Tag Archives: Holistic health

Benefits of Yoga For Men and Sobriety

Drug addiction may be difficult to get through, as the decision to stop using drugs once addiction has developed is unnerving to make. Successfully overcoming any dependency on an addictive substance takes time, energy, and enough patience. The risk of relapse can be high if a person doesn’t gain enough education about staying sober after detox, relapse prevention coping skills, and helpful sober mentoring programs. While many individuals report having less intense cravings as sobriety continues, there will be times when the body remembers the drugs it once received and will carve more.  These cravings can cause a disturbing relapse if there is not a proper plan set in place to handle them at any notice. While this doesn’t mean that the person is a failure or that their long time participating in rehab was a waste.  It simply means that the symptoms of their disease have reappeared at the time and tweaks need to be made to their treatment model.

The best way to stop relapses from happening is practicing holistic medicine by diving into activities that positively strengthen the relationship between the body and mind. Instead of just conforming to what traditional rehab programs offer, holistic medicine considers what you specifically need to get better. One method of ensuring that you can learn how to control the gray area in sobriety and regain your control is by training in programs like yoga and meditation.

Learning about the many benefits of yoga for men may help those experiencing symptoms of relapse and need help to stay sober. Many professional sports teams, pro athletes, and other prominent male figures are incorporating yoga into their daily routines and have found success!

The Physical Improvement

When you learn about yoga, you are learning a lot about connecting mentally to your body, your mood, and your overall spirit at the same time. This treatment is an incredibly positive and calming technique to alleviate or discourage the risk of relapsing, and provide addiction and depression help. Some of the most important benefits of doing yoga include an improved ability to breathe, lowered blood pressure throughout the day, deeper feelings of relaxation, and boosted athleticism in muscles. For men, they can especially benefit from the improved flexibility that yoga provides along with more consistent sleep patterns each night. Yoga movements stretch the muscles and other soft tissues in the body, releasing any types of lactic acids that can build up in the joints and normally cause stiffness and fatigue.

The Mental Benefit

Strong relapse prevention coping skills are best practiced with a strong mind to match. Along with helping the body improve, yoga relaxes your racing mind and levels of stress throughout the day that can come from staying sober. Any headaches or migraines that you may have once experienced can be eased as you learn to master different yoga movements over time. Doing yoga helps to keep anxiety hormones down to a minimum and boost mood improving chemicals instead. Since yoga primarily focuses on clearing the mind, men who often have struggled with attention problems can easily see an improvement on caging their monkey thoughts throughout the day as well. Most importantly, yoga helps a person rebuild their intrinsic sense of self confidence as they attain a new level of fitness. This builds an unshakable foundation for a person to stay sober after detox and shy away from people in their lives who may not approve of their new and improved lifestyle.

An Aid to Healing

Men practicing yoga often report feeling strong and empowered after each yoga session. No matter what someone’s religious or spiritual beliefs are, they can easily intertwine the yoga philosophy into their lives for a better mindset on life. The philosophy is focused on emptying the mind of intrusive thoughts and finding a true balance within the nervous system. Even if you’re not the most experienced, don’t be afraid to try out a couple of yoga poses yourself to see how you feel. Remember to start the process slowly and safely, accept your limits, and think positive thoughts as you begin to strengthen your body. When combined with a sober mentoring program, healing is done effectively and in an organic manner so results are developed in the long term.

The Bottom Line

Often men who have become addicted to drugs or alcohol are escaping their own kind of pain, whether it is physical or emotional. However, having healthy alternatives like yoga and meditationhelp to ease the discomfort of the initial pain or trauma that led them to abuse substances in the first place, and create a real and lasting impact for a successful rehabilitation.

Men who actively participate in the exercise as an alternative medicine find that it helps reconnects them with their body, reintroduces them to a more healthy and natural mindset, lowers their anxiety levels, and provides them a strong sensation of inner peace and satisfaction. Although addictions can have a way of stealing everything you have in life, you can take action by not allowing yourself to go to ruin. Take the time to learn how to regain control of your present and move towards a stronger, positive, and motivated future!

