Positive Lifestyle Habits

No one has ever once said that the road to recovery is easy. Regaining your serenity, sanity, and sobriety when you have been struggling in and out with substance abuse is one of the most challenging experiences you will ever go through in your life.

We have all heard that adapting our lives to incorporate healthy habits such as staying active throughout the week, eating well, and staying on top of your health screenings is extremely important. Several positive lifestyle factors can further promote good health if you want to live a healthy, long, vibrant life.

While there is no way to adapt to the genes that you were born with, you can educate yourself on your environmental surrounding and intentional choices when it comes to factors such as:

• Sleep
• Diet
• Smoking
• Alcohol intake
• Drug use
• Limiting stress

Leading a joyous life has several benefits; success within your social life and work will naturally gravitate towards you. Seeing the positive in even the most negative situations will only open up more opportunities for you to grasp.

Positive thinking

Positive thinkers make the best out of every situation, focusing on what they can control, letting go of what they cannot, and search for ways to improve the situation and lessons to learn.

Positive thinking does not mean that you stick your head in the sand or view the world through rose-colored glasses. Positive thinking encompasses the mental attitude of optimism, which searches for favorable outcomes in all situations. It relies on the emotional state of hope, which looks past the current circumstance and supports the building of emotional, social, and other positive action resources.

Physical and mental benefits of a positive lifestyle?

Various psychologists have explained the physical and mental benefits of developing positive habits into your lifestyle. When you are to have a positive mental mindset, it can improve your overall mood, increase your confidence and give you a physical glow within your face.  There have been a significant amount of studies that have also linked having a positive mindset to reducing the chances of several mental health disorders such as:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Hypertension
• Other stress-related disorders

Below we have highlighted a few ways to bring positive habits into your lifestyle while you successfully continue on the road to complete sobriety. The first positive lifestyle habit we would recommend is:

Get the right amount of sleep

Sleep is vital to every human being; it is often downplayed in its importance compared to such activities as exercise and your diet. The consequences of not getting enough sleep every night have been linked to an increase in forgetfulness, higher blood pressure, and significantly increases early mortality risk.

A good night’s sleep is essential to ensure you recharge the proverbial batteries. While you sleep, your body will be working away regenerating old cells, repairing damaged cells, and getting rid of waste within the body to ensure you wake up feeling refreshed and ready to face any obstacle in your way.

Start writing a gratitude journal

Starting a gratitude journal is an excellent way to reflect on all of the positive things that happened throughout your day. Simply take 10-20 minutes at the end of each day to write down everything; this routine has been proven to improve your ability to focus, lower your stress levels, and truly see what matters in your life and what causes you unnecessary stress.

If you are ever to have a bad or stressful day, read through your journal and remind yourself of all the positive experiences you have had over the past week. This exercise will help you level your mind and realize that the situation you are stressing over is not as difficult as you may first think.

Maintain a healthy diet 

Eating healthy and staying hydrated is essential for keeping on track with your new sober life. Consuming healthy foods rich in vitamins and minerals will make you feel better from the inside out. Studies have heavily linked eating a balanced diet and staying hydrated to lower anxiety and stress within the individual.

Maintaining a healthy diet as part of a new lifestyle can be hard to grasp fully; try to practice only eating when hungry to avoid snacking from craving or to overcome intense emotions such as:

• Fatigue
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Sadness

Find a new hobby and explore   

Finding a new hobby to fit into your new positive lifestyle is highly effective when you are on the road to recovery. Breaking your former routine is essential to ensure you don’t fall back into bad habits.

Developing new hobbies and exploring the world will allow you to embrace new experiences. This could be the perfect time for you to travel to that one city you have always dreamt of, go back to school and get your degree, learn a new skill or language; the world is your oyster.

New hobbies and experiences will allow your mind to feel free of your problems, even if it is just for a couple of hours.

Stay active

One crucial factor when adapting your lifestyle to include positive habits is to stay active. Exercise has been medically proven to release and pumps endorphins around the body; these are chemicals that react with your brain to increase your level of happiness.

Your self-confidence will soar along with your personal health, and overall stress levels with significantly be reduced. Allow yourself to set some time aside every day or two days to go for a walk, football game, dance class, anything that gets your heart pumping. If you feel up to it, join a gym and start lifting some weights. It doesn’t matter what exercise it is as long as you are enjoying it.

Always be grateful

Addiction is a very destructive disease that can take hold of any individual within a blink of an eye. Undoubtedly, within the time you were substance-abusing, there would have been negative situations that you wish you were never involved in. The easy road is to sit back and let your negative thoughts consume you, but you need to change your viewpoint.

Right now, you are on the road to recovery; that is a fantastic achievement in itself. You have a bright, long, happy future ahead of you with unforgettable memories and experiences to come. Some people may never get another chance, but you have, and you need to be grateful for this opportunity that you have achieved and continue believing in yourself. You have come so far already; why give in a stop.

Last piece of advice

These six positive lifestyle habits can go a long way in keeping you securely on the road to recovery while also improving your overall mental and physical well-being.

Shoreline Sober Living in San Diego understands that changing behavior patterns and establishing new positive habits is vital to achieving long-lasting sobriety. That is why we offer a much-needed routine to all of the residents of our recovery home.  Shoreline Sober Living has been structured and designed to enhance our resident’s personal and professional growth, to allow individuals to become self-reliant, responsible, and self-supporting.