Yoga, an ancient system that balances the mind, body and spirit, helps to maintain physical health while centering the ever-wandering mind. Participants enjoy numerous positive benefits including relaxation, enhanced mood, increased lung capacity, and greater flexibility and strength. Each series of poses challenges muscles to lengthen, strengthen and loosen, while twisting and folding the body detoxifies the organs and increases suppleness in the joints and spine.
At the Delray Center for Recovery, we highly recommend yoga practice as an integral part of our many treatment programs, as it contributes to the relief of anxiety, depression, and stress while helping clients achieve a sense of balance and overall wellness.
Benefits of Yoga in Addiction Recovery
1. Reduce Stress and Anxiety
When an individual is in the early days of recovery, they are not only dealing with the physical stress of treating an addiction, they are also dealing with the emotions associated with making an enormous lifestyle change. This can cause stress and anxiety, which can lead to relapse and hinder their recovery efforts. Regular yoga practice can greatly reduce both stress and anxiety and has also been shown to help treat depression, which can often be an underlying issue of substance abuse.
2. Rebuild Strength
When a person is dealing with substance dependency, they can lose sight of their overall health and well-being. With the practice of yoga, an individual can start to rebuild some of their physical strength that was diminished during their period of addiction.
3. Practice Peaceful Living
Those who regularly practice yoga can attest that incorporating the traditional yogic concepts of mindfulness, peace, and acceptance into your life can significantly help your recovery process and promote an ongoing healthy lifestyle. Becoming involved with a yoga community can also help you build what is referred to as “sangha”, Sanskrit for “inseparable”, which is considered a community of fellow practitioners of yoga.
Recovery is often a long and challenging journey. By incorporating yoga into their recovery plan, individuals can recognize new tools to help relieve stress and build a sense of peace that is crucial during the healing process.