Recovery from addiction is a lifelong process that can be made more accessible by incorporating regular exercise into your daily routine. Yoga is a great way to stay active and connect with your body and mind, especially when incorporated into an outpatient treatment regimen. With mindfulness, yoga helps people focus on their breathwork, which can help them remove negative thoughts or stressors that may trigger drug cravings. By creating structure in your day through attending regular classes or simply doing yoga at home, you are making an opportunity for yourself to practice being present in each moment so that you don’t feel overwhelmed by triggers during outpatient treatment.
What Is Yoga?
Yoga is a supplemental or adjunct health activity frequently seen as a natural remedy and does not replace traditional treatment. However, yoga is beneficial when combined with conventional outpatient treatment techniques. Yoga is used in treating substance use disorder (SUD) and during recovery to help avoid relapse and ease withdrawal symptoms and cravings.
Yoga and Mindfulness
Yoga and mindfulness are great ways to improve health, mentally and physically. It can help you connect with your thoughts and feelings, be in the present moment, and create structure and routine. Yoga is not just about stretching or exercise; it’s a form of mindfulness that can help sync the mind and body. Mindfulness is about being aware without judgment or criticism, thus allowing yourself to experience each moment without trying to change it.
When you’re mindful, you can focus on what’s happening around you instead of what you perceive as going wrong inside your head. You can learn more about this through yoga classes or practicing at home when doing simple poses when you become more mindful of the things around you instead of stressing over ideas of a future that may or may not happen. It is an especially helpful practice to help reduce anxiety and promote mental clarity when approaching stressful activities in outpatient treatment.
Being mindful both before and after receiving addiction treatment has many positive effects. Many overlook that addiction affects both the body and the psyche. For long-term sobriety, having a strong mindset and motivation can occasionally mean the world.
Mind-Body Connection
Another benefit of yoga is that it can help you learn to focus on the body, breath, and mind. This skill is an essential part of recovery because it helps people:
- Focus on the present moment
- Take care of themselves
- Relax their bodies and minds
- Get rid of negative thoughts and feelings
The mind and body share a connection. Most people don’t feel worse after doing yoga. That’s because practicing yoga alters the chemistry of the body. By releasing tension in such locations, you help the energy of life flow. This makes you feel better, and when you feel better, your mind is relaxed.
The mind-body connection plays such a key role in outpatient treatment. It includes a whole-person perspective to comprehend each person’s issues and what they require for overall wellness. Incorporating yoga into your treatment program and connecting your mind and body will help you stay calm and focused. It will help you stay connected to your purpose and stay focused and relaxed as you work toward recovery.
Being Present
Yoga allows people in recovery to practice being in the present moment. Yoga is another form of meditation that allows you to move your body at will. This can help improve the quality of your sleep, which will help you feel more energized during the day. Yoga also teaches people to be mindful and aware of their thoughts or feelings. It’s important for people in recovery because they need to learn to be mindful so they don’t relapse into addiction again. It will also help you identify triggers that occur because of a certain thought or occurrence. This is vital to being able to identify and overcome triggers.
Structure and Routine
A regular yoga class helps create structure and routine. It can be a great way to add structure to your day, which is important when you’re in outpatient treatment. Yoga classes are often held at the same time each week, allowing you to anticipate when they will happen and plan accordingly. As a bonus, it gives you something more interesting than sitting in bed all day.
Yoga can also help build a routine that includes exercise as part of your life outside of treatment. Many people find yoga an easy way to stay active even after leaving the clinic because it doesn’t require special equipment or gym memberships—just some floor space and possibly 1-2 blocks depending on the pose.
Helps Process Emotions
Yoga is a great way to manage stress, cravings, and anxiety, and it can be used as an outlet for anger management and depression. All these things can be overwhelming for someone recovering from SUD, so yoga helps them learn how to process these emotions positively rather than using drugs or alcohol.
Yoga also teaches individuals how to connect with their body through movement and breathing, which helps them understand what is going on inside their minds without needing substances to feel better about themselves or the world around them.
Yoga can be a great way to improve health, mentally and physically. The mind-body connection also allows clients in outpatient treatment to connect with their thoughts and feelings. At Excel Treatment Center, we want you to be as successful as possible in your treatment program and recovery. We utilize the benefits of yoga to allow people in treatment to practice being in the present moment while teaching them how to process emotions and cope with stressors like anxiety or depression. Regular exercise is important during recovery to help individuals stay healthy and maintain structure, and yoga is one way that can help you as part of your outpatient treatment plan. If you or someone you know is struggling to manage a mental health or substance use disorder, please reach out for help today. To learn more about our programs, call us at (833) 883-9235.
