The Benefits of Laughter Therapy in Healing
If you are moving through mental health treatment or treatment for substance abuse, the healing process can at times seem slow, isolating, and challenging. With the right type of treatment program and the right type of therapy, you can add a modern twist to your healing process. How? By capitalizing on the science of laughter. What is Laughter Therapy? Laughter therapy is a form of treatment where participants intentionally laugh in order to promote improved mental and physical well-being. While it’s all too common to seek out a depressing movie or television show full of conflict and violence if you’re feeling depressed or angry, doing so only further fuels those emotions. When you are feeling depressed or anxious, laughter is actually the best medicine. Watching something funny or doing something silly can help promote the physical and physiological benefits of laughter, even if your laughter is fake. What to Expect with Laughter Therapy In laughter therapy sessions, you might participate in exercises like relaxation techniques, deep breathing, and intentional laughter, even if that laughter is fake. These techniques help to promote natural healing, improve your physical and mental well-being, and relieve stress. Practiced in a group session, laughter therapy can also provide social benefits. Scientific Benefits of Laughter Therapy in Healing There are several benefits of laughter therapy in healing, no matter what it is you are trying to heal from. Psychological Benefits When you laugh, it has a positive impact on your mood. Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, which can improve your mood, reduce depression, and even relieve pain temporarily. Laughter reduces the level of stress hormones in your body, which can reduce the following: Moreover, the benefits of laughter therapy in healing extend beyond just the levels of stress hormones. Too often, people who are struggling with recovery or healing are consumed with doubt, fear, anxiety, or worry. But laughter can transport you somewhere else, giving you better perspectives and letting you recognize that problems that may have seemed all-consuming before are not as bad. Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of laughter therapy and healing is its ability to increase resilience. Your level of resilience represents how quickly you are able to bounce back from challenges. Resiliency comes from having gratitude, an optimistic outlook, and a growth mindset. Laughter gives you the ability to see the funnier side of things and to build your resilience in such a way that when you are next facing a challenge, stressful situation, or even a setback in your long-term goals, it won’t bring you down as far. Physiological Benefits Physiologically, studies have found when you laugh, it increases your blood pressure and heart rate. These increases help deliver essential nutrients to your muscles and your immune system while also increasing oxygenation in your blood. Laughing can increase your breathing rate, which helps improve lung function. When you laugh, it causes muscles to contract and relax, which can release tension that you didn’t realize you were holding on to. In fact, studies have found that deep laughter can leave your muscles relaxed for up to forty-five minutes after the fact. Social Benefits The benefits of laughter therapy extend to social aspects. Group therapy sessions centered on laughter therapy or any type of comedic environment can help you create a sense of connection with other people. Laughter helps you build relationships that can prove vital in your long-term healing and recovery and also strengthen existing bonds with friends and family. Reaping the Benefits of Laughter Therapy with The Differents The Differents is a luxury addiction treatment center in Nevada. With each of our inpatient or outpatient rehab programs in Reno, we help clients foster improved resiliency, learn essential coping skills to manage stress and triggers, and build self-esteem. All of these skill sets come through evidence-based therapies and holistic treatments, including laughter therapy. The social benefits of improving connection with others are among the biggest benefits of laughter therapy for those who come to our facility. It’s not uncommon for new clients at The Differents to struggle when they don’t know anyone, especially in a group setting. Shared laughter can strengthen bonds and reinforce connections. These social benefits can extend to other programs like family therapy sessions where you can share a laugh with friends and family to help diffuse any tension or resolve conflicts that might exist in your relationship.If you are ready to learn more about laughter therapy at our trusted drug rehab in Reno, call our team at 844-290-1362.
Exploring Expressive Arts Therapy in Addiction Recovery
Scientific research has recently pivoted to the many benefits of holistic programs like expressive arts therapy in addiction recovery. But what is art therapy for addiction? Is it only something for artistic people, and what are its benefits? What is Expressive Arts Therapy in Addiction Recovery? Addiction recovery art doesn’t need any type of skill or artistic knowledge to be useful. Art therapy and addiction recovery incorporate several expressive therapies, such as: In essence, art therapy for addiction incorporates one or more of these expressive therapies as well as imagination and playfulness in integrative ways through psychotherapy and counseling. Benefits of Art Therapy and Addiction Recovery Art therapy has proven very useful in the healing process of substance abuse. For some clients, art therapy provides a better medium for emotional expression, especially for male clients who might feel uncomfortable sitting in a room and talking about their feelings. For other clients, art therapy provides an easier way to connect with emotions that may not have been recognized and to tell a story of trauma or previous experiences that contributed to substance abuse. How Does Art Therapy for Addiction Work? Integration is key. Symptoms, behaviors, pain, or suffering can be tackled with several forms of art, such as play, sound, dramatic enactments, and other expressive art forms, blended in different ways to make an expression of emotions a lot more helpful. Art therapy for substance abuse can help restore self-compassion and positive feelings. Art therapy is something used in conjunction with other psychotherapy, like talk therapy. While therapy is useful, and it allows clients to talk about issues, pain, struggle, or trauma, psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors can’t talk someone into improved self-compassion. People need to experience those feelings for themselves, and that is achieved through expressive arts therapy in addiction recovery. Making gestures, moving the body, and other simple ways of expressing yourself physically can encourage social