Holistic Therapy Addiction Treatment

Recovery from an illness such as addiction or a behavioural disorder requires a whole-person approach, which is why you may find that holistic therapy forms a big part of your recovery programme. But what is it and how will it help you to get better? It is important that you acknowledge the underlying causes for your addictive behaviour, and these therapies will help you find a way to solve the causes of these problems.

What Is Holistic Therapy?

Holistic therapy is a tool that is used to heal the mind, body and spirit and is often used to complement medicinal treatments or traditional talking therapies. The idea behind the holistic therapy is that it treats the whole person, rather than just the illness the individual is suffering with.

The use of various holistic treatments is said to help restore the body’s natural balance and improve wellbeing. They can also reduce stress and add to the overall recovery from various conditions including addiction, mental health problems, and behavioural disorders.

The word ‘holistic’ comes from the Greek word for ‘the whole’. So instead of just addressing the symptoms of the condition that you are suffering from, a recovery programme that incorporates holistic therapy will aim to improve your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing as well.

By restoring your body’s natural balance, you can achieve optimal health, and when holistic therapy is incorporated into your treatment plan, all interdependent parts of your body are addressed. By improving various parts of your wholesome build, your overall health should improve.

How Does Holistic Therapy Work?

The idea behind holistic therapy is that when one element of your being is negatively affected, other aspects of it will also suffer effects. So if you are suffering from a physical health problem, for example, it is likely that this will have an impact on your mental health, as well as your emotional state and spiritual wellbeing.

When the mind, body, spirit, and emotions are all in alignment, you will be healthy and happy. However, when just one is out of sync, your entire being can be affected. Unless this is rectified, the imbalance will continue and you will become unhappy and unwell.

The aim of holistic therapy is to redress the imbalance by improving the one area that is out of kilter, thus realigning all aspects of your overall wellbeing. Focusing on the one area that is affected will automatically improve other areas, which can help ensure that your body’s natural balance is restored.

The main goal when using holistic therapy is to achieve a balanced lifestyle, and there are many benefits to it. Some people, for example, notice an improvement in chronic pain while others see a dramatic decrease in mental health symptoms such as anxiety and depression.

As well as being commonly utilised in the treatment of addiction and behavioural disorders, holistic therapy has also been used to treat cancer patients with the aim of improving overall physical and mental wellbeing. By doing this, emotional and spiritual health also improves. Other benefits of holistic therapy include:

Understanding Holistic Therapy

Your emotional wellbeing may be affected by unresolved trauma from your past and conflict in your relationships. If you are experiencing negative thought patterns and are finding it difficult to have a positive outlook on life, your mental health is bound to be affected.

Holistic therapy looks to help you improve all areas of your life. It works by not only addressing the symptoms that the person is dealing with but also by identifying the underlying causes of the illness. Since holistic therapy can improve your mental and emotional state, it can also lead to improvements in your physical wellbeing. There is evidence to suggest that how you feel can affect how you cope with certain situations. So if holistic therapy is making you feel better overall, it will help to improve your coping skills.

Many of the holistic therapies that are used are based on reducing stress and improving relaxation. By improving these areas, you will more than likely find it easier to deal with symptoms of your illness, such as anxiety. Calming your emotions can ensure that your health and wellbeing improve.

Some holistic therapies, such as acupuncture, can even help to reduce feelings of sickness associated with withdrawal from chemical substances, while meditation can improve mood and reduce feelings of anxiety and depression.

How Does Holistic Therapy Help in Addiction Recovery?

Holistic therapy is often used as part of a comprehensive recovery programme for addiction. When utilised in conjunction with traditional talking therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy and dialectical behaviour therapy, it has proven to be effective in helping with full recovery.

As mentioned above, holistic therapy is used to help you adopt healthy lifestyle changes and works on the principle that if one state is healed, the other states will follow suit. It is believed that negative thoughts can influence decision making and it is the process of negative thinking that is under various conditions such as addiction, behavioural disorders, and mental health problems. The use of holistic therapy can improve your overall wellbeing by restoring the natural balance of your body to counteract such conditions.

If you are suffering from an alcohol addiction, for example, you might believe that your recovery process will focus entirely on getting you to quit drinking. Nevertheless, stopping drinking is just the first part of the process. You must also learn how to live an alcohol-free life going forward; holistic therapy will play a key role in this.

Your recovery programme will incorporate treatments that get to the root cause of your illness so that you can learn how to avoid a return to this addictive behaviour in the future. So, you can expect not only the physical symptoms of your illness to be treated, but also the mental, spiritual, and emotional. </p

• Meditation – Meditation often forms a part of a recovery programme because it allows you to clear your mind and concentrate on the task at hand. Meditating lets you forget about distractions and in the case of addiction, cravings. Mindfulness is a form of meditation that teaches you to focus on the here and now and accepting it for what it is. Some rehab providers use mindful fitness, where mindfulness is used in conjunction with an exercise technique such as yoga or tai chi. This will improve both mental and physical wellbeing at the same time.
• Exercise and Recreation – Exercising the body is a terrific way to improve the mind as well. As exercising can cause the release of feel-good chemicals, mood improves and stress levels decrease. Incorporating a daily exercise routine into your recovery programme will help to improve your overall health and wellbeing.
• Nutritional Therapy – The importance of good nutrition can never be understated and for that reason, nutritional therapy is regularly incorporated into recovery programmes for addiction. Most addicts neglect their nutritional needs, and many do not know what good nutrition is. Learning what good nutrition is will improve not only your physical health but also your mental wellbeing as well.
• Acupuncture – Acupuncture is a great way of relieving stress and is sometimes used during a detox to help with withdrawal symptoms. This therapy uses very thin needles to penetrate the skin and stimulate sensory nerves.
• Acupressure – Acupressure is similar to acupuncture but instead of using needles the practitioner will use his or her hands or elbows to apply pressure to certain parts of your body. The idea is that pressure in certain areas of the body can improve energy flow and restore wellness.
• Massage – Massage is another holistic therapy designed to reduce stress levels and improve overall wellbeing.

How Holistic Therapy Differs from Other Psychotherapies

Holistic therapy focuses on the relationship between the body, mind and spirit and addresses the way in which one state can have an impact on the other two. The difference between holistic therapy and other psychotherapies then is that holistic therapy is used to help create a total self-awareness and does not focus on just one aspect of the person.

Other psychotherapies may focus on one particular area as opposed to the whole person. For example, with cognitive behavioural therapy, sessions will focus on the individual’s thoughts and feelings and how they are affecting actions. Holistic therapy, on the other hand, focuses more on the person’s entire lifestyle and how it can be improved to address the imbalances that are at the root of the problem.

If you are looking for regulated rehabs of the top quality, ones that will focus on your wellbeing without using a one-size-fits-all approach, there is help.