Mindful Fitness Programme: Benefits and Ideals

Banbury Lodge includes mindful fitness as part of our treatment programmes for addiction as we know that improving both mental and physical health can work wonders when it comes to achieving long-term sobriety.

What Is Mindful Fitness?

To understand what mindful fitness is, it would be a good idea at this juncture to explain more about mindfulness. This is a form of meditation that focuses on the here and now. While meditation usually involves focusing on the breath as it flows in and out of the body, mindfulness is a state of awareness where you are focusing on what is going on around you and accepting it for what it is.

The practice of mindfulness will allow you to concentrate fully on what you are doing without becoming overwhelmed by it. You learn how to take things for what they are, which can help you to deal with negative thought patterns before these take over and send you back down the path towards addiction.

When mindfulness is combined with other activities such as yoga or sports, it can prove to be an effective tool in the treatment of addiction.

Why Fitness Is Important?

Your physical and mental health has undoubtedly been negatively affected by your abuse of alcohol or drugs. Abstaining from these chemicals will help to improve your overall health, but incorporating a good nutrition and exercise routine into your treatment programme and subsequent substance-free life is crucial. Moreover, there are many reasons fitness is important to your recovery.

You are likely to have neglected various aspects of your health while alcohol or drugs consumed your every thought. Exercise can help to repair some of this damage and is also a wonderful way to relieve stress levels. Tension and stress can build up with everyday life and without relieving this tension, your health tends to suffer. When it comes to addiction recovery, exercise is a terrific way of eliminating any tension that has built up during various treatments or stages of treatment.

The release of endorphins during exercise helps to expel any negative thoughts or emotions you have been feeling. These endorphins will create a natural high and will help to restore your body’s ability to feel natural pleasure and satisfaction, something which will have been negatively affected by your substance abuse.

How Can a Mindful Fitness Programme Help My Recovery?

Combining mindfulness with a fitness exercise such as tai chi or yoga can help you to improve both your physical strength and your mind. Exercising while focusing on your mental and spiritual well-being will improve your body, mind, and spirit, which is an essential part of overall addiction recovery. Mindfulness can also be incorporated into other exercises such as swimming and walking.

The benefit of a mindful fitness programme is the fact that it can help you to avoid succumbing to negative thought processes that might otherwise take over while you are exercising. The main issue for most recovering addicts is learning how to deal with their thoughts, emotions, and feelings. It is these feelings that can lead to a relapse.

A mindful fitness programme will help to keep you grounded and remembering why you wanted to get sober in the first place. Basically, you will not be overwhelmed by negative emotions if you practice mindfulness. You will be in a position to effectively deal with any negative thoughts and feelings, which can greatly reduce any stress or anxiety you might otherwise experience.

What Are the Benefits?

A mindful fitness programme has many benefits for your mind and your body. It is important that both are treated effectively in order for you to fully recover from addiction. Below are just a few of the ways in which mindful fitness can help to improve your mental and physical health.

Mental Benefits

• It will give you the ability to refocus your thoughts and remain calm
• Your mind will be clear, and this will allow you to become more productive
• You will learn how to replace negative thought patterns with positive alternatives
• Your concentration and cognitive function will improve
• It will help to reduce any feelings of panic or anxiety
• It will improve your self-awareness
• You will have the ability to exert more control over your thoughts, making it less likely for you to act impulsively
• You will see improvements in your self-esteem.

Physical Benefits

• Your energy levels will improve, and you will see an improvement in your sleeping patterns
• You will see a reduction in the aches and pains that have plagued you for some time
• Your mood will improve thanks to the release of endorphins
• Your body strength will increase, and you will become more flexible
• Your tension and stress levels will reduce, making your muscles relax
• Your breathing, lung capacity and cardiac function will all improve.

Mindful Fitness Helps Your Sobriety

At Banbury Lodge, we know that a mindfulness programme is an essential part of your recovery programme because it can help to heal your mind and body. However, we know that if you learn how to practice mindful fitness now, you can incorporate what you have learned into your substance-free life, and this will help with relapse prevention.

It is essential that you learn how to keep busy, especially during the early days of recovery when you will still be coming to terms with living a life where alcohol or drugs do not play a role. Exercise is a vital part of a healthy lifestyle and mindful fitness will help you to keep fit while also dealing with the negative emotions and cravings that are bound to pop up from time to time.

You should remember that it takes time for the mind and body to recover from addiction. During the early days of recovery, you are likely to experience some lingering physical symptoms as well as mood swings that could threaten to throw you off course if you are not careful.

The importance of exercise during recovery can never be underestimated. As well as helping to keep you fit and healthy, it can help lower your body weight, reduce blood pressure, and lower cholesterol levels. Your risk of illnesses such as diabetes, some forms of cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis all decrease when you are fit and healthy. By incorporating mindfulness into your exercise routine, you can also reduce the risk of cognitive decline and mental health problems such as dementia.

Exercise can be the perfect replacement for the substance abuse that consumed your life for so long. It will improve all areas of your life and will improve your chances of a long and sober life.

Our Mindful Fitness Programme

Banbury Lodge incorporates mindful fitness into our rehabilitation programmes for addiction because we believe that it is vital in terms of helping you to overcome your illness for good. We will teach you how to become aware of your body while you exercise; you will learn to notice every part of your body as you get fit. We want you to be aware of exactly what you are doing as well as the environment around you.

Learning how to focus your attention on what you are doing will ensure that you get more from your exercise routine and it will stop you from drifting off and being consumed by negative emotions and thought patterns.

The aim of our mindful fitness programme is to improve your overall health and wellness. When you leave Banbury Lodge, you will have the skills you need to incorporate your own programme into everyday life.

For more information on Banbury Lodge or the treatments we use to help you overcome addiction, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us today.