Self-care is a commonly thrown around phrase. It falls within many different categories, from wellness and addiction recovery, to fads and beautifying hacks.
While in some of those categories, it will be a way to maximise sales or engage customers, in areas such as addiction recovery, as mental health healing, as wellbeing and stress management, self-care plays a vital role.
Living with an addiction of any form or degree is one of the hardest things to experience in life. It can be draining on physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual levels.
In addition, it’s very common for mental health, wellness, nutrition and general wellbeing to take a turn for the worst while addictive substances take priority. Now imagine the extent of this while living with an ingrained addiction.
While deciding to recover from addiction is great, while completing addiction treatment options is great, while advancing through rehab is great, self-care is also very important when aiming for addiction recovery.
How you lead your life, how you see yourself and the lifestyle you follow post addiction recovery will influence your quality of life.
Save yourself, better yourself, and look after yourself by understanding self-care and its importance in addiction recovery. If you do require support initially via addiction recovery, contact our team at Addiction Advocates.
What Is Self-Care?
Self-care goes way beyond shopping trips, a weekly facemask, or mediation. Self-care is about prioritising your needs, your livelihood, your quality of life, and everything you require to lead a positive, healthy existence.
For some individuals, those small activities mentioned above will fall into self-care. Yet, it’s important to see the bigger picture beyond the fads linked to self-care.
To practise self-care, you are putting yourself first. You are ensuring that you are healthy and capable of remaining on the addiction recovery road.
Every decision you make, every activity you participate in, every lifestyle choice you follow will have a direct impact on your quality of life. By taking this time to focus on yourself, to truly care for yourself, and to improve yourself, you will see a significant difference, away from your addiction days.
Down to this, understanding self-care and its importance in addiction recovery is very important, normalising it as a part of your life, helping you remain sober.
Without this insight, without upholding your nutrition, your physical activity levels, your social skills, your development, your hygiene and your new lifestyle routines, there’s a risk of relapse, restarting the cycle of addiction.
Self-Care And Its Importance In Addiction Recovery And Long-Term Reality
Recovering from an addiction can be very tough. Post-recovery experiences are also very testing, physically and mentally. While addiction recovery can be met, while it can be sustainable after rehab, the most common aim is to prolong addiction recovery.
Here is where self-care and its importance showcase itself throughout addiction recovery. As touched on above, self-care is the choices you make which impact your quality of life.
That can be anything from your relaxation techniques, eating habits and sleeping patterns, to the relationships you fuel and the hobbies you take part in.
Post addiction recovery, it is recommended that you follow positive self-care guidance, helping you keep on track. Unfortunately, small slips, small streams of negativity, small diversions from your self-care aims can hinder addiction recovery.
By following self-care best practises, you’ll be in a better place physically and mentally to continue your road towards addiction recovery, to work through any obstacles, and to reach the other side, happy and healthy.
Self-Care And Mental Health
One key positive of a strong self-care plan is that you will be in control. The environment you build for yourself, the mindset that you follow, and the aura that you ooze will control your ability to maintain sobriety.
This level of control through self-care is supportive for any recovering addict. Yet, the extra level of reassurance, of controlled discipline will be beneficial for those struggling with mental health issues.
A positive movement across the board can carry great power when considering your next steps. By maintaining that power through great nutrition, through high energy levels, through organic formulations of dopamine and happy chemicals, your mental health side effects will also be controlled.
Through this level of self-control, through minimised mental health side effects, your addiction recovery probabilities will be much stronger.
Steps To Take When Self-Care Isn’t Working
If your current self-care routine isn’t working, it’s time to look internally and take some proactive steps to future-proof addiction recovery. By utilising supportive resources, by reaching out for professional guidance, and by staying true to what’s important to you, this will be possible.
For example, consider your free time outside of work. How have you currently spent this so far? If your job is stressful, it’s important to achieve a work-life balance by sticking to a hobby or self-care routine that will motivate relaxation, mindfulness and peace.
A further example is, if you are struggling through social situations, where self-care is sacrificed, it’s time to rein that in. Surround yourself with individuals who will uplift you, who will support your addiction recovery journey.
This highly clarifies self-care and its importance in addiction recovery as the smallest change to exposure or communication can increase relapse risks.
With this in mind, if you are struggling, if you feel like addiction recovery rates are dwindling, it’s time to truly commit to a self-care routine that will prioritise you as a person and your life. By doing so, you can normalise sober living, you can make addiction recovery a possibility for the long-term.
Self-Care Tips
Self-care routines are personal. It’s all down to what benefits you as an individual. Yet, below are some self-help tips that highly resonate with strong addiction recovery.
-Maintain a healthy diet, as nutrition can have a big impact on your mood, your energy levels and your physical health.
- – Take up regular physical activity to keep yourself busy, to motivate organic happy chemicals.
- – Maintain positive relationships with people who support your self-care routine.
- – Try new hobbies, new activities, new techniques that will aid addiction recovery.
- – Attend support groups and utilise aftercare services available via rehab.
- – Make sure you get enough rest and downtime.
- – Always consider your stress levels, and how to reduce them if they do increase.
All in all, the aim is to sustain a positive lifestyle that will ooze happiness and health, motivating addiction recovery probabilities.
Whatever that lifestyle may be can be decided by you. Yet, it’s important to remember that the steps you take will impact your future with addiction recovery.
If you’re struggling with addiction, we can help here at Addiction Advocates by planning your next steps towards recovery.
We can also share awareness of self-care and its importance in addiction recovery, helping you pave the way for a positive future, controlled by your decisions.
