Addiction recovery is hard enough for a healthy patient, but substance abuse hardly leads to a healthy lifestyle, meaning the recovery process from addiction can be additionally complicated by health issues, including that of diet and exercise. Proper diet and a good exercise regimen can do wonders for a patient seeking to shed addiction, if only the patient can commit to the process and seek out healthy habits for a better rehab experience.
Read on to discover more about the importance of the role of nutrition and exercise in addiction recovery.
Addiction is a pernicious influence that not only brings health concerns of its own, but taints many other aspects of a person’s health by association. Nutrition and exercise are two vital parts of a healthy lifestyle that addiction can wreak havoc on in a patient’s life.
Addiction is destructive for myriad reasons, but one aspect of its negative influence is in how it consumes a person’s interests and corrupts their habits. A person in the throes of addiction can rarely focus on much more than their addiction, their waking thoughts bent on feeding their addiction by any means necessary.
This can lead to a neglect of other aspects in their life, such as eating properly. Planning a menu, cooking, balancing your nutritional needs, all of these things can fall by the wayside for a person more focused on substance abuse.
Exercise is similar. Exercise requires a time commitment many addicts would refuse to make. Not to mention, the negative effects on an addict’s health hardly makes exercise an easier or more pleasant experience. The symptoms of withdrawal certainly don’t allow for strenuous activity, while an addict who is successfully feeding their addiction is rarely interested in anything else.
But once a patient has shed addiction and entered recovery, nutrition and exercise can play a vital role in the patient’s life. Eating properly to meet your nutritional demands and maintain a healthy lifestyle keeps a patient strong and better able to resist cravings.
Exercise can be just as important. Time spent on exercise is time not focused on cravings or other stimuli that might encourage relapse. It fills the patient with a healthy energy that does not carry the negative effects of substance abuse and gives them more strength and fortitude overall.
A patient in good health is better prepared in general to resist addiction, to their benefit.
At Good Landing Recovery, the importance of good nutrition and proper exercise are emphasized for each patient during the rehab process and throughout treatment into active recovery. A continued focus on both exercise and nutrition after treatment can ensure recovery is more successful and relapse remains a remote option.
People in poor health due to bad nutrition or lack of exercise are more likely to fall into addiction and this is increasingly true for those who have escaped substance abuse once before. By emphasizing the role of nutrition and exercise in addiction recovery, the recovering addict can better improve their chance of remaining sober and avoiding relapse due to bad health decisions.