Integrative Medicine
Natural and holistic medicines have become increasingly more popular in the last few years. Integrative medicine alongside addiction treatment often results in successful recoveries. Holistic health and integrative medicine can vastly improve your life.
Integrative medicine is the practice of combining eastern and western treatments to heal the body. Eastern medicine focuses on whole-person health, whereas western medicine focuses on illness and symptoms.
Utilizing mind-body practices, natural products, and practicing holistic health are ways to apply for integrative medicine throughout addiction recovery.
Holistic and integrative medicine can contribute to successful addiction recovery and serve as a useful tool that can follow you beyond treatment.
Call us today at (888) 906-0952, and we can guide you through this process of healing and becoming sober.
Understanding Types of Integrative Medicine
You may be curious about the spiritual aspects of healing in the past.
Integrative treatment considers an individual’s health in all aspects of life, including mind, body, spirit, and community. Eastern spiritual practices use ancient techniques that have proven their value over thousands of years. People often find clarity and a sense of self through yoga and meditation techniques.
Additionally, breathing techniques and mindfulness practices help people take control of their heart rate and blood pressure. To some, this may seem impossible. However, efficient spiritual practices have withstood the test of time for a reason.
Eastern practices teach people that the body can heal itself in many ways. Western practices understand that there are illnesses that plants cannot fix. Combining the two opposites creates a happy medium of treatment that brings the best of both worlds.
The integrative treatment combines natural bodily rhythm and function in conjunction with evidence-based pharmaceuticals. This can bring someone struggling with addiction or substance use disorder (SUD) toward effective lifestyle changes, which is the key to maintaining sobriety.
The mind, body, spirit, and community of an individual play impactful roles in behavior, perspective, and environmental connections. Therefore, it is only natural to attend to all aspects of someone’s life that make them ill.
Complimentary and alternative treatment for addiction is a healthful, well-rounded approach to true rehabilitation and recovery. However, these techniques are so useful, and you might find that an addiction or substance use disorder was merely a symptom of life toxicities.
Types of Integrative Medicine
Integrative medicine is often dismissed as metaphysical nonsense. However, ancient practices such as yoga, meditation, and tai chi are still used today due to their long track record of effectiveness. Holistic health in substance abuse recovery is one of the most effective complementary and alternative treatments for addiction.
So, what are your options? There are so many to choose from:
- Meditation.
- Massage therapy.
- Music therapy.
- Aromatherapy.
Additionally, there are more intense practices such as acupuncture, mind-body practices, hypnotherapy, and biofeedback.
What is all that? Glad you asked.
Most people know about acupuncture, and the needles tend to throw people off the idea. However, testimonials claim there to be a surprisingly low level of discomfort.
Mind-body practices such as yoga, tai chi, and qi gong move and stretch the body to release endorphins, teach muscle discipline, and activate grounding techniques. The term “grounding” refers to centering yourself or finding that stillness in your mind.
Hypnotherapy is pretty much what it sounds like, which is clinical hypnosis. You are likely to have an image in your head about hypnosis, but it’s hardly as dramatic as it sounds.
Lastly, biofeedback teaches people how to take control of involuntary functions like breathing and heart rate. When you take deep breaths, you can calm yourself down. In the same manner, this teaching invites people to investigate what calming your whole self down can be like.
Each option has significant overall improvement capabilities; however, a strategy that incorporates more than one is a great avenue for self-discovery.
Find a practice that is realistic for you and give it a try. If you don’t like the one you chose, you can always try a different technique. The choice is yours, and the benefits are endless.
Holistic Health in Addiction Treatment
Holistic Health
NATURAL PRODUCTS
Using natural products is a great way to cut out any additives or preservatives in your food and items. Choosing organic foods and natural products, such as shampoos without harsh chemicals, can clean away toxins from the inside out. There is little to no evidence of the long-term effects of some of the everyday store-bought essentials we consume and apply to our bodies.
Natural products and foods are safer and healthier than most name-brand items that contain chemicals to increase shelf-life and company profit.
When available, purchasing items and food from local farmer’s markets typically provides fresh, better quality ingredients and products. Raw materials, such as honey and plant-based materials, are more cooperative with the human digestive system.
Your body will need time to get rid of the toxic waste accumulated over time, but using natural products and eating organic foods are ways to take giant steps in your addiction or substance use disorder recovery.
MIND-BODY PRACTICES
Holistic medicinal practices mean more than just eating healthy food. Holistic and integrative medicine also refers to the natural rhythm of your own body’s ability to heal. Mind-body practices such as yoga, meditation, and tai chi focus on bodily discipline and activating your healing.
