Watch the video above which is the short version of Addiction and Curated Sound Healing. Learn about the prevalence of addition and the causes and the benefits of curated sound healing systems. Read the blog below for more details and information.
What is the nature of addiction to ourselves and our development as human beings? How pervasive is addiction and why is there addiction? How do curated sound healing systems interface with addiction?
In the realm of the human condition addiction is pervasive and cannot be ignored. We are in a time when lending a different perspective on addiction as well as offering different methods than have been previously used for sustaining positive change are imperative. Curated sound healing is non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical, and a non-threatening method.
While the different kinds of addiction include tobacco, cannabis, illicit drugs, gambling, eating/food, sex, love (relationships), Internet, exercise, work, sports, and shopping many addictions are not as noticeable because they are succinctly woven into our culture and harder to identify. These prevalent types of addictions are love and relationships, exercise, the internet and food. Food addiction in the different forms include binge eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa are as high as 19% for women in the U.S. and also considered to be a worldwide health issues.
And addictive disorders are a major mental and physical health concern since there is such a high prevalence for addictions which cause many health-related issues especially as the addiction continues over time. Addictions and the consequences to our physical body, thoughts and mind, emotions and spirit are compounded when there are multiple addictions that is two or more together which is common.
There two areas that are part of the effects of addictions are social connections, relationships and isolation, and financial and economic consequences. Addictions come at a financial cost to the person and because of the erosion of health with addictions there are significant consequences and costs to the health care systems. Research shows from over 83 studies, that between 15-61% of people in the US show signs of addictive behavior! This finding implies every one of us knows someone, likely a person we are close with who has an addiction whether it is friend or family member. I know from knowing people I love who have had an addiction and some who still do, how painful and sad it is.
Addictions and Multiple Addictions
Because often people have more than one addiction or multiple co-occurring addictions unraveling, healing, and recovery from addictions is challenging. Whether it is one addiction or two or multiple addictions they arise from life stressors as a method to manage and get through. A powerful definition of traumas is “negative situations that have the potential to cause an extraordinary amount of stress to an individual, overwhelming their ability to cope and leaving them in fear of death, annihilation, or insanity” according to Levin, et al. (2021) which leaves the person constantly reacting from fright and the stages of fright; flight, fight, freeze or fawn. Research reveals 50-75% of the population have experienced potentially traumatic events which is directly related to the above information that between 15-61% of people in the US show signs of addictive behavior!
You may wonder why these numbers are so high. The condition of trauma is further separated into two areas which helps to explain the high numbers of people who may have experienced trauma. Firsthand trauma is from a direct experience of trauma. Secondary trauma causes stress and is known as compassion fatigue and vicarious traumatization. These occur from hearing the traumatic stories of others. The people who hear these stories include mental health professionals and also medical professionals, especially those who work in emergency rooms.
Before going on to the other people who have secondary trauma; the pandemic changed the amount of stress for mental health and medial providers further with an increase in post-traumatic stress, insomnia, and depressive symptoms because of lack of support. Other people who are at risk and incur secondary trauma are combat soldier’s partners, media exposure through the news, police officers, 911 operators, people working in hospitals and the Emergency rooms, and organizations that work with vulnerable populations all resulting in distress and impairment to the person. (More on trauma in the video and blog titled, Transforming Trauma with Sound Healing).
Addiction and Post-traumatic Stress
Addiction and post-traumatic stress, trauma, and stressful life experiences are significantly connected to many addictions that arise from levels of childhood physical, emotional, and sexual abuse that also have PTSD symptoms. People with post traumatic stress also may have anger, frustration, rage, aggression, and an abundant amount of negative energy which often arise from a sense of danger, sense of lack of safety, feelings of horror and helplessness. Becoming emotionally numb is another reaction to trauma and seeking to numb feelings also contributes to creating an addiction.
