Addiction can damage every aspect of a person’s life – their physical health, mental health, relationships, and the way they perceive themselves and their place in the world. Holistic therapy complements medication-assisted treatment and more traditional addiction counseling to heal the mind, body and spirit.
A holistic approach includes therapeutic activities that improve health, promote relaxation, provide stress relief and help instill a sense of connectivity to others and to the beauty of the world. At Positive Sobriety Institute, we believe holistic therapies are vital to healing. We incorporate several into our drug and alcohol rehab programs.
Complementary Holistic Therapies, alcohol help
Spiritual Care
It has been said that addiction is a “spiritual disease.” For many people, addiction brings on a crisis of faith. For some, that may be experienced as a shattering of their belief in a higher power or a loss of a connection to a house of worship that once held deep meaning for them. For others, the crisis of faith is a loss of the feeling that life is worth living, or an inability to really see and feel the beauty of nature. Spirituality means something different to each person, but it is enormously important to many people. During the recovery process, we help individuals reconnect with their spirituality and recover a sense of peace and purpose.
Yoga and Meditation
In yoga, stretching, breathing and meditation relax the body and calm the mind. Yoga helps people feel better physically, through moving and stretching muscles and ligaments that perhaps haven’t been used in a long time. But the practice of yoga in addiction treatment isn’t focused as much on exercise as on healing. Yoga helps people learn to regard themselves with compassion. Yoga helps with being present in the moment, instead of dwelling on shame and regret.
Binaural Beats
Binaural beats is a form of therapy known as “brainwave entrainment” that studies suggest may lift the mood and reduce feelings of stress and anxiety. Binaural beats involve listening to a different tone in each ear via headphones. The brain processes the two tones as a single, new tone that wouldn’t normally be heard. For example, if you wanted to tune your brain to a 7 Hz frequency, you could play 200 Hz in your right ear, and 207 Hz in your left ear. The brain will compensate for the difference between the two and produce a third tone at 7 Hz. The particular frequency chosen can be used to create the brainwave patterns that occur when people are meditating, or to induce a brain state conducive to relaxation.