 

 

 

Holistic Recovery and Alternative Treatment

Holistic addition treatment is marked as an efficient method to treat substance abuse as it weaves together integrative medicines to boost a client’s physical well-being, emotional levels, and prevent relapses in the future. In many cases, depending on a prescribed medication from doctors can hide more serious addiction symptoms which hurts a person’s through recovery in the long term. The point of alternative treatment, and especially holistic recovery, is for a person to start from within and break away from using foreign chemicals in the form of medications, They focus on bettering their exercise habits, dive into meditation, improve their nutritional diet, and strengthen their spirituality. For example, starting a routine of doing aromatherapy, music therapy, and joining a local sports group would be advised as a perfect mix of holistic recovery methods. When combined, these activities energize the mind, body, and soul for true healing that will last a long time.

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How Can You Start Holistic Recovery

The first step to practicing holistic recovery is setting a consistent time throughout the day to practice the act of mindfulness. This involves reflecting on your thoughts and feelings for a few minutes every day and focus on your body right there in the present moment. Treating yourself with care and taking a short break can help lower stress levels that may be built up and strengthen the bond you have with changes occurring within your body. Another great method for mindfulness is by tapping into yoga or dance, as it combines the physical body and directions from the mind to transport strength and develop flexibility as an exercise. Yoga also helps a person to build more internal discipline and strength as well.  Each yoga session a person undertakes involves having an intense focus on inhales, exhales, and being more concentrated on various aspects of the body that are pushed throughout each position.

Practicing your breathing can also increase your levels of energy, lower stress, and develop a better sense of clarity. Introducing more exercise is also extremely beneficial to holistic recovery, whether it’s running, tennis, or even basketball. Training in sessions with others and competing together helps build rapport to keep you accountable. You will sense that you are developing a stronger sense of confidence as you are consistently improving as well.

Holistic Benefits

Putting together multiple approaches in the idea of holistic recovery is backed up by various researchers who have observed its effects in long term studies. One study published in Complementary Therapies in Medicine in 2013 found the result that participating in yoga and mindfulness-based meditation during addiction recovery for drugs and alcohol made a huge difference with patients who can become much less vunerable to relapses. Two years later, in 2015, a report published in the Australian Journal of Primary Health also supported that there is a powerful link with mental and physical health. These support the many benefits associated with holistic treatment as it plays a role on whether a client will gain long-term sobriety.

Holistic therapy is also extremely easy to plug into as it doesn’t involve uncomfortable hospital tests, countless pills, and intense therapy sessions to get negative feelings out of the mind. Relying on medication, while based in science, may provide a powerful psychological or physical dependency which is difficult to break away from over time. That is why many people opt for holistic therapies instead. People are also more comfortable where fun activites like running therapy or yoga classes are widespread and accessible in their local community. Along the lines of the holistic recovery method of treating the mind, body and soul, these programs encourage their clients to learn new skills and use them as a building block of their long-term recovery. If a patient is willing to take the time to consider their overall health, they can pay attention to more details like their breathing, hydration, and food that together build a stronger and more disciplined body. Throughout the entire process of holistic treatment, each client is the tooled with a variety of relapse-prevention skills which they can put to good use even after they complete their recovery program.

Becoming Well

If you feel that you can identify as a patient who is struggling to overcome your substance addiction, consider the holistic therapy approach for a more effective recovery. The perfect way to learn more about holistic recovery and traditional addiction treatment is to speak with experts. Find a rehabilitation center that understands the importance of catering to each person’s specific needs and are enthusiastic to discuss their various methods.

 

 

 

Teen Mental Health

These days, the dialogue about mental diseases like anorexia, depression, and addiction among teens has been brought up more than ever before thanks to school education programs, awareness conferences, and the movies and shows developed from the mainstream media. Television series like the new “13 Reasons Why” is a prime example of what factored into this resurgence, as it depicts a teenager who struggles with depression from her environment and being angry at her peers. While it’s based on a fake story line, the issues it shows are extremely realistic since many kids go through social pressure, stress from school, and adapting to puberty. Studies show that at least one of every eight teens in the U.S. are diagnosed with depression, which is shocking. That means that out of a normal sized class of 32 students a high school, 4 of those students will be going through depression at the time. Depression can build up to a boiling point for many reasons, but it’s a given that adequate treatment is crucial for the health and safety of someone if they have it.

Forming Depression

Depression can be caused for a great deal of reasons, from feeling extremely insecure compared to others, experiencing emotional or physical abuse from a friend or parent, feeling consistently hopeless, or not being accepted by the people around you. For a teen, being teased in school or flunking tests, feeling left out from friends, and being extremely dissatisfied with their body, social status, etc. all play a role. With these events bringing constant stress, depression can develop and spiral into an abyss of negative emotions and idleness for an individual.  

