Those who have stepped onto the path toward recovery have begun a transition between the life they have grown used to and a new one full of new routines and challenges. If you have been stressed, you might have noticed that your progress seems to stall, and you might even be feeling closer to relapse. Understand that there is a connection between emotional stress and recovery. Even single spikes of stress can interfere with your progress, but people tend to push these feelings down. Addressing them directly is essential for pursuing long-term success.
Professionals recommend that those recovering from addiction take note of any emotional challenges early and seek support. Your overall well-being matters, and with the help of a professional focused on behavioral health, recovery can last. Here are some common warning signs that your emotional stress may be negatively affecting your recovery.
Key Takeaways
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Why Stress Impacts Recovery
Your recovery has likely not progressed in a smooth line. You may have encountered situations that challenge your new routines or thoughts that negatively impact your wellness. Emotional stress can lead to these scenarios, even if you do not currently feel that you are in crisis. You do not need a significant stressful event in order to be impacted by the physical and psychological effects of stress.
For example, your body releases cortisol to help you cope with stress. Cortisol helps fuel you during intense situations and is a survival mechanism, like adrenaline. Even if you are experiencing low-level, consistent stress, such as responsibilities at work, your body is being exposed to cortisol. Over time, cortisol can impact your memory, blood pressure, and even your immune system.
Adding these complicating factors to your recovery introduces complexity to a new lifestyle that already requires your focus. Thus, stress can inhibit your success, but you do not have to accept this outcome. The first step is recognizing that your emotional stress is influencing your wellness. From there, you can seek help to become more resilient and find long-term success.
Seven Signs Emotional Stress Is Affecting Your Recovery
If you suspect that stress is affecting your recovery, acting quickly can help to keep you on track before you develop new habits that are not serving you well. Like any other behavior, stress-induced activities (e.g., new coping methods, circular thinking) can become habitual and ingrained over time. One of the best choices you can make is to interrupt this process early so you can stay consistent with the new life you have built.
Some of the most common emotional stress symptoms for those in recovery include:
Your mental health is deteriorating
Tackling stress pays enormous dividends when it comes to mental health in recovery. In addition to the stress itself, you might notice that you are anxious more often or feeling depressed. Mental health changes can look different for everyone, but depression and anxiety remain the two most common comorbidities. Because stress consumes your mental energy, you lose some of the resilience that keeps you secure against intrusive thoughts, anxious catastrophizing, sluggishness, loss of hope, and more.
If you notice that your mental health is changing negatively, seek help as soon as you can. In some cases, a person may simply be developing a new branch of mental health changes that is not related to stress, or they could be discovering that they have always had anxiety or depression and never recognized it before. However, their situation could also be prompted by stress, and relieving the stress may relieve the other symptoms as well. In either case, seeking mental healthcare is the right next step.
Your decision-making changes
One of the attributes that directly influenced your success in breaking free from addiction is your ability to make strong decisions. If you are under stress, you might notice that you are making impulsive or risky decisions more frequently than usual. Perhaps you contact people who are associated with your past substance use or spend your money recklessly. You might start to feel that your treatment recommendations are not worthwhile or that you have better ideas, so you break from your routine.
If this sounds like you, understand that your mind under stress is reinforcing these decisions. The immediate relief of being “freed” from restrictions or situations (e.g., you spend money because it feels better than saving it) can trigger the reward center in your brain. Do not give up on your long-term goals. A therapist can help.
Your coping mechanisms are less effective
Each person develops their own unique coping mechanisms, often through a combination of mental health support and personal discovery. However, stress can make your regular coping habits more cumbersome and push you toward simpler but less healthy options.
For example, have you noticed that you are staying constantly busy, even to the point of overworking? Do you refuse to discuss your problems because doing so makes you upset? Do you find yourself compulsively scrolling, gaming, shopping, or eating? All of these can be hints that your stress is feeding new coping habits. Your existing methods of coping might fall off as well, seeming less effective.
You are withdrawing from support
Perhaps the single most potent indicator that stress is affecting your recovery is that it often prompts you to begin withdrawing from the supportive scaffolds you have built as part of recovery. Stress can make you feel tired and frustrated, which may lead to missing counseling or treatment appointments, ignoring calls and messages, or lacking the energy to spend time with supportive people. As you work through stress, do not give up on your recovery support resources. Even if you do not want to, try staying in touch with people and attending your scheduled sessions.
Your justifications for relapse are increasing
The most direct warning sign that stress is getting in the way of your success is when it increases your cravings. Stressed people tend to seek relief in the simplest, fastest way possible, and for those in recovery, that can mean returning to the substance you put behind you. You might think more frequently about what it was like or remember the perceived relief you experienced (even as your brain minimizes the consequences).
If you find yourself justifying why a lapse would be manageable, it is time to act. A craving does not mean you’ve failed or relapsed, but you do need to act before your stress undermines your progress. Recovery relapse warning signs should always be taken seriously.
Your sleep or routine has changed
Sleep helps to heal the body, and routine keeps your mind anchored. When stress forces changes in these elements of your life, you become more vulnerable to temptation and changes in your new, positive habits. You might have noticed that when you are stressed, you have trouble falling or staying asleep, or you might sleep much more than usual (which can be an unhealthy coping mechanism). If you fall behind on hygiene, appointments, household responsibilities, or eating, getting back to your baseline might feel like a monumental task. Rest assured that seeking support during this time can help to get things back on track. Stress might leave you with less energy and patience for managing everyday decisions and tasks, but you can recover this energy by handling the underlying stress.
You feel more reactive
Stress contributes to emotional overload, which can make it harder to control your feelings. You might start to become explosively angry over even minor frustrations, feel constantly under attack, take criticism poorly, or switch between moves at a frantic pace. The reason is that stress interrupts your ability to pause before reacting, and seeking mental healthcare to address stress can give you back this element of control.
Get Help to Overcome Emotional Stress
Everyone experiences stress from time to time, but it does not have to be a roadblock on the way toward progress. To preserve your emotional wellness in recovery, be sure to keep a team of supportive professionals and peers in your life through regular appointments and meetings. They can serve as both a positive outlet for stress and a resource for learning new coping strategies that will serve you over the long term.
Reducing your sources of stress should be one of the focal points of treatment. Relapse prevention strategies, such as seeking regular therapy, mean that you do not have to undergo this process alone. Contact Aquila Recovery Clinic to schedule an appointment with a mental health professional so you can minimize the power that stress has over your life and recovery. Our team will help you work toward your goals while keeping stress in check.