Shifting how we understand and work with people with addictions from the old model of disgrace and incarceration and medication only to tools and methods for healing is a cultural paradigm shift. Gabor Mate’s perspective and findings from working with people with addictions is our cultural is empty of compassion that leads to the prevalence of sufferers of adverse destructive behaviors of addictions. And there is lack of compassion for people who experience childhood trauma, stress and social system disruptions. The person who has an addiction often has an increase in sadness and anger and uses their addiction to manage and get through these times when stressors arise. Other strong feelings that emerge with addiction are guilt, shame, fear, anxiety, and depression.
What Happens in Our Physical, Emotional, and Mental Systems with An Addiction
Essentially the traumas, stress, and social disruptions cause upheaval throughout the human system that results in dysregulation of emotions and thoughts, including negative and compulsive thoughts, and often include despair, anxiety, lack of safety, and destructive and suicidal thoughts. These difficult feelings include emotional pain, anger, guilt, shame, fear, sadness, worthlessness, and affect the person’s emotional state, quality of family relationships, social relationships, connection to community, employment status, coping skills, goals and progress, opportunity for and access to rewards in life, and educational opportunities. The addiction cycle is an overwhelming, harmful, and repetitive behavior that temporarily gives something to the person that causes them to continue to seek it out even though they may even consciously know it is not benefiting to them.
This continued stress cycle that creates inflammation in the body and neuroinflammation is erosive and is an underlaying cause of many physical illnesses including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, addiction, immune-compromised illness, depression, anxiety, bi-polar, and schizophrenia.
In the brain there is dampening of the feel-good chemical production that people normally have and an increase in stress, the stress hormone cortisol, and inflammation. The increase in cortisol creates depression and anxiety. The outcome is a proclivity for illness in the stress cycle described above.
What interrupts this cycle of stress, cortisol production, and inflammation?
When we shift out of ordinary consciousness, where we store stress, and access different brain waves of alpha and deeper we are allowing the system that is traumatized to restore. It is teaching the brain and body how to access another level of being. As the person continues and regularly accesses this healing state there are positive changes. The dysregulated emotions and thoughts become regulated lessening depression and anxiety.
Changes in the Brain When We Access the Restorative Relaxation Response
There is a balance of the production of the neurotransmitters in the brain, noradrenaline, norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine. When a person connects into this state of alpha brain waves there is a lessening of anxiety and an increase of feelings of safety. Connecting into the Relaxation Response facilitates learning and the growth of new neurons called neurogenesis and even growing connections between existing neurons creating neuroplasticity occurs, which are signs of epigenetic responses.
Accessing our responses above the ‘normal’ way we respond when we stay in ordinary waking consciousness changes how our genes respond. When we normally respond to stress with cortisol and inflammation accessing brain waves that release this response changes how our genes respond and thus creates a different outcome instead of moving towards mental and physical illness. And our immune system improves and we build resilience!
Post Traumatic Growth
When a Person is in Recovery from an Addiction
For a person who has an addiction it takes time to go through the different changes that are necessary to getting over the addiction, healing, and recovery. There are often four stages of this process where the person
- Realizes their addiction is affecting every part of their life
- Understands their relationship to their identity with the addiction and how they have a different identity when they no longer have the addiction
- Knows they will need supportive systems to enable them to sustain their recovery
- Gets the process of recovery is not a moment in time but occurs over years
Gaining methods that support these self-awareness insights are key to successful transition from using the addiction, to a life without the addiction. Providing methods that access, develop, and sustain changes in how the brain functions, lessening inflammation, and changes the trauma stored in the body is key. In the section below titled, Benefits of Using Repeating Sounds and Rhythms for Addiction you can identify the direction correlations with the above four areas in the developmental process of recovery from addiction.
Getting out of the stress and cortisol production cycle changes the hormones that are produced releasing positive feel-good chemicals from engaging in curated sound healing patterns that diminish cortisol and inflammation that contribute to depression and anxiety. These changes occur with simultaneous shifts in brain waves, heart rate, and respiration, developing internal awareness, experiencing the results of the feel-good chemicals that also build resilience, problem-solving, insight, and inner wisdom.
