Meditation is the best, most effective way to naturally overcome any addiction whether it’s alcohol, tobacco, food, coffee, prescriptions, or illegal substances.
Through meditation, people can learn how to calm and soothe themselves without resorting to substance abuse.
Meditation can strengthen a person’s ability to focus their attention, making it easier to let go of cravings. Meditation can stimulate and train your brain to be happy without the need for addictive substances to feel good. It can also supercharge the brain and body with endorphins, super feel-good natural brain chemicals, such as dopamine. Studies show that meditators’ dopamine levels remained at an optimally healthy range, even when not in meditation. In fact, the effect is so strong, that the so-called meditators’ high has shown to be even stronger than the well-known runners’ high. A study by a Harvard neuroscientist showed that meditators’ brains had significantly more neural density, cortical thickness, and overall activity within their prefrontal cortexes.
In other words, meditation can give you a better brain. Another study found that inmates that practiced meditation for 3 months drank 87% less alcohol and use 89% less marijuana. Meditation was found to be almost 6 times more effective than the typical chemical dependency treatments. Most addictions stem from stress; and reactions to stress are often displayed in the form of anxiety, depression, anger, insomnia, and other negative emotions.
People who meditate are better able to handle stress, making them less likely to turn to addictive substances as a coping tool in the first place. If people don’t find a healthy way to cope with stress, they attempt to feel good by self-medicating with alcohol, cigarettes, junk food, etc. By cleansing away stress and its related anger, depression, and anxiety, meditation can effectively raise your maximum stress threshold, leaving you effectively counter addiction impulses and urges. Once meditation has rooted out the reasons for addiction such as unhappiness and stress, your addiction will be cured. Your life will transform on many levels, and able to live in harmony with others and the world.
If you are not able to manage stress well, everyday stress can accumulate and can lead to addictive behaviors and mindsets. Please join a meditation center.