How Yoga Can Affect Addiction Recovery

Getting treatment for addiction and mental health requires you to make healthy changes to your lifestyle. Treatment is all-encompassing and helps you understand what it means to live healthily in sobriety. Living a healthy lifestyle means committing to practices that will help you cope with difficult emotions and situations that may happen after you leave treatment. For instance, the practice of yoga can be an effective way of focusing your body and mind with meaningful movements and breathwork. West Coast Recovery Centers understands how yoga can make a positive difference in addiction recovery, and offers different yoga classes and practices to encourage our clients to make these changes.

Yoga is an ancient practice that can significantly improve health. While it is a physical exercise that strengthens your body and expands your breathing, it also promotes mental and emotional benefits. Understanding how yoga can enhance addiction recovery is integral to holistic care that aims to heal the whole person. All treatments and therapies should teach you skills that help you cope and stay healthy. These coping skills and habits will make a difference in your addiction recovery.

What Is Yoga?

Some people think of yoga as just a form of exercise done in group classes. Yet, yoga is an ancient mindfulness practice that originated in India. Today, it is practiced worldwide. While yoga started as a spiritual practice rooted in Indian philosophy, modern-day yoga has expanded to meet a variety of diverse needs. Yoga usually consists of postures, poses, and breathing techniques. These poses are done in sequences as you practice breathing and center your mind. 

Yoga is a form of meditative mindfulness, focusing the mind on breathing and different movements. As you are guided into different poses and postures, you focus your mind as you move meaningfully. This focusing of your mind on the present moment is an integral part of learning to calm and steady your thoughts. Thus, yoga is beneficial not only for your body but also for your mind. Understanding how yoga can be beneficial to mental health care and addiction recovery can help those in treatment harness new techniques to improve their overall well-being. 

Benefits of Yoga

Yoga has many benefits for both physical and mental health. For instance, the movements of yoga are relaxing for your body, and as you turn inward, your heart rate and blood pressure will slow. Yoga can also help with coordination and concentration, as you move your body in designated movements. These elements can improve your flexibility and mental concentration. 

Repeated movements in yoga can help your mind decompress. These concentrated movements can help focus and still the mind from distressing thoughts. Yoga can also help with physical pain, as many movements or poses help the body stretch and extend itself. These movements can also aid the body in digestion and help you relax. 

The mental benefits of yoga include getting better sleep, relieving stress, and improving mindfulness. Mental health improves when you have healthy coping skills to rely on when things get hard. Coping skills mean focusing on ways to improve your health and your mind when you feel a craving or experience a trigger. Healthy coping skills and healthy activities help our clients stay sober.

How Yoga and Mindfulness Work for Recovery

At West Coast Recovery Centers, we aim to provide high-level care for all of our clients. This means creating treatment plans that work to meet our clients where they are. Our clinical approach allows us to have both holistic and traditional treatment options for our clients. If a client is more in tune with their body and fitness, we can integrate yoga into their treatment to help them connect their mind to healing. Different types of treatment may work better for each client. Those who are interested in fostering a deeper mind-body connection may discover yoga to be an effective treatment option. 

Mindfulness is integral in many different mental health practices. Addiction and mental health struggles cause people to spiral in their thoughts and engage in self-destructive behaviors. Using mindfulness in a treatment environment teaches clients how to restore safety and peace in their minds. Mindfulness is sitting with your thoughts without judgment or action. Long-term practicing of mindfulness allows people to gain better control of their thoughts. This will help in treatment for addiction and mental health therapy. 

When someone struggles with addiction, it can feel like they are out of control. Treatment at times can feel very overwhelming. As we integrate yoga into treatment, it helps our clients use their body and mind to achieve stillness. This gives the control back to them as they work through these difficult emotions. We aim to make our client's treatments catered to their specific needs. This allows our clients to make changes that keep them healthy and keep them in recovery. 

Yoga is an ancient practice that has been around for hundreds of years. Initially developed as a spiritual and philosophical practice, yoga now serves as a powerful tool for mindfulness and well-being in people. Yoga forces you to use your body and mind as you work through poses, repetitions, and guided breathing. This builds the skill of mindfulness, which grows your ability to work through stressors. As you gain control of centering your thoughts, you can make positive differences in your mental health care. If you are interested in learning more about the physical and mental benefits of yoga, we can help. Call West Coast Recovery Centers today at (760) 492-6509 to learn more.