The mind-body connection is becoming more recognized among society and medical professionals. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), recovery that entails a holistic approach honoring the mind-body connection is vital. At Laguna Shores Recovery, our treatment programs integrate a holistic, effective approach tailored to each client entering our facility.
What Is the Mind-Body Connection?
The mind-body connection is the relationship between mental, physical, emotional, behavioral, and spiritual health. For example, if an individual has been through a season of constant stress over finances, a relationship, or work, this stress may also present in their body as muscle tension, headaches, and stomach problems. In the case of a physical illness, the pain may also be causing feelings of depression, sadness, anxiety, and stress. In essence, how we feel impacts how we think; similarly, how we think influences how we feel.
With the case of addiction and mental illness, the mind-body connection is apparent in how drug and alcohol use makes you feel after consumption compared to how you may feel when you are not using them. At Laguna Shores Recovery, this interconnectedness is a core concept that we believe is essential for addiction treatment programs and mental health; therefore, approaching recovery and healing in holistic and individualized ways is critical to your well-being and lasting recovery.
A Holistic Approach to Recovery
Holistic approaches to treatment programs incorporate various types of therapies, classes, and interventions that encompass and support clients as multi-dimensional while treating the whole person. Recovery is not uniform for everyone, so treatment plans should also be different per person as well. The journey to recovery is not linear, and treatment is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
Treatment Therapies Used to Address the Mind-Body Connection
Holistic approaches to recovery integrate several different kinds of therapy to support all areas of life. Although it looks different for everyone, a holistic approach to healing may look like incorporating talk therapy into your treatment plan as well as experiential therapies such as yoga or art therapy.
At Laguna Shores, we provide a variety of holistic, evidence-based therapies:
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
One of the most common types of talk therapies used in addiction recovery is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which pinpoints unhealthy thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate the cycle of addiction and relapse. Cognitive-behavioral therapy honors the mind-body connection by bringing awareness — through identification and alternative coping skills — to how thoughts influence emotions and how emotions consequently influence actions.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) helps develop emotional coping skills that improve relationships. This therapy reveals how a lack of essential coping skills leads to emotional distress and troublesome or impulsive behaviors. In DBT, clients learn how to correct the behaviors for a lasting recovery.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) helps open the mind to being more flexible. This therapy teaches empowerment through choices that align with an individual’s ethics, values, and goals. Only through unlearning past misbeliefs and behaviors while accepting present circumstances, an individual can cultivate peace.
Family Therapy
Family — whether biological or chosen — can be the most significant source of social connection in life. It can also be the polar opposite, leading a person to relapse. Family therapy helps individuals identify their own destructive thoughts and behaviors and restores trust with family members, especially throughout recovery.
Psychoeducational Life Skills Classes
One of the most powerful ways to create change in life is through psychoeducational classes. These classes help build essential life skills that may feel overwhelming or confusing at first, such as balancing a checkbook, learning how to change a tire, applying for a credit card, and how to cook your favorite meals.
Art therapy
Art therapy consists of making, viewing, and talking about art. It helps with expressing uncomfortable emotions and relating to life experiences in different ways. Not only does it generate greater self-awareness, but it increases communication skills.
Music therapy
Music therapy helps with processing difficult emotions and experiences. It can generate feelings of belonging, heal core emotional wounds, and create a sense of empowerment. This type of therapy involves listening to, moving to, and creating music.
Yoga
Yoga is a practice deeply rooted in the mind-body connection. Combining controlled breathing and physical poses cultivates physical and mental flexibility, strength, harmony, and balance. Yoga fosters deep emotional, spiritual, and physical healing through increasing positive feelings and self-awareness.
Meditation
Mindfulness lowers stress levels, and meditation encourages mindfulness. Meditation not only reduces stress, anxiety, and depression but can also change the way your body responds to external events with heightened calmness, self-awareness, and ease.
Biofeedback
Stress can be a trigger for relapse in recovery, and biofeedback aims to resolve this. Through biofeedback, clients learn to lower their stress levels in moments stress begins building. In these sessions, the body learns to change how it responds to stress through self-regulation and relaxation techniques.
Adventure Therapy
Adventure therapy is a hands-on, immersive, and interactive form of therapy involving outdoor adventures like hiking, climbing, camping, and canoeing. Being in nature is therapeutic in itself for many people; activities practiced in adventure therapy can increase the ability to solve programs, self-regulate, and build trust in yourself and others.
Every individual is multi-faceted, as is each individual’s recovery from addiction and mental health disorders. At Laguna Shores Recovery, we treat the whole person and guide each client through a holistic treatment plan that supports growth and goals. To learn more, call us today at 866-934-5276.
