Sobriety Meditations: How They Can Help with Recovery
There are many different ways for people to overcome addiction and heal — both emotionally and physically — while in recovery. Addiction treatment facilities are offering evidence-based therapy and treatment options, as well as outpatient programs and 12-step recovery programs. But beyond the traditional treatment methodologies, there’s a growing recognition of the importance of holistic alcohol and drug rehab and holistic therapies for addiction that treat the full person — body and mind — and more addiction treatment programs, such as the ones offered at Resurgence Behavioral Health, take this into account. Both during and after treatment, things like yoga and sobriety meditations can be crucial ways of handling stress and coping with challenges.
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Individualized treatment programs delivered in a comfortable, relaxed setting promote healing in your recovery journey.
Understanding Sobriety Meditations
Sobriety meditations aren’t that different from other meditations in a yoga studio. While a yoga studio might try to get you to feel outside of your body, sobriety meditations will keep you grounded and help reshape your way of thinking each time. The goal is to heal emotional trauma, help with cravings, and increase clarity. The four main benefits of this kind of meditation are:
- Reduced stress.
- Increased self-awareness.
- Improved emotional regulation.
- Enhanced mind-body connection.
There is evidence that sobriety meditations help avoid the temptation to return to past addictions, as well as reduce consumption of drugs and alcohol, by teaching coping methods to help with discomfort from drug and alcohol cravings and the harmful effects of those substances.
Benefits of Sobriety Meditations
Sobriety meditations not only help reduce stress but can also help reduce your anxiety and depression by focusing on the here and now rather than events from the past. People who practice these meditations can also reduce feelings like anger and shame because the practice helps change their brains to make it easier to process stress and past trauma. That’s why they can be a valuable tool for success in recovery.
Sobriety meditations can also help regulate feelings activated by stress while lowering blood pressure, enhancing mood, and improving sleep quality while reducing cortisol levels.
Different Types of Sobriety Meditations
Guided Meditations
In this form, an instructor guides the participant through visualization exercises. That’s why this can be a great introduction to sobriety meditations and help people learn how to meditate and concentrate on their recovery process.
Mindfulness Meditation
This meditation helps people focus on the present and relax their minds to allow all those thoughts and feelings to flow through them — without judgment. This can be extremely beneficial to those in recovery as it gives them a chance to feel emotions like guilt and shame that they may find hard to share with others.
Loving-Kindness Meditation
Loving-kindness meditation, also known as metta meditation, involves repeating a series of mantras to show kindness, goodwill, and warmth toward others. This is especially important in recovery when we may have hurt someone in the past and they no longer want to communicate with us. While we may not be able to tell them in person or even in writing that we’re sorry and love them, we can still send that energy out into the universe.
Addiction Treatment that
Just Works
Individualized treatment programs delivered in a comfortable, relaxed setting promote healing in your recovery journey.
How to Incorporate Sobriety Meditations into Your Recovery Routine
Meditating is like learning a new workout routine or skill — it takes time and patience. If you are learning sobriety meditations through a recovery program, a professional will be able to help guide you through the steps until you feel you can do it on your own. When you’re on your own, start small like you would if you were lifting weights. You wouldn’t lift 300 pounds, so why jump into an hour-long meditation session from the very beginning? Set small goals for yourself; maybe in the first week, you will simply concentrate on your breathing. Find a quiet place, and try to feel calm. Build on your goals, breathing, and feelings from there.
Combining meditation with your other recovery strategies shouldn’t feel like a chore; if you participate in group therapy or attend group support meetings, you may have done your meditations before. Adding meditation into your life is just like adding a walk or run to your day-to-day routine; it might feel off at first and take time to adjust, but like any healthy habit, it can become like second nature over time.
How Resurgence Behavioral Health Supports Meditation in Recovery
At Resurgence Behavioral Health, our highly trained medical staff takes a more holistic approach to addiction treatment, not only treating the addiction but taking into account each person’s physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual needs. Our team is made up of medical professionals, certified addiction specialists, and licensed therapists, many of whom have struggled with alcohol or drug addiction themselves and now flourish in a sober life.
At Resurgence Behavioral Health, all treatment programs, including inpatient addiction treatment, are customized and geared toward your sustained recovery. Our facility feels more like a home away from home than a clinic. While at Resurgence Behavioral Health, you can focus on yourself and your sobriety. If you are ready to take the next step, call Resurgence Behavioral Health at 855-458-0050 or contact us online. We’re ready to help.
