How stressed out are you feeling right now? It is an important question for everyone—and particularly important for a person who is in recovery from a substance use disorder.
If you are like many people, the answer is probably somewhere between a little and a lot—and it might well edge toward the “a lot” side of the scale. After all, daily life is filled with a variety of different stressors.
For example, your job may be a source of stress. Maybe the deadlines are always tight or your coworkers are hard to get along with or you have never received the necessary training to excel at your work. Your family may be a source of stress. It is possible that everyone in the family has a busy schedule—and those schedules tend to overlap in inconvenient ways. You might have young children or aging parents or both. There might be conflict in your relationship with your significant other.
And then there are the stressors that pop up more often than any of us would like. The car breaks down. Your neighbors throw a loud and messy party. The library books are overdue. We could, of course, go on and on…and on.
Given that high levels of stress can chip away at the foundations of your recovery, it is important to have strategies for keeping it at bay. One reliable strategy might surprise you. You can reduce the stress you are experiencing by tidying up the spaces you spend most of your time.
Straightening Up Means You Can Find What You Need
How often do you find yourself rushing around in the morning looking for something you need but have misplaced? It might be your wallet or your car keys or your phone. It might even be your shoes. Any and all of these things might be lost in a cluttered space. The hunt for one item or another in the morning gets your day off to a stressful start.
The same idea can apply in your workplace. How often do you have to hunt up some key notes or a billing code or an important report that you struggle to find in your disorganized workspace? The time you spend looking for what you need is likely the time you can feel your stress level rising.
If you commit to keeping your various spaces tidy, you will have fewer stressful moments related to items you need but cannot find. That will improve your day—and it will support your ongoing recovery.
Straightening Up Can Give You a Quick Win
Sometimes, everything can seem overwhelming. And in those moments, you might find yourself feeling stuck and unable to move forward on much of anything. One way to get unstuck might be to straighten up a mess.
You could, for example, sort that pile of mail—most of which you can probably recycle. You could fold a basket of laundry. You could wash your coffee mug—or clear out the accumulated mugs that you have been cycling through.
How do these activities help you get unstuck and thereby lower your stress levels? Tackling a small cleaning project can give you a quick win. And that small but significant progress can be enough to get you back on track with other projects—and it means that the feeling of being stuck does not tempt you to return to one substance or another to make yourself feel better.
Straightening Up Can Even Help You Sleep
We admit it seems counterintuitive, but the fact is that a neater sleeping space can lead to better quality rest. It might seem like clutter in your bedroom is not an issue once your eyes are closed. But a clean, comfortable, cool, dark space supports your sleep—and getting enough quality sleep is one of the single most important things you can do to support your recovery.
If your room tends to be a mess, you do not have to commit to a complete overhaul all at once. But steady progress toward a better-organized space is worthwhile. And each time you clean up even a small part of the bedroom, you also get the benefits we talked about above: you will be better able to find what you are looking for with ease, and you will get the boost that comes from a quick win.
Let’s Clean Drugs or Alcohol Out of Your Life
If you are struggling with a substance use disorder, you are likely experiencing a lot of chaos in your life. Your physical and mental health are being undermined, your relationships are suffering, and your ability to work or go to school is no doubt threatened. Under these circumstances, it is probably clear to you that you need to make a change.
The challenge is that it can be devilishly difficult to make that change on your own. At The Aviary Recovery Center—located near St. Louis, Missouri—we can help you reclaim your life from drugs or alcohol. We will see you through medically supervised detoxification, help you prepare for a life in recovery via our rehabilitation program, and provide ongoing resources and support through our aftercare program.
When you’re ready to make an essential change for the better, we’re ready to help.
