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Health and Wellness Program
Attending to the body is a crucial element in healing. By participating in the Health and Wellness Program, you have an opportunity to become more aware of your body, develop self-regulation skills, and build resilience.
Enhancing Your Wellbeing
Based on current patient interest, we provide several core services designed to improve physical health, reduce stress, and enhance overall health and wellbeing, including:
- Yoga (including trauma-informed yoga)
- Nutritional Counseling and Mindful Eating
- Personal Fitness Training
- Rest and Restore Meditation (based on the principles of Yoga Nidra and Integrative Restoration)
- Outdoor Exercise and Activities (such as: daily walks, hikes, snowshoeing, and more)
- Mindful Approaches to Coping Skills Group
You are encouraged to experiment with the range of approaches offered and can receive ongoing guidance to strengthen your ability to meet your personal health goals. As you develop skills that are taught in the Health and Wellness Program, you can begin to respond reflectively, rather than reflexively, to stress.
Yoga and meditation can be an integral part of treatment for those struggling with anxiety, insomnia, chronic pain, and substance use disorder issues (detailed information below).
Additional Services
We offer individual sessions that provide specialized support for dealing with many issues, including symptoms of insomnia, trauma, and chronic pain. For many, pain and the emotional distress associated with trauma, are signals of a problematic or strained relationship with their bodies. By providing additional support, including a treatment plan tailored to your individual needs, our trained teachers can facilitate your capacity to care for your body.
Health & Wellness Program Details
Services are offered based on current patient interest.
Yoga
Our yoga classes support patients gradually increasing their body awareness and developing the skills of self-regulation in a safe and comfortable environment.
Trauma-Informed Yoga
Some yoga classes are designed to address the specific needs of individuals with histories of abuse and trauma. The goal of trauma-informed yoga is to help you build resilience and self-regulatory capacities.
Nutritional Counseling and Mindful Eating
Our nutritional counseling emphasizes mindful eating and nutrition. You can learn to listen to and understand the language of your body, particularly your hunger and satiation cues. By understanding the relationship between what you put in your body and how you feel, you can work toward self-awareness and agency in your decisions.
Personal Fitness Training
The Riggs gym is a place to have fun. Whether you want a challenging workout, or you are new to weights and need to go easy, we’ll meet you where you are, and help you get to where you want to be. Located in the Inn, the gym has a selection of free weights and cable machines, kettlebells, medicine balls, bands, and benches. There is also a heavy bag and speed bag, as well as treadmills, elliptical machines, a water rower, and stationery bikes, including two Spinning bikes.
In addition to orienting new patients to the gym, the Fitness Instructor works with patients in a variety of ways, depending on what they are looking for and can manage with their schedules. Training sessions are between 30-40 minutes in length after warm-up, with the option to meet up to three times a week, depending upon availability.
Rest, Restore, and Revision Meditation
Our particular form of meditation, Rest, Restore, and Revision, is based on the principles of Yoga Nidra (the meditation sister of traditional Yoga) and the more contemporary, trauma-informed Integrative Restoration (or iRest) developed by Richard Miller, PhD, for the military and used with soldiers experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These approaches are combined and adapted to meet the needs of our particular patient population. The process is fully guided and includes: orienting to the five senses, setting an intention, scanning the body, developing an inner resource, exploring opposites of feelings or emotions, and paying attention to the journey of the breath in and out of the body. Through continued practice, you are able to become more in touch and comfortable with bodily sensations and feelings.
Outdoor Exercise and Activities
There are a number of regular, planned and unplanned outdoor exercise and activity opportunities available to you. Among them are daily nursing walks facilitated by a nursing staff member and outdoor activities coordinated by staff members most weekends, including hikes, snowshoeing, and water sports.
Mindful Approaches to Coping Skills Group
This group focuses the application of mindfulness skills in the context of interpersonal relationships. By increasing your self-awareness and capacity to understand and integrate your emotions, you can make thoughtful, reflective decisions in your relationships. In addition, the group teaches skills to manage symptoms of chronic pain, insomnia, and anxiety.
Services are offered based on current patient interest.
View our Health & Wellness flyer or download it below:
View empirical support for our Health and Wellness Program offerings or download the references below:
Your Treatment Experience
While your treatment will reflect your own choices, all of our residential treatment programs start with intensive psychotherapy as the core, and include a range of complementary elements.
Admission Process
If other treatments haven’t worked, Riggs may be right for you. Unlike some other psychiatric hospitals in Massachusetts or elsewhere, our relational, patient-centered treatment approach addresses underlying issues, not just symptoms.
Learn More About Admission