engagement, curiosity, playtime, self-regulation, and imagination, all of which serve as important components in addressing trauma, restoring components of yourself, and helping with the healing process. Do I Have to Be Creative or Artistic? One of the many things that people worry about, especially before their first session, is whether they have to be creative or artistic for this type of therapy to work. The answer is absolutely not. There is no artistic requirement behind participating in addiction recovery art. Even creative people have days when they don’t feel creative, but everyone can draw a line or make a mark on a piece of paper, wave their hand, or move their body in some gesture or another. These small things are all ways of being expressive. Expression is a human behavior. Curiosity has always existed, and it helps us let go of fear and trauma. What Should I Expect During a Session? While you might be apprehensive at first, realizing that there is no pressure to be artistic or creative and that there are several ways to be expressive can help alleviate some of that fear and boost your curiosity. At The Differents, our team works hard to ensure clients get holistic care on their schedules with several inpatient and outpatient programs. Our trusted drug rehab in Reno offers an idyllic location where nature inspires relaxation and artistic expression. Curiosity and fear are opposite feelings. Once you become curious about arts therapy, what to expect next, what other forms of creativity or expression you might use, and how they might make you feel, you are opening yourself up to curiosity and doing away with fear. The fear you might experience will only serve to hold you back from achieving true healing in your sessions. Discover Arts Therapy at The Differents Expressive arts therapy is a form of treatment that incorporates different art forms to help boost emotional expression, play, imagination, and healing. There are several forms, and participants don’t need to be creative or artistic to reap the benefits. Don’t worry about being pressured. Your therapist will work with you to find the right combination of integrative arts for your circumstances, and they will guide you through simple starting points like drawing, writing, moving figures around on a computer screen, painting something, or acting something out.If you are ready to learn more about our addiction treatment center in Nevada, our approach to substance abuse treatment in Reno, and how we incorporate art into recovery, call our team today.
The Role of Forgiveness in Addiction Recovery
Addiction is a chronic condition, the effects of which can spread from the person with an addiction to their loved ones. If you or someone close to you is struggling with addiction, you can increase the chances of recovery by offering and accepting forgiveness. Why Forgiveness Matters If you don’t forgive yourself, you are more likely to harbor negative thoughts about yourself and have low self-esteem, which can lead to relapse. If you truly believe that you are a bad person or you’re incapable of change, it’s more likely that you will see every setback as confirmation of the incorrect belief and let it stop your progress. If you have a family member who has struggled with addiction, you need to forgive them so that you can repair the relationship and support them in their recovery. Individuals are more likely to complete drug and alcohol rehab programs and maintain sobriety long-term if they have support and involvement from their family or close friends. Forgiveness in Addiction Recovery: Forgiveness of the Self and Others When you seek professional help for addiction, many of the therapeutic opportunities you have provide a chance for deep reflection and getting to know yourself. During these sessions, you’ll have a chance to review what aspects of your life may have contributed to addiction, how your addiction may have hurt those around you, and what negative automatic thoughts you have about yourself. Forgiving Yourself Negative automatic thoughts like guilt and shame can come from knowing that you have stumbled along your path and chosen things that have hurt yourself or others. It’s not uncommon to let these feelings define who you are when struggling with addiction, but it shouldn’t be that way. With addiction, your full recovery comes when you learn to forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made. By forgiving yourself, you can learn to build your self-esteem and recognize your true potential. Therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy can include sessions where you identify negative automatic thoughts stemming from low self-esteem and feelings of resentment or shame about yourself. You can learn strategies for changing these automatic thoughts to positive versions and forgiving yourself. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone has failures, but they’re only bad if you can’t learn from them, and you can’t learn from them if you don’t learn to forgive yourself. Forgiving Others If you have a loved one who has struggled with addiction, you also play an important role in recovery. Addiction and forgiveness are concepts that have to apply to everyone who is touched by the chronic condition. If your spouse, parent, sibling, child, or even close friend has struggled with addiction and is in recovery, you’ll need to be aware of how important it is for you to offer them forgiveness for mistakes they have made. This might take place in family therapy sessions or support group sessions. It’s not uncommon for addiction to cause a great deal of mistrust, damage relationships, hinder communication, and make every party involved feel as though they are stuck and can’t move forward or rebuild their bonds. But forgiveness in addiction recovery helps rebuild these broken aspects of relationships. Addiction and Forgiveness with The Differents In each of our programs at our Nevada addiction treatment center, clients benefit from several therapies, including forgiveness in addiction recovery. With our Reno partial hospitalization program, intensive outpatient program, and withdrawal management programs, clients can enjoy holistic treatment, including: Each of these holistic treatments is there to enhance forgiveness in addiction recovery by encouraging self-awareness–so that you might know better what you need from those around you–and reflections on what has led to addiction–so that you might ask forgiveness of those who were affected by it. Forgiveness plays an essential role in moving forward in recovery. Without it, you will find yourself tripping emotionally and mentally over barriers on your path that won’t be resolved until forgiveness is given. At The Differents, we know that addiction and forgiveness go hand in hand, so we work hard to ensure you can achieve it during your time with us. Contact us today to learn more about forgiveness in addiction recovery and how our holistic care can put you on the right path.
