You just took a breath as you read this. Breathing no doubt is necessary to our survival, Yet it’s also a helpful form of holistic therapy in addiction treatment, called breathwork. Used for thousands of years, breathwork therapy helps strengthen your emotional, physical, and mental wellness. Whether during treatment or well into your sobriety, breathwork is an impactful resource along your recovery journey.
Understanding Holistic Addiction Treatment
Treating drug or alcohol addiction usually involves detox, medication-assisted treatment, and traditional, evidence-based talk therapy. But to achieve lasting sobriety, recovery often requires more. This is where holistic rehab can really help you experience true, comprehensive healing.
Holistic rehab utilizes experiential therapies that go beyond, yet support, traditional methods. Focusing on healing your mind, body, and spirit, holistic rehab can be incorporated into both residential and outpatient treatment programming. You can also continue to practice what you learn in holistic rehab in your everyday life long after treatment ends. In additional to breathwork therapy, other experiential therapies incorporated into holistic rehab will include:
- Acupuncture
- Fitness and nutrition
- Mindfulness and meditation
- Outdoor therapy
- Art therapy
- Music therapy
What is Breathwork Therapy?
So what is breathwork therapy, exactly? When you participate in breathwork therapy, you engage in various intentional breathing exercises. You may hold your breath for a set moment. You may inhale deeply. Or you may take shorter, repetitive breaths. Your breathing patterns are channeled and intentionally changed to help you move past any physical, mental, or spiritual stressors or blocks. As a result, many people can achieve major breakthroughs, personal renewal, or enhanced self-awareness.
Breathwork therapy is particularly helpful for helping you re-establish the mind-body connection you likely lost due to past trauma. Because addiction is often rooted in unresolved trauma, your body is likely still trapped within an automatic fight flight freeze fawn flop trauma response. However, controlled breathing exercises in breathwork help to reactivate your parasympathetic nervous system. This releases the pent-up trauma, stress, and tension operating on autopilot in your body due to prolonged trauma.
Breathwork Techniques in Addiction Treatment
Participating in breathwork therapy will involve multiple breathing techniques. Each serving their own unique purpose, these techniques are used together to aid in the treatment journey. Common breathwork techniques in addiction treatment include:
- Holotropic breathwork: Encompassing fast-paced, circular breathing, holotropic breathwork helps you enter an altered state of consciousness. It also typically takes place in a specially prepared setting with evocative music, shares PositivePsychology.com. This equips you to finally confront buried emotions and forgotten, repressed memories.
- Somatic breathwork: Reinforcing your mind-body connection, somatic breathwork utilizes controlled rhythmic breaths to support your physical and emotional well-being.
- Deep breathing: Simple yet impactful, deep breathing with your diaphragm helps to encourage relaxation, reduce blood pressure, lower heart rate, decrease stress, and promote calm nerves.
The Benefits of Breathwork for Recovery
What makes breathwork therapy so impactful in holistic addiction rehab? It actually provides a number of well-rounded benefits for your recovery journey, such as:
Emotional Release and Self-Discovery
With breathwork therapy, you can get past your surface-level thoughts and delve deeper into past trauma that’s still troubling you. This helps to heal the underlying source of your addiction, overcome past trauma, and let go of unhealthy emotions.
Less Stress
Stress is one of the most common addiction triggers that can keep you struggling with substance abuse or lead to relapse. With that said, breathwork techniques can help you combat and reduce everyday stress. This helps you reduce your chances of succumbing to a drug or alcohol relapse when you encounter stress in the future.
Enhanced Emotional Regulation and Coping Skills
What you learn in breathwork therapy allows you to get in touch with your emotions more easily. As a result, you’re better equipped to manage your emotions in a healthy way. And when you experience triggering feelings or circumstances, these breathing techniques serve as a go-to coping mechanism to keep you grounded and reduce impulsive behavior.
Better Self-Awareness
With an improved mind-body connection, you become more aware of the physical experiences in your body and your real-time emotions. This empowers you to recognize patterns that pull you into addiction so you can change course and make healthier choices.
Improved Physical and Mental Health
Because you’re less stressed and healthier emotionally, breathwork helps you to alleviate common co-occurring disorders associated with addiction (such as anxiety or depression). At the same time, breathwork aids in lowering blood pressure, getting you better sleep, and improving your immune system. In the end, your physical health benefits, too.
Experience Holistic Addiction Recovery in New England
Breathwork therapy is just one of the many facets of holistic addiction recovery that help to heal your mind, body, and spirit. At Sana at Stowe in Stowe, Vermont, our comprehensive drug and alcohol addiction treatment programs incorporate both holistic rehab and evidence-based practices. With our help, you can experience transformational healing from addiction and be empowered to stay healthy long-term. To start your recovery, call us today.
