discomfort. What that essentially means is that it makes us comfortable in dealing with feelings that we previously ran away from.
Forgiveness Medications: An essential thing required to move on is ‘letting go’, and that is precisely what forgiveness meditation focuses on. It helps us to forgive ourselves as well as others and let go of all the resentments that disrupt our peace.
Gratitude Meditations: Many addicts face difficulty in expressing themselves positively which takes a toll on their relationships with other people. Gratitude Meditation teaches thankfulness which enables the addicts to appreciate the people in their lives.
Benefits of Guided Meditation at Americas Rehab Campuses:
The first texts that enlighten us about the use of meditation date back to 1500 BCE in the Hindu tradition of Vedantism. It still finds place in spiritual and religious activities to this day. However, today meditation has grown beyond that and found applications in health industry as well.
Guided Meditation at our Center can:
Help in Fighting Depression
It is a popular belief that our problems are less about what happens to us and more about how we react to it. Depression, stress and anxiety are often a result of over-thinking and over-reacting. If something makes us upset, it triggers the deep insecurities inside us which may result in making us angry about the past, or fear about the future. Guided meditation helps us separate each of these emotions and differentiate between what has already happened and what we are adding to it.
When we are able to deal with our feelings individually, we see things for what they really are. By focusing only on the facts and separating our past experiences and feelings from the situations, we can get a clearer picture of the situation. By eliminating over-thinking and over-reacting, we lower the risks of depression, anxiety and stress-related illnesses that might contribute to the severity of our addiction.
Improve Sleep Quality
People have often overlooked the importance of proper sleep in the recovery process. You might be battling something inside your mind, but it is your body fighting the battle for you. Your body needs proper rest so that it can regain its energy. However, addicts, especially in the early days of recovery, find themselves struggling with insomnia. This is because they are in a total state of chaos where everything is changing at a rapid pace. They start to experience new things daily that their mind isn’t familiar with.
This is likely to keep them awake at night preventing them from getting some sleep. Guided Meditation can help them face the uncertainty that hangs over their head and gather their thoughts. Meditation has been known to reduce chronic pain, anxiety and nervousness that can help the recovering addicts to get sound sleep.
Help To Fight Urges
Regular sessions of guided meditation at Americas Rehab Campuses can help recovering addicts to regain control over their mind. The brain functions differently when addicted to alcohol or drugs and the early days of recovery are nothing that it is used to. The neural pathways that the brain built at the time of substance abuse are no longer efficient. This makes it difficult to resist urges and stay on the path to recovery.
Meditation helps you to concentrate on your recovery and deal better with urges. It allows you to focus on the future without falling prey to a moment of weakness. The urges are completely natural, and everyone experiences them, but it is imperative for you to face them positively.
Help You To Spot the Warning signs
Resisting urges becomes more comfortable with practice and time. However, we cannot deny that recovery is a lifelong process and it might take you years to conquer that. Meditation like earlier mentioned makes you more aware of what is happening in the present, both inside and around you. You can spot the warning signs early and resist the urges without letting them reach their zenith.
Meditation makes it easier to prevent relapse by allowing you to monitor what is happening inside your body. Letting you take the reins before the urge becomes uncontrollable is the surest way to stay on the path of recovery.
Improve Your Relationships
People tend to do a lot of things under the influence of a substance which they regret later in their lives. Things, like abandoning their duties towards their family when they were on a ‘high’, or hitting their spouse between a heated arguments are all examples of such situations. Their family starts avoiding them which takes a toll on their personal lives.
However, with meditation, you can register your feelings and process your thoughts more positively. You learn the importance of respect in communication and are more likely to treat people with gratitude. They start giving due attention to their families and kids while being more considerate to their demands. Being with their families will make the addicts want to become better people.
These were a few benefits that meditation brings along to your recovery process. It will not just work as an alternative therapy but also serve as the perfect hobby after rehab. The recovering addicts are required to make significant changes to their lives including their hobbies and their friends. This makes people more vulnerable to urges when they bored as alcohol and drugs had become a part of their recreational activities. However, meditation can be a great activity for these people who have extra time on their hands. It will make them more calm and collective than before while also helping them to stay focused on their goals.
