How Meditation Can Improve Well-Being and Sobriety

When striving to live a healthy, fulfilling life it is vital to establish habits which improve both your physical and mental health. Exercise is a great way to stay physically healthy, with secondary benefits for mental health. Meditation on the other hand, has significant mental health benefits with some secondary physical benefits. 

Think of meditation as a workout for your mind.

Meditation for Well-Being

For those looking to make positive, actionable changes to their lives, daily meditation can improve your mental health. Meditation and mindfulness practices have shown to help:

• Slow the cognitive effects of aging
• Increase the ability to process information
• Improve immune system functioning
• Improve sleep
• Reduce physical pain

Along with these specific benefits, meditation can also improve and prevent mental health disorders like anxiety and depression. 

While these benefits are seen in the general population, meditation has significant positive impacts on substance abusers – especially those with a co-occurring mental health issue. If you’ve found yourself inclined toward overindulgence, meditation can be the difference between a healthy lifestyle and becoming addicted.

Meditation and Addiction Treatment

Meditation and mindfulness exercises are being used more often in substance abuse treatment due to the positive impacts it can have on mental health and sobriety outcomes. Oftentimes, mental health disorders and past trauma act as a contributing factor for addiction problems. By working to solve these underlying mental health problems through dual diagnosis treatment, clients can confront their addiction at the source and truly achieve long-term sobriety.

The Hope House, inpatient rehab in Arizona, uses mindfulness treatment programs to help clients. Whether a client is dealing with alcoholism or opioid addiction, mindfulness-based exercises can prove to be a valuable relapse prevention technique for clients working toward long-term sobriety.

Whether you are dealing with an addiction issue, professional stress, or just want to improve your well-being, meditation can help.

3 Common Meditation Practices

When it comes to meditation, there are numerous different ways to practice — all are viable. There are 3 common types with the most prove benefits: 

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction – Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was developed in 1979 and is an 8-week program fully dedicated to reducing stress. During these sessions, clients become familiar with and identify behavior and thought patterns which lead them to increased stress. Through the help of a teacher, clients learn how to react when presented with these problems and implement them in their day-to-day lives.

Transcendental Meditation – Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a done for about 20 minutes twice a day. It is normally done in a seated position with the participant’s eyes closed. During this form of meditation, clients allow their minds to focus inward while outside thoughts and distractions are cast away, not allowing them to interfere.

Mindfulness Breathing – Mindfulness breathing is one of the best entry exercises for someone looking to get started. To begin, get in a comfortable position seated or lying down. From there, focus on your breath, paying complete attention to your inhales and exhales. After this, you can move focus to your body – imagining your breath traveling from the tips of your toes to the top of your head. This exercise helps identify stress points in your body and works to release them through breathing.

Overall, meditation can do wonders for anyone who is trying to improve themselves. It can lead to drastic positive changes for physical and mental health and may even help them overcome more difficult problems such as depression, anxiety, and substance abuse.

About the Author

Joe Gilmore works for The Hope House, a luxury addiction rehab in Scottsdale, AZ dedicated to providing clients with the highest form of care during their stay.