Mindful Motivation: Tools for Building A Sober Lifestyle in Sober Living

People recovering from severe addiction problems often experience difficulty managing their emotions for months or even years after drug use ends. Long-term drug abuse changes the way the brain works as far as a person’s ability to manage stress and pressure goes.

Mindful motivation, an Eastern practice that emphasizes the importance of awareness and calm, offers a range of tools that can help as you take steps to build a drug-free lifestyle in sober living.

Mindful Motivation

Mindful motivation centers around the practice of being “mindful” of the present moment from a non-judgmental state of mind.

According to the University of Minnesota, developing a mindful perspective and attitude offers key benefits in terms of its effects on the brain’s physiology. When practiced on a daily basis, mindful motivation can correct for much of the damage caused by drug abuse in terms of restoring a normal brain structure and chemical makeup.

If you’re considering treatment and you’re not sure if your insurance will cover your treatment costs, call our helpline at 800-953-3913 (Who Answers?) for more information.

Tools for Building a Sober Lifestyle

Taking deep breaths can help you maintain a peaceful state of mind.

Stress Management

Much of the challenges faced in sober living have to do with learning to manage stress in healthy ways on a day-in, day-out basis. Mindful motivation works especially well at helping you view daily conflicts and stressors from an objective perspective without having to get upset or out-of-sorts.

In effect, stress management practice entails always focusing on the present moment and dealing with the present moment, rather than worrying about the future. Since stress can act as a powerful relapse trigger, over time, you’ll be better able to spot the types of thinking patterns that place you most at risk of using drugs.

Breathing Practices

Maintaining a peaceful or calm state of mind is half the battle when dealing with urges to use or managing stressful situations. Interestingly enough, when the body breathes fully the mind automatically takes this to mean that all is well, according to Harvard Health Publications.

Getting into the habit of taking full breaths and full exhales can go a long way towards helping you stay in control when drug or alcohol cravings occur.

Maintaining an Internal Locus of Control

The need to suppress or avoid uncomfortable emotions plays a pivotal role in driving compulsive-drug using behaviors. Mindful motivation practices emphasize the importance of maintaining an internal locus of control in terms of staying in touch with what’s going on inside your thinking and emotions.

In effect, shifting from an external locus of control where you’re reacting to what’s going on around you to a state of “mindfulness” eliminates much of the confusion experienced throughout the sober living recovery process.

Sober Living Programs: A Training Ground for Drug-Free Living

Considerations

Addiction’s effects can continue to play out inside a person’s thinking and behaviors long after drug use ends. Considering how addiction recovery entails a process of change, mindful motivation practices work well at helping a person overcome addiction’s effects on a day-by-day basis in sober living.

If you or someone you know are considering sober living or need help locating treatment programs that employ mindful motivation practices, please feel free to call our toll-free helpline at 800-953-3913 (Who Answers?) to speak with one of our addictions specialists.