Famed memory trainer Jim Kwik often repeats small and impactful phrases to solidify a fact in people’s minds. For instance, one of his sayings is, “When your body moves, your brain grooves,” which indicates that a body in motion has healthy blood flow that wakes up your brain. Knowing this, mind-body practices like yoga regulate blood flow and calm the mind to a state of clarity and silence.
Additionally, mind-body practices that transform into lifestyle changes can act as a base support structure to build a life of sobriety. Therefore, the tools you gain from practicing mind-body exercises can reshape your life outside of recovery to confidently move forward with resources and tools to help you.
Physical and Mental Integrative Practices in Addiction Treatment
In the list above, there are options for holistic and integrative medicines to choose from. To choose the right practice for you, let’s look at what each method can do for someone.
Mental Integrative Practices
- Aromatherapy: helps with emotional well-being. Essential oils such as orange, patchouli, lemongrass, and lavender have uplifting properties to heal your emotions. For example, orange essential oil is shown to bring feelings of joy, contentment, and social connection.
- Hypnotherapy: helps with subconscious thought. Clinical hypnosis can help someone uncover their addiction origin by altering the person’s conscious state. Often, patients with PTSD or deep-seated traumas require hypnosis to identify and treat the source.
- Biofeedback: helps with controlling involuntary functions. Heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing are all automatic bodily functions that can be controlled and told to slow down. This practice helps people who experience panic attacks and need the tools to calm their bodies down.
- Music therapy: helps with accomplishing goals through inspiration. Listening to certain tones or binaural beats causes specific frequencies to activate different brain parts. These binaural beats can be categorized by hertz. They can be tailored to trigger emotions such as inner power, creativity, and self-love.
Physical Integrative Practices
- Acupuncture: helps with body alignment. Acupuncturists place needles in strategic areas of the body. These areas are targeted to relieve muscle tension and trigger specific pressure points to manipulate the body to relax.
- Massage therapy: helps with physical body relaxation. Getting a massage relaxes your mind and body while loosening up joints and muscles to get better sleep, reduce anxiety, and decrease stress levels.
- Meditation: helps with depression, anxiety, pain, and stress. Mindfulness is acknowledging your presence at the moment you’re in. In this practice, you recognize your thoughts and emotions in a nonjudgmental and non-engaging manner. This allows you to show yourself acceptance and compassion as if it were toward someone else.
Integrative Tools You Can Keep Long After Treatment
Tools You Can Keep
Holistic health in substance abuse recovery is the most effective way to achieve whole-person health, not only by treating the illness.
When a pebble drops into water, the ripples extend to the rest of the body of water. Likewise, addiction does not just affect one aspect of a person’s life. It extends out to all elements, including relationships and perspectives.
Integrative treatment can help to detox all toxins from your life, not only a substance use disorder. Ridding yourself of bad habits is great, but replacing bad habits with healthy habits is the best thing a person can do for themselves.
Eventually, even the most severe addiction cases will face life outside of rehab. People who overcome addiction can find life challenging, intimidating, and may feel lost throughout this time.
Complimentary and alternative treatment for addiction can do more than heal a substance use disorder but also a person’s overall well-being. Using these new methods as a safety net outside of recovery can provide a solid foundation upon which to build your new life. Mustering the motivation to stick with a routine can be challenging, but some people need something to crave. Let this thought sink in:
Crave yourself.
That’s right, crave yourself. If a newly sober person needs to replace their addiction with something, they can become invested in their health. They can dive into self-care, healthy foods, regular showers, clean bedding, and clothes; the possibilities are endless.
Practicing these integrative treatment methods is a safe and effective way to create something to hold on to while riding along with life’s turbulence.
Trying Something New to Help You in Your Recovery
Moving Forward
Integrative medicine is the practice of combining eastern and western treatments to heal the body. Western medicines use pharmaceuticals to heal the body. In contrast, eastern medicines utilize holistic and natural methods to allow the body to heal itself.
Holistic and integrative medicine can not only contribute to a more successful addiction recovery but serve as a useful tool that will follow you beyond treatment.
Struggling with addiction? Our helpline is free. Dial (888) 906-0952 and press 1.
Article Reference Links
- http://projects.hsl.wisc.edu/SERVICE/modules/35/M35_CT_Substance_Use_Disorder_Treatment_Complementary_Approaches.pdf
- https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/complementary-alternative-or-integrative-health-whats-in-a-name
- https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/types-of-complementary-and-alternative-medicine
- https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/complementary-alternative-medicine/about/pac-20393581
- https://integrativemedicine.arizona.edu/about/definition.html
