How to Handle Stress in Recovery -

While in early recovery, it is common to feel stressed or anxious about a number of factors in your life. However, if an individual is not equipped with stress-management techniques they will begin to feel overwhelmed. Individuals in early recovery may be acclimated with numbing their feelings through the use of substances. Because of this, it is important to learn new forms of emotion regulation techniques.

To promote long-term sobriety, it is vital to learn how to properly address and move forward from stressful situations. Fortunately, there is a surplus of information on how to handle stress in a healthy manner. If you’re in a recovery fellowship, attended addiction treatment, or are in therapy, you may have learned stress management skills. However, it is proactive to continue to seek out new forms of coping mechanisms.

What is “HALT”?

In the substance abuse field, there are many different acronyms used to describe common issues among recovering addicts. HALT is an acronym used to describe customary causes of anxiety and stress.

HALT stands for:

H: Hungry

A: Angry

L: Lonely

T: Tired

While these feelings aren’t the only causes of stress, they are often the catalyst to negative emotions. Being hungry, angry, lonely, or tired can make an individual more susceptible to becoming easily angered or stressed. When you begin to feel stressed, remembering this acronym can help you to identify the cause with ease. If you find that something else is causing your anxiety, look to other stress-reducing techniques promptly.

Common Sources of Stress

Stress can be caused by a number of factors. For an individual in recovery, there is an increased amount of variables that may be contributing to their anxiety. Additionally, many of us have a difficult time managing adjustment to our lives. This can include adjusting unrealistic expectations, alterations to our daily routines, and changes in our personal relationships. In recovery, it is vital for us to learn how to identify situations that may cause stress.

Some common sources of stress include but are not limited to:

Finances– Treatment, bills, and possible legal costs that accumulated during rehab.
Work– Finding or maintaining a job after addiction treatment.
Family conflict– Disagreements with family members, especially when related to our addiction recovery.
12-step work– Uncovering stressful or painful memories while working the 12 steps.
Health– Addiction related health issues, or any form of ailment.
Education– Having to go back to school after falling behind due to addiction.

Stress can cause an individual to feel trapped, or stuck, in a negative situation. This causes either a fight or flight reaction. As a result, these responses can lead to negative impacts on an individual’s daily functioning. All too often, recovering addicts without proper coping mechanisms will relapse as a response. This is a prime example of why stress-management techniques are fundamental for long-term sobriety.

Stress-Management Techniques

Being able to properly manage stress is a learned skill that can take years of practice to master. Each day we are met with new responsibilities, therefore, adding new stresses to our everyday lives. Creating a stress-management plan is a form of relapse prevention. This is due to the fact of stress being a major trigger in relation to the urge to use substances. The following techniques are proven through science and experience to naturally reduce everyday stress.

Eating Healthy and Exercising

While many of us believe that eating healthy means eating bland and boring foods, that is simply not the case. You can eat healthy without making a severe compromise while simultaneously enjoying it. The key to eating healthy is ensuring you cover all 5 food groups. This includes fruit, vegetables, wholegrain foods, lean meats or poultry, and reduced-fat milk products.

Eating healthy reduces stress by:

Increasing productivity through proper bodily function
Regulating blood sugar, which naturally enhances your mood
Lowering the risk of depression
Stabilizing your weight

Exercising reduces stress naturally due to a number of things. First off, exercising releases endorphins that produce feelings of euphoria and pleasure – which is almost a natural high in and of itself. Additionally, exercising outside can allow you to beat seasonal depression. Exercising does not have to be an extremely strenuous activity, either. In fact, just 30 minutes of walking outside are enough daily exercise to prevent overwhelming stress.

Improve your Sleep Schedule

It is common for people to experience extreme stress when they have not slept well. In fact, this can cause a complete emotional drain, making an individual feel as if they are in a constant crisis. Therefore, maintaining a healthy sleeping schedule is a great way to naturally prevent stress.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, each age group should have a specific amount of sleep per night:

Ages 14-17 should get 8-10 hours of sleep
Ages 18-64 should get 7-9 hours of sleep
Ages 65+ should get 7-8 hours of sleep

The benefits of committing to a healthy sleeping schedule are endless. However, there a few extremely vital benefits that come from sleeping well. For example, sleeping well regulates your emotions, manages physical pain, allows clarity of thought, and manages stress.

Maintain a Healthy Social Life

While many of us may want to isolate ourselves when we feel stressed, this can be detrimental psychologically. This does not mean to give up all of your alone time, because being alone in moderation is actually healthy. However, making sure you spend time with friends and family that make you feel happy or loved is extremely important as a person in recovery. Laughter and friendship are wonderful distractions during times of stress.

When someone in recovery is stressed and alone, they may feel like getting drunk or high is their only solution. Being around your loved ones combats this feeling through making you aware of the love and connections that you currently have. Additionally, your loved ones can often give you pivotal advice when you feel stressed.

Author Bio:

Kailey Fitzgerald is a writer who is passionate about spreading awareness in regard to the disease of addiction. Additionally, she finds mental health and trauma-related issues to be important topics to shed light upon.