People working through addiction recovery face significant
challenges when it comes to avoiding relapse. Major life changes are needed in
order to maintain sobriety, and this requires shifts in both your thinking and
your actions. Many people find that activities like yoga, meditation, and
swimming can provide valuable mindset changes that can be quite beneficial in
recovery.
Boost your mental and physical health to stay strong during recovery
Succeeding in recovery requires that you leave bad habits and connections
behind and create new habits that support your sobriety. Avoiding relapse takes
strength on multiple fronts, and finding the right activities to support your
efforts is vital to your success.
To keep yourself busy in healthy ways, you need to find
activities that help you deal with stress and manage your emotions. Many people
find that meditation, yoga, and swimming are particularly good recovery hobbies, especially since they are
adaptable to people of all ability levels. These activities can not only
improve your physical fitness, but they improve your mental health, too.
Yoga changes your brain for the better
Yoga accomplishes a great deal for both your mental and
physical wellness. Uplift explains that meditation and yoga promote positive
structural changes in your brain and these can help you stay strong in your recovery.
Specifically, yoga enhances the cerebral cortex that is key in thought,
awareness, and attention, as well as parts of the brain that regulate mind-body
awareness and emotion.
Yoga can shift you from the sympathetic nervous system in your brain to
the parasympathetic nervous system, meaning that you feel more relaxed, less
anxious, and you move away from a place of fight-or-flight. It also reduces
your cortisol levels, the stress hormone that can cause mental distress as well
as physical illness.
Simple meditation techniques can provide big benefits
Many people also find that meditation is essential in staying
sober and avoiding a relapse. Meditation helps you quiet your thoughts and is a
valuable way to manage stress. Those who practice meditation work on focusing
on the moment rather than looking forward or backward, and this practice of
mindfulness tends to reduce anxiety, negative thoughts, and depression.
Meditation does not require a substantial time commitment to
produce benefits as just 10 minutes a day can have a substantial impact on your
wellbeing. Gaiam shares some basic meditation techniques that focus on simply
breathing, walking, or using a mantra, and some people even utilize
applications for their smartphones to guide them as they learn meditation.
Swimming boosts your wellbeing too
Some people working through recovery turn to swimming as an
activity that helps them build their mental strength. The CDC explains that swimming has been shown to decrease issues
with depression and anxiety while improving one's mood. Swimming can improve
one's quality of sleep and it can also help boost your focus, clarity, and memory.
The journey of addiction recovery is a complicated one, and
significant life changes are needed in order to avoid a relapse. It is
essential that you find ways to cope with the ups and downs of life as you move
forward in your sobriety, and embracing activities such as meditation, yoga,
and swimming provide big benefits in this respect.
Author: David Wilcox
[Image via Pixabay]
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