In episode 178 of The Elevation Recovery Podcast, Matt Finch and Coach Tana share many of the benefits of silence and solitude practices for addiction recovery, how it has changed their lives, why they still do it on a regular basis, why it’s especially important for introverts and/or highly sensitive persons, and how to carve out a daily silence practice and do something that fits your style.
Here are some of the main topics discussed in this episode:
- How to figure out if you’re dependent on constant noise and activity
- The negative consequences of too much noise in your life
- After recovering from substance use disorder, people will often keep doing extreme behaviors such as listening to music or Audibles with earbuds too often without enough silence
- How the stigma of addiction is leading to an epidemic of people keeping their substance use disorder hidden for fear of being judged and shamed
- How to add more quiet time, silence, and solitude into your routine if you feel it’s needed
- How to customize your quiet time and systematize it as an auto-programmed habit that becomes easy to do and hard to not do
- How to combine silence and solitude time with nature therapy
- Why it’s often helpful to leave your phone at home and go for a long walk
- Benefits of mindfulness-based therapies for addiction recovery
- Focusing on faith, inner-peace, tranquility, and an optimistic outlook (eg “things may be difficult now but my situation is not permanent”)
- Chasing happiness through external things such as making money vs unconditional contentment
- The Dis-ease of ‘MORE’
- Finding more purpose and meaning and life as a strategy for life and health optimization
- Harnessing the power of playtime, silliness, laughter therapy, goofing around, and childlike wonder
- Benefits of present-moment awareness vs always mostly thinking in the past and/or future
- Why introverts need more silence and solitude for wellness
- How 20% of the population have a trait called sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) and typically need more silence and solitude time than people without SPS (and even more so with introverts that have SPS
- Using intentional and healthy strategies for adding more novelty into your life and how this can improve brain health and mood
- Using awareness to notice when you’re getting complacent and slipping into bad or worse habits
- How and when to carve out 5-15 minutes or more of quiet time per day if you’re needing more chill time in your life
