Does Breathwork Help for Addiction and Alcoholism?
Does Breathwork Help for Addiction and Alcoholism?
About 33% of humans experience extreme stress in their lifetime. Stress comes in all forms, and the average American seeks multiple different outlets to help cope with their stress. It can be exercise, sleeping, cleaning, or any other little activity to try and keep their mind busy. Studies show that there’s a wide variety of Americans who turn to drugs and alcohol to try and cope with their stress, and find themselves addicted, leaving them in such a state of helplessness, and having a hard time finding their way out. Drugs are not to blame for this, as there are many people who safely consume drugs without any fallout. It is a systemic issue.
10% of Americans have used drugs in their lifetime. According to the National Institute of Health George F. Koob, Ph.D., NIAAA director had stated that, “more than 23 million Americans in the US have struggled with problematic drug use.” The National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics highlights that, “1 in 10 Americans over the age of 12 have alcohol use disorder, and about 141 thousand Americans die from the effects of alcohol in an average year.”
Drugs and alcohol can become problematic quickly. Losing your life, losing yourself, or even loved ones due to addiction is not the life anyone intends on having. Stress can really take a huge toll on humans. Amongst all of the non-drug or alcohol related outlets, breathwork techniques have been making a huge appearance to help better cope with the effects of addiction.
So, does breathwork help for addiction and alcohol? Yes, it does. Here’s a few ways breathwork can help with addiction treatment:
Improve awareness
Help find a connection with your body
Help stabilize your emotions
Help improve spiritual, physical, and mental health
Helps with trauma recovery
Reduces anxiety and depression
Allows for joy and pleasure to be felt without the use of substances
Breathwork Improves Awareness
People who struggle with addiction can become unaware of their surroundings because they are not in the right state of mind due to the drugs and or alcohol impairing their judgment. Alcohol affects the parietal lobe, which is the area that processes our sensory information, and also stresses the cerebral cortex part of our brain, which is what processes all of our information.
Breathwork techniques can help you focus on your breathing, allowing you to access the social engagement system and like meditation, allows for a more healthy way to process emotions. Breathwork for addiction has been known to help people who are battling addiction focus more on the reality of their issues in order to better deal with them.
Help find a connection with your body
People who struggle with addiction can also struggle with finding themselves. They often feel lost and alone. Those who struggle with addiction start to see themselves as useless and unworthy causing them to push further and further away from their true selves.
Breathwork allows connection to the social engagement system which allows for deeper connection to others as well as oneself. Connection is an integral part of the recovery process. People who struggle with addiction often use substances to cope with a deep pain, and disconnect themselves from their bodies via the use of these substances. Breathwork allows you to connect to your body and work through the underlying issues of addiction and alcoholism.
Help stabilize your emotions
Addiction has the power to affect the limbic system section of your brain, which is the area that processes all of your emotions. This is why when someone is under the influence of drugs or alcohol you tend to notice them express their emotions strongly, whether it be through anger or sadness. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse mood swings are a result of how the drugs and alcohol impact the brain.
Breathwork for addiction has helped many people stabilize their emotions. Practicing breathwork techniques allows you to process subconscious feelings and ultimately relax your body. Breathwork can help quiet down those negative thoughts you’ve built up while under the influence and can help bring your emotions back to life.
Help improve spiritual, physical, and mental health
A person who struggles with addiction tends to experience tremendous changes in their spiritual, physical, and mental health.
Spiritually, they lose themselves to a point where they’re left believing that they no longer are worthy of freedom, no longer worthy of recovery, love, and happiness.
Physically, the impacts of drug and alcohol disorders are vast, not least of all the risk of overdose, or alcohol poisoning.
Mental heal issues are at the root of addiction for many people. Breathwork has been proven to help with a wide variety of mental heal issues.
Breathwork has helped many people who struggle with addiction improve their spiritual, physical, and mental health. Breathwork techniques allow you to quiet your mind and calm your body. It allows you to focus on your breathing and relax while reducing pain. It helps bring you back to a comfortable and enjoyable state of mind.
Helps with trauma recovery
Breathwork allows for improved autonomic nervous system function, allowing for quicker regulation once triggered. It allows a space where traumatic experiences can be processed safely, as long as the practitioner is trauma-focused.
Reduces anxiety and depression
According to Dr. Gerbarg, breathwork, studies have shown that voluntarily regulated breathing practices (VRBPs) can significantly improve symptoms of anxiety disorders, trauma- and stressor-related disorders, depressive disorders, and other conditions.
Allows for joy and pleasure to be felt without the use of substances
Our biggest goal when working with clients is to help them experience joy and pleasure. Trauma robs us of our ability to experience pleasure and joy, and breathwork is one of the quickest pathways to both of these experiences we have found.
In Conclusion
Breathwork has been known to help with addiction recovery. Many people who suffer from addiction due to trauma and mental heal issues are now practicing breathwork for addiction techniques to better cope with their stress and depression from the trauma of addiction. Studies have shown that breathwork has improved their mental, physical, and spiritual health while allowing them to focus on finding their true self.
Drugs and alcohol have become a major outlet for people who experience high levels of trauma and pain. More and more people turn to alcohol and drugs as a coping mechanism. Addiction creates an emptiness and disconnection. Most people who struggle with addiction actually seek a way out, but have absolutely no clue how to reach the proper resources, because our leaders are not committed to alleviating the problem they are complicit in creating.
Breathwork for addiction has become more and more popular for those who struggle with finding their way out of that hole and finding positive ways to help them reach freedom and maintain recovery. We’re all human, and we all have our struggles, and breathwork is a positive practice that can actually change someone’s life. Addiction is a battle and breathwork is a great tool in the fight.
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