Using easy to use curated sound and rhythms systems provides these changes. While hearing is considered to occur primarily through the ears we also take in the tone and feeling through our muscle and bones. Other ways we perceive and take in sound occur through haptic or the sensation of touch as the sound touches us.
Listening to the curated sound healing repetitions access the Relaxation Response where the release of dopamine and serotonin occur. When these hormones are released there is a decrease of depression and anxiety which are the driving forces behind addiction. And there is an increase in the feel-good chemicals that are critical to our physical health and mental and emotional regulation.
Other benefits include boosting the immune system. This is an important component because as noted in the beginning of this blog/video there are increases in declining health with addictions. And an improved immune system benefits and supports long-term recovery.
Sharing Curated Sound Healing Experience
Particular sound healing systems as a practice as an individual also can include two or people listening together. Inviting other people who are supportive to participate in curated sound listening is beneficial in various ways that benefit everyone. Other people who listen to the same curated sound patterns show not only their willingness to share the same experience but also to experience entrainment at the same time. Entrainment is the harmonization to the outer stimulus, which are the repeating sound patterns, that sustains the listener in the restorative state of alpha. When we listen to these curated sound healing systems with others there are simultaneous changes in heart rate, respiration, and brain waves that we are sharing. This reenforces the individual’s experience and the experience of all the people who are listening to the same curated rhythmic patterns. Because these patterns are consistent everyone is going to the same restorative space creating social cohesion and connectivity. Besides, and in addition to these benefits, there is a reduction of anger and decrease of conflicts which promotes cooperation and interpersonal trust between those who are participating together.
Benefits of Using Repeating Sounds and Rhythms for Addiction
Music and sound affects us through emotions and connection and repetition. This is experienced when we hear the beginning notes of a familiar song or musical composition. There is an immediate recognition. When we listen to specific compositions designed to support the listener to release ordinary consciousness and connect to relaxation and restoration, alpha brain waves, there is a deep breath and the body knows where it is going; it is a trusted place because it is familiar with the continuing curated sound rhythms. When we have a feeling of an experience it is easier for us to connect to it each time it occurs.
16 Areas That Support Recovery and Healing
The areas the curated sound patterns and rhythms draw upon are repetitions of particular patterns because human beings are hard-wired for specific and consistent patterns that we can rely upon that develop trust. The following is a list of benefits of curated sound healing patterns within a system designed for transformation
- Establishes Calming
- Promotes and connects to relaxation and the Relaxation Response which is characterized by positive changes in respiration, heart rate, and brain waves
- Releases the feel-good chemicals serotonin and dopamine
- Is a non-confrontational intervention
- Is a non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical intervention
- Stimulates connection to auditory, sensory, and interoceptive awareness. Interoceptive is awareness of internal functioning within the body that develops and creates self-awareness.
- Fosters changes from negative, self-obsessive, and intrusive thoughts that occur in ordinary consciousness with addiction while promoting staying present
- Releases trauma in the nervous system
- Develops emotional and mental regulation instead of dysregulation
- Distracts from outside problems
- Assists in finding and connecting insight and inner wisdom
- Provides an alternative to other traditional ‘talk’ therapies
- Diminishes depression and anxiety
- Diminishes stress and inflammation and the production of cortisol the stress hormone
- With consistent use overtime the practices deepen and heighten awareness and inner development supporting longevity of lasting benefits and recovery
- Improved sleep because often people who have experienced trauma and have an addiction experience poor sleep. When accessing restorative brain waves the system begins to regulate and calm allowing for feelings of safety that transfer into getting deeper sleep, getting to sleep easier, and staying asleep.
Specific sounds and their patterns are ancient practices that have been in use around the world for healing that help us access restorative states that build our resilience, and connection to insight, creativity, and problem-solving. Methods of curated sound healing give us support in our journey as a life-long method for longevity and long-term benefits with consistent use. And, in consideration of the isolation, and impact of COVID on mental health issues and their relationship with addiction, there is an ongoing need for emerging practices that are outside the mainstream that are non-pharmaceutical, easy to use, non-invasive, and effective.
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