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Published On: February 28, 2018|Categories: Recovery|

Whether the goals are written down or not, everyone has something that he or she wants to accomplish. These goals are typically tangible and quantifiable measures of success, like getting a raise or saving a certain sum of money.

While this is a smart way to set goals, sometimes people get caught up in deciding on and achieving goals without ever feeling true satisfaction. Often the root of this disappointment lies in emotional wellbeing.

What is emotional well-being? It’s a person’s capacity to enjoy life, to find satisfaction in the present moment and to feel good about oneself. It’s something everyone longs for, but it can be elusive. In this article, we’ll discuss the top habits to improve emotional health to increase your chances of lasting recovery.

1. Practice Mindfulness

Building emotional health habits starts with understanding and naming your emotions. This awareness and reflection is part of growing in emotional intelligence and maturity, and will help you to handle adversity. Mindfulness improves these areas by encouraging contemplation of yourself and your surroundings.

When challenges are inevitable during your quest for sobriety, having mindfulness as a tool in your back pocket will surely help you build good emotional health habits. To practice mindfulness, you can do a guided meditation, put away distractions (like phones and television) while you eat, spend your commute in silence and more.

2. Develop Self-Compassion

Self-compassion is the empathy you have towards yourself. Often, we are so critical of ourselves and have thoughts that are damaging— things we would never dare to say to anyone else. This self-talk can be combatted with self-compassion.

As you grow in awareness of yourself, this will be essential. Changing negative thinking patterns is often something that happens as a component of mental health or substance use treatment, and it should carry over into all areas of your life.

Growing this compassion is one of the best habits to improve emotional health, and will have ripple effects on your recovery and your relationships with the people around you.

3. Learn How to Find Meaning

The process of finding and understanding your life’s purpose is a deeply personal and spiritual experience for many, and no two people will take the same path. When you start to imbue your life with meaning, though, it will take on an entirely different dimension.

Finding a faith practice, volunteering, committing to a cause, building a family, working on passion projects and celebrating life’s victories are all common ways that people steep their lives in meaning. When you find your niche, you should feel valued and important. Your emotional well-being will get a boost like no other when you build meaning into your life.

You’ll also be more resilient when you face challenges if your life has a decided and clear purpose. It will give you clarity on your hardest days in recovery.

4. Strengthen Connections

Humans are made for community, and even if you consider yourself an introvert and prefer socializing in small doses, you still need connection with others to thrive. Sadly, our society substitutes really interaction with flashy promises of technological community, but it will never fill the void.

Strengthening connections in real life is one of the best (and most fun) habits to improve emotional health. Having a few close friends and a reliable and supportive community can defeat isolation and help you to foster healthy communication and emotional stability— skills that are essential in life and recovery.

Often, strong friendships are built on vulnerability. Opening up, being authentic and investing in a few key relationships is a sure sign of good emotional health habits. Not only will you reap the benefits of an improved mood, enjoyment of life and critical social skills, you’ll also have support around you for remaining sober.

Make Changes that Matter

When you’re thinking about setting out to improve your emotional well-being, focus on mindfulness, self-compassion, finding meaning and strengthening connections. Even if you need to take baby steps toward one of those four emotional health habits, you’re sure to be on your way to peace of mind and a full life.

Substance use can make your emotional life feel overwhelming, and it doesn’t have to be that way. Healing from an addiction can help you take back control of your emotions and enjoy feeling them again instead of trying to numb your way out of them. Get the help you need and get in touch with Rehab After Work today.

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