Going through an alcohol or drug detox can be a stressful and emotional process, but there are healthy coping mechanisms to help get you through this time. Fortunately, alcohol and drug addiction treatment programs teach about these productive outlets. One healthy stress management tool is mindful journaling. Here are 5 benefits to practicing mindful journaling and how they can prevent relapse.
- Helps With Processing Emotions
Enduring a drug detox can be an extremely emotional time. Sometimes it can be hard to fully understand your emotions, but writing these feelings down can help you to better process them. Having a stronger grasp over your emotions can help you to better talk about them with others if you want to, which is another great way to make you feel better about your situation.
- Decreases Stress and Anxiety
Writing about challenging areas of your life can help to reduce stress. Practicing mindful journaling can include planning stressful events or processes ahead of time, working through past stressful events, and managing day to day stress and anxiety through expressing your thoughts on paper. In addition, learning how to understand your emotions and practicing communication skills in this low risk environment can help reduce social anxiety and emotional stress.
- Improves Communication
Practicing your communication by writing things down can also help you with talking to others productively. For example, the practice of writing a letter to someone without sending it is a good way to know what you are and are not comfortable with saying to them. Venting is a healthy release of emotion, but doing it this way can let you avoid hurting someone else’s feelings. This will reduce conflict and further stress in the future.
- Helps Set and Achieve Goals
Addiction treatment and recovery after drug rehab involves a long plan and a series of goals. Writing these down can help you to collect your thoughts and make these objectives seem more achievable. Being able to refer to these things along the way is also helpful. This doesn’t only have to be for your addiction recovery journey, however. Writing about all of your plans and aspirations in life can make you feel more accomplished by seeing how far you have come. It could also show you what other areas in your life that you would like to improve on.
- Helps Improve Memory
Problems with memory are not completely uncommon in recovering addicts. Logging what happens in your daily life can help with remembering things that you would normally forget about. Along with improved communication skills and enhanced emotion comprehension and management, working on making your memory better is likely to improve your relationships. You can also write reminders for yourself to read later on.
-Anxiety, stress, and emotionally charged situations can be triggers for many past addicts. However, mindful journaling can help with decreasing these difficult aspects to sober living. Additionally, benefits like improved memory and communication skills, help with accomplishing your goals, and enhanced understanding of emotions can aid in improving weak or broken relationships. It is also a great way to give yourself more peace of mind.
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[…] what you will about being mindful, but putting positive vibes out into the world comes back to you even if it simply boosts your mood […]