mindfulness | Addiction Treatment Strategies

Meditation may ease anxiety among people who suffer from anxiety disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). But a new study suggests meditation isn’t necessarily better than other types of relaxation techniques at treating anxiety disorders.
Researchers reviewed two studies comparing meditation to other relaxation techniques, such as biofeedback, and found both alternative therapies were equally effective in reducing anxiety.
No side effects were associated with meditation, but 33%-44% of the participants in the studies dropped out, which suggests that people with anxiety disorders may have a hard time sticking to a…

Recovering alcoholics may benefit in the battle over the bottle if they practice mindfulness meditation.
That’s according to a Wisconsin physician-researcher who is one of the few in the country testing the possible connection between
meditation and the prevention of relapse to drinking among those dependent on alcohol.
 
Dr. Aleksandra Zgierska, assistant professor of family medicine at theUniversity of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, was the lead researcher in a 16-week pilot clinical trial with 19 participants recruited from addiction treatment clinics. She says the results of her first study (published in 2008)…

There are many physical benefits to meditation, and most of the exercises are easier to implement than a gym membership

One of the first steps in dealing with addiction is to discover the emotional cause of it, whether it is fear, depression, anxiety, or pessimism. Many times these unwholesome thoughts and beliefs come from what I call the “wanting mind.” In wanting mind, we feel that our current state of unhappiness could be cured if only we could have the money, job, relationship, recognition, or power we had and lost, or never had and strongly desire. Often we cause ourselves suffering when we ache for something that lies out of our grasp or cling in vain to something that has already passed away. Sometimes, wanting mind involves tightly holding on to…