The impact of meditation on the brain during addiction treatment
From Addiction Now
By Ryan Beitler
Devan Thrash has been off meth for the past 16 months, and credited meditation with helping her maintain her sobriety.
“Before I went into recovery, I hated myself,” she said. “I felt broken. I went to a spiritual healing program and the first thing we did was meditated. I had never felt peace, and the first time I meditated I wept.”
In a new trend in addiction treatment, meditation and mindfulness training are used to help people overcome dependency during treatment and after rehab.
A recent study published in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction discussed the ways mindfulness-based interventions help people with a substance use disorder. The study stated that mindfulness targets certain biological determinants such as changes in areas of the brain that can increase the capacity of learning, memory, and self-regulatory processes that allow people to have more control over their behaviors.