Alcohol addiction can harm you to an unimaginable extent. But simple mindfulness techniques have proved effective in cutting down alcohol consumption.
Alcohol consumption can be controlled with mindfulness
HIGHLIGHTS
- Mindfulness will not encourage you to avoid your cravings
- It teaches one to face their cravings and not suppress them
- After training, people drank up to 9.3 fewer alcohol
Addicted to alcohol? Just a few minutes of mindfulness training including yoga, body awareness and meditation can prove helpful in cutting down alcohol consumption according to a study. This form of training will not encourage you to avoid your cravings. Instead, it teaches one to focus on their feelings and sensations, face their cravings and not suppress them. This helped in making the participants of the study crave less for alcohol and even when they did, nothing would trigger them to act on the desire.
"We found that a very brief, simple exercise in mindfulness can help drinkers cut back, and the benefits can be seen quite quickly," says Sunjeev Kamboj, the lead author, from University College, London.
To this, he added "Practising mindfulness can make a person more aware of their tendency to respond reflexively to urges. By being more aware of their cravings, we think, the study participants were able to bring intention back into the equation, instead of automatically reaching for the drink when they feel a craving."
According to the study published in International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, an 11-minute training session of encouraging the practice of mindfulness which included focussing on the present moment, heavy drinkers drank less in the following week as compare to others who were taught relaxation.
The first group which was taught mindfulness drank up to 9.3 fewer alcohol units, which is roughly equivalent three pints of beer, in the week after the mindfulness training. The second group, however, showed no such results in the reduction of alcohol consumption as they were trained for relaxation and not mindfulness.
Alcohol problems are attributed to heavy drinking. But alcoholism can be controlled by means of mindfulness training. So, researchers are hopeful that this practice will help people cut down on alcohol consumption before they develop serious health issues.
Here are some basic ways to keep yourself from alcohol:
- Stay away from places and situations where you might be tempted to drink. Avoid going to bars or pubs.
- Share with your friends and family that you want to stop drinking alcohol. Hang around people who support you and your goal.
- Get rid of all the alcohol in the house. If you have a spouse or roommate who drinks, kindly ask them not to drink around you.
- Engage yourself in positive and meaningful activities like regular exercising. It is actually effective if you maintain a daily exercise routine while avoiding alcohol.
- You can also replace your drinking habits with hobbies that are constructive such as reading, painting or other things.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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