Day 44: How Mantra Meditation Heals Addiction by Breaking the Thought Loop
Exploring the Power of Chanting, Vedic Meditation, and Kirtan Through the Lens of the Yoga Sutras
A student from one of my Sutra Study groups a few months ago asked, “Can you get addicted to thinking?” I didn’t have an answer at the time. Months later, I read Judson Brewer's The Craving Mind, where he wrote:
“I didn’t know it at the time, but I was addicted to something in particular—thinking. Once I recognized that tendency, a great many things fell into place.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about this and the way my mind tends to think.
Understanding my mind is fascinating to me, because as a child, I was so ill-equipped with understanding my brain. As a young adult I was convinced I had bipolar disorder because something felt very wrong with me. Now I understand that all human beings have a narrative in their brains and if we aren’t taught the skills to work with the narrative we become the narrative. It’s as straightforward as that.
Thought Spirals and the Yoga Sutras
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras describe five types of thought patterns, which often pull us from the present into past regrets or future fantasies. Today, I found myself lost in an imagination spiral that was addictive, and causing me harm. I just couldn’t focus on anything other than this imagination spiral. But in the afternoon, I had my weekly session with Anvita, one of my teachers.
Anvita, a mental health coach and yoga teacher raised in a yoga institution in Mumbai, guides me through two hours of reflection, chanting, and Yoga Nidra. Together, we chant the entire Yoga Sutras of Patanjali—a practice that takes about 45 minutes each time we do it. It is my goal that by the end of this year, I’ve memorized in Sanskrit all 196 sutras, and be able to explain them just by seeing the Sanskrit language. The chanting practice has helped me silence obsessive thoughts and center my mind.
How Mantra Meditation Breaks the Cycle
Two key sutras from Patanjali reveal how meditation disrupts compulsive patterns:
Sutra 2.11: Dhyāna-heyās tad-vṛttayaḥ—(Afflictions are removed through meditation.)
Sutra 1.32: Tat-pratiṣedha-artham eka-tattva-abhyāsaḥ—(Focusing on a single object prevents distractions.)
Practices for Recovery:
1. Chanting the Yoga Sutras:
Repetition internalizes their wisdom, purifying the mind.
Sutra 1.33: Cultivates compassion, easing resentment and guilt.
Sutra 2.11: Reinforces daily meditation to dissolve cravings.
2. Mantra Japa:
Silently repeating a bija mantra twice daily calms the nervous system and dissolves ego-driven cravings. I practice vedic meditation each day, but you can get similar benefits from a mantra meditation.
So Hum: Connects you to your true self.
Om Namah Shivaya: Offers strength during temptation.
3. Kirtan (Bhakti Yoga):
I practice Kirtan in a group once a week, but also on my own I chant every day. Group chanting transforms emotion into devotion and reduces isolation.
Hare Krishna Maha Mantra: Cleanses the heart and mind.
Jai Shiva Shambo: Invokes Shiva to destroy negative patterns.
Science Behind Mantra Meditation:
Here’s how Mantra Meditation works!
🧠 Neuroplasticity: Builds new thought patterns, weakening cravings.
🫀 HRV Improvement: Increases resilience to stress.
🧘🏽 GABA Boost: Reduces anxiety and prevents relapse.
In his book, “The Craving Mind",” Judson Brewer explains how it works.
“A thought is simply a word or an image in our mind until we think it is so great and so exciting that we can’t get it out of our heads. A craving is just a craving unless we get sucked into it. How we relate to our thoughts and feelings makes all the difference. Meditators train themselves to notice these experiences and not get caught up in them - to simply see them for what they are and not take them personally.
The self isn’t the problem. The problem is the extent to which we get caught up in the drama of our lives and take it personally when something happens to us (good or bad). When we get lost in a daydream, a ruminative thought pattern, or a craving, we feel a bit of tightening, narrowing, shrinking, or closing down in our bodies and minds. Whether it is excitement or fear, that hook always gets us.”
Mantra meditation, rooted in the Yoga Sutras, offers this very training—breaking the loop of craving and restoring peace.
In all of my upcoming yoga teacher trainings, mantra meditation will be explicitly taught.
My friend Rory Kinsella will be joining us on the July Yoga Teacher Training in Bali and teaching Vedic Meditation. Here’s more about him!
Rory Kinsella is a Vedic Meditation teacher and sober coach based in Sydney, Australia. A former hard-drinking musician and journalist, he quit alcohol in 2017 and has written widely about his experiences, including in the Sydney Morning Herald.
He is the creator of the Wise Monkey Way online program to help people change their relationship with alcohol through meditation, has contributed meditations to apps such as Insight Timer and Meditation Studio and has taught meditation at some of Australia’s biggest companies.
He teaches an effortless style of meditation using a mantra that allows the mind to move beyond thoughts to a place of stillness within.
My friend Jenn Agostini will also be with us on the 200 Hour in July, and the 300 Hour in September. On the 300 Hour, she will be teaching mantra meditation, and my co-teacher for the yoga. On the 200 Hour, she will be my co-teacher for yoga. This will be our third and fourth times running these programs together!
🌿 Upcoming Programs:
200 Hour YTT Online : Starts March 25. https://www.themindfullifepractice.com/online-200-hour-yoga-teacher-training
Yoga Sutra Study (Online): Starts March 23.
https://www.themindfullifepractice.com/yoga-sutra-study
200-Hour YTT (In-Person): July 7–27, 2025
https://www.themindfullifepractice.com/bali-200-hour
300-Hour YTT (In-Person): September 1–18, 2025
https://www.themindfullifepractice.com/2025-300-hour-ytt-in-bali