Spotting someone with depression may be difficult, but it’s generally agreed that a change in personality and behavior will be apparent. Look out for red flags like seeing someone being less interested in activities they once enjoyed, sleeping a lot more, eating a lot more or less, and not being able to focus at school or at tasks. They could also have bad memory, underperformance, or may even turn to addictive substances to get through the pain. That’s definitely a dangerous plan and could lead to much more harmful consequences in the future.

Getting through Depression

There’s a lot of professionals who can help a teen with their profession. Spending time with them to hear their fears, stress, and hopes will help you gain their trust to pursue help and hopefully start a rehab program. Make sure to let know that their emotions are okay to experience, but their idleness and reluctance to change at the moment is not. After some time, you can move on to approaching the topic of seeking therapy and telling them that it will be a positive impact to their health and future years.

Receiving Treatment

It all comes down to what their lifestyle and personality is like to choose what therapy will work best. However, helping them acknowledge the problem is the most important step so they can take action on it. If they are extremely stubborn at this stage, you may even have to resort to taking a medical test which shows concrete proof of depression being active. One example is doing a blood test to identify genetic markers associated with depression. With the test’s help, doctors can get to the cause of their problem way quicker and reach a much quicker diagnosis as well. From there, they can recommend what type of therapy to take and changes they can make to their sleeping habits, nutrition, and physical activity to aid the process.

Persistence is Key

Depression is a great mountain to climb, but with a team of help and dedication to getting better it can be tackled. Instead of taking no action or turning to unhealthy addictions to cope, asking for help will bring quicker results and better health overall. Combined with using holistic therapy that includes aromatherapy, massage therapy, meditation, better nutrition, and more exercise, awareness of the body can be increased so the person can prevent spiraling into the illness again in the future.

My personal experiences with decreasing anxiety and living in the present moment

Feeling contemplative today

As a young adult who is attending college, life can be rather hectic as you move from day to day with no breaks. School work can pile up and before you know it, you’re swamped with assignments and exam pressure with no time to yourself. I know this from past experiences and having the same issues many other college students face, the question of what truly is important in this time, and if you don’t give yourself a chance each day to answer that question then you could find yourself slipping into an unhealthy place.

There are days where I am so busy I don’t even allow one thought into my brain that isn’t focused on the task at hand or jumping to the task ahead thinking about what I need to do. This is a very stressful way to live from day to day and can eventually lead to a negative outcome for many college students. They seek a way to escape the present moment that they are in instead of truly cherishing it for what it is and connecting their senses with the world around them. This can lead to different types of substance abuse, ranging from alcoholism to the use of hard drugs and many more. This is definitely not the right answer to dealing with college stress and there are many other positive ways to cope wit these pressures.

High Cost of Healthcare

To help cope with anxiety there are some techniques you can practice to become more mindful in your day to day life.

One relaxation technique to handle stress is awareness meditation. This means you sit or stand still in a place that is comfortable and safe for you, and allow your most and mind to relax and almost go numb. This is a way to get in touch with the senses of your body and tap into having present moment awareness, it is almost like you are hitting the reset button during the day and giving yourself a chance to relax and ease the anxiety. Having time like this is a necessity through college life, personally I used to become way too caught up in exam pressures and never gave myself a chance to zone out and feel each emotion strongly, if you are stressed let it pass through your body and be ok with it, when this sensation passes during the meditation process you come out of it in a much more relaxed state. This is a way to detox the body of negative emotions instead of masking them with the mind-numbing use of substances. It is good for your overall physical, emotional and spiritual health.

Another method I use personally to cope with some of the college pressures is exercise. If your stressed go to the gym and get a good workout in and sweat. Working out releases endorphins which can release tension and overall anxiety. Not only this, it also improves your confidence and gives you belief in yourself that you can handle whatever is on your plate. Many times I have done this before studying for a large exam and my mental state has good clarity and I feel confident in my ability. Therefore I seek the present moment and the challenges it brings, instead of trying to shy away from them and finding a coping method to hide them.

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Being mindful in our day to day lives is key to our overall happiness. Don’t let any sort of stresses push you to the point where your anxiety is almost unbearable. Take time out of your day to reflect and reset and focus on what truly matters in the present moment.