There’s no better time to shed light on the link between stress and addiction than April, which is officially known as Stress Awareness Month. This can be a month of peaceful education, as learning how to treat both stress and addiction can help alleviate the other.
Why is Stress Awareness Month Important?
Stress is one of the leading contributors to all mental and physical health conditions. It taxes the internal systems of the body and takes away from the person’s ability to cope with obstacles that may arise. Stress Awareness Month is an important time to analyze the connection between stress and addiction healing, so people can take time to analyze if stress is negatively affecting their lives.
Stress Awareness Month Builds Community and Recovery Support
While every month is important to continue support for anybody struggling with anxiety or addiction, April is a great time to build broader support. It can be a perfect opportunity to open up about the stress you’ve been experiencing, or the obstacles of addiction treatment you’ve overcome in the past. Connections and open communication can go a long way toward relieving stress.
Stress Awareness Month Expands Community Awareness
The sad truth is that most of the community is oblivious to the connection between stress and depression. A 2015 study showed that up to 10 percent of all people in the world may be affected by depression, and stress can directly affect the systems of the body responsible for depression (including the immune system). Stress Awareness Month does exactly what the title says- it raises awareness of the struggles many people face without knowing there are many other people just like them.
Stress Awareness Month Compels People to Take Action
Stress Awareness Month motivates people to get involved in the fight against stress and addiction. Together, society can rally to support people in overcoming their stress. It can help you find things in common with different people in your community who also deal with stress and addiction.
How Does Stress Impact Mental and Physical Health?
The human mind is man’s greatest wonder. The brain sends signals to every vital organ in the body, telling them how to function and respond. It’s when these signals go haywire that harmful stress begins to build and affect the body.
Stress begins in the mind and spreads from there. The initial circumstance is mentally processed and our body responds either positively or negatively to the conceived thought or idea.
Because of that, stress can take a compounding toll on the rest of your organs and vital functions. This can lead to several physical and mental health conditions over time. This is partly responsible for the connection between stress and addiction. Thankfully, there are medically-based mental therapy treatments to help you deal with stress properly and respond positively to strenuous circumstances.
Cortisol is a hormone in the body known as the “stress hormone,” although it performs other functions in the body around regulation. When you’re stressed out, cortisol is what floods through your body to raise your energy enough that you can deal with the immediate source of stress. It’s the hormone that helps you “escape” from stress. But if you’re experiencing ongoing stress, the constant flow of cortisol can severely damage your body and mind.
The short answer is yes. To be specific, numerous people indulge in substance abuse to escape or forget their unfavorable reality or other anxiety. Alleviating stress (or learning to cope with it in healthy ways) can positively impact substance abuse habits. Learning stress management techniques from a trained specialist can make a world of difference in managing addiction.
Addictive substances interact explicitly with the pleasure center, overstimulating dopamine (the hormone around pleasure and learning within your brain) to produce a temporary euphoria. Your body then goes from an extreme high to an extreme low to help the dopamine recuperate. These extreme lows can cause deep anxiety, sadness, emptiness, and depression, in addition to basic stress. This can encourage persistent drug and alcohol use, as a measure to hold off the dangerous lows.
What are the Three Main Types of Stress?
It’s important to speak with a medical professional to get an accurate assessment of the severity of your stress and anxiety levels. Stress is classified into three main types, depending on duration and severity:
Acute stress, the most common and mild form of stress, is usually periodic and brief. It’s usually a result of negative thoughts, fears, or the occurrence of unforeseen troubling circumstances. Acute stress is a natural emotional response to life occurrences and is not considered serious if episodes of acute stress do not persist or linger. Consequently, this phase of stress is often abated with minimal or no treatment.
Individuals who suffer from frequent stress or experience episodes of stress stemming from common triggers possess episodic stress. Episodic stress manifests itself through frequent bouts of anxiety that can range from short-lived to long periods. It is further characterized by sudden and persistent changes in mood, paranoia, and other behavioral alterations.
Chronic stress is the most severe degree of stress, characterized by a perpetual mindset of fear, paranoia, and worry. Chronic stress not only manifests itself on a long-term basis but can often border on delusional thought processes. Chronic stress can stem from a mild or moderate concern and expand to unrealistic proportions.
This pattern of chronic stress often leads to stressing over unrelated and nearly impossible outcomes or circumstances for no underlying reason. The paranoia, delusions, and anxieties that result are prone to inflict serious harm on the sufferer’s mental and physical health. Please note that chronic and episodic levels of anxiety require professional care and attentiveness to fully overcome.
Treating Co-Occurring Disorders
It’s not uncommon for someone with a mental illness to also be dealing with an addiction. This can cause additional stress in recovery treatment and requires special strategies for incorporating healing.
Tips to Help You Cope With Stress and Build Resilience
Coping with stress is a process that should never be done alone. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to seek individual therapy to help you learn what coping methods are most healthy for you and your life.
Meditation is a process that involves relaxing practices to help you take control of your body, soul, and mind. Starting usually involves emptying your mind of all thoughts, both positive and negative, for extended periods. This naturally eases the mind and body. Meditation practices can be extremely effective for people who struggle to let go of their anxiety and negative thoughts.
Meditation is a process that involves relaxing practices to help you take control of your body, soul, and mind. Starting usually involves emptying your mind of all thoughts, both positive and negative, for extended periods. This naturally eases the mind and body. Meditation practices can be extremely effective for people who struggle to let go of their anxiety and negative thoughts.
Breathing patterns are directly linked to stress, as well as how your body and mind react to stress. Anxiety forces your breathing to match what your mind considers a stressful situation. Focusing on relaxation-based breathing techniques can encourage your body to relax from mental and physical strain. These patterns also increase your ability to use meditation, exercise, and other coping mechanisms to handle any stress that may come your way.
The exercises taught in cognitive-behavioral therapy promote being aware of your thought patterns so you can naturally implement positive reinforcement for yourself. These sessions train you to spot your mental habits and limiting beliefs. Before you know it, you’ll have a healthier, happier outlook on life without the limitations of your former perspectives.
One of the primary exacerbations of stress and anxiety is inactivity and stagnancy. Filling your time with enjoyable hobbies has the opposite effect, releasing natural stress-relieving chemicals in the brain. Having a consistent hobby not only releases healthy neurons, it helps you take your mind off of stressful circumstances.
During difficult times, we often want to be alone. But during times of stress and anxiety, it is vital to spend time with loved ones and members of your support network. This is why family therapy treatment can be highly effective for anybody struggling with stress or addiction. These sessions can help you learn how to effectively use family time while mending relationships that may have once been severed.
Think of exercise as active meditation — it can help your body actively deal with the effects of stress (such as inflammation) and process stress at the moment. This keeps cortisol from building up in the body and causing long-term damage to the body. Even the brain can be healed from the effects of stress through exercise, and even build up its resilience.
Combat Stress and Addiction Battles at Ambrosia Behavioral Health
Stress Awareness Month is a great opportunity to evaluate how you’re dealing with stress and how you can cope with it in healthy and productive ways. At Ambrosia Behavioral Health, we can help you develop strategies and techniques to deal with both stress and addiction. We know how much stress can affect mental health, and how it can affect a person’s struggle with addiction. We’ll help you learn healthy coping skills and continue your journey of recovery. If you’re seeking help in recovery, contact us today.
