Put the brakes on your emotional response

 

 

Put the brakes on your emotional response

You don’t know why you’re exhausted? You’re fighting a war inside your head every single day. If that’s not exhausting, I don’t know what is.”

Dear Readers,

 

Please find below Post 5 in  “Balance In Recovery”, ‘Put the brakes on your emotional response’, series from Bulimia Help resident Recovery Coach Catherine Liberty.

 

During recovery it’s really important to find new, healthy outlets for painful thoughts and feelings. If you’re holding all of that upset and negativity inside then you just wont be able to thrive in your recovery.

My favourite suggestion for “mentally purging” negative thoughts before they have a chance to overwhelm you is to spend a little time journal writing whenever you’re feeling challenged and unhappy in your recovery.

Happiness Strategy – Journal when you’re feeling emotionally overwhelmed 

 

 

Many researchers seem to be in agreement that regular journaling helps to reduce anxiety, improve mood, reduce stress and increase our overall levels of life satisfaction, while some studies even go on to show that keeping a journal can significantly boost your immune system, reduce your blood pressure, and improve your memory! (Baikie and Wilhelm, 2005).

During my own recovery I often sat down to write whenever I was feeling particularly upset, stressed or triggered and I found the process to be incredibly healing. Sometimes I wouldn’t even bother to read what I had written at the end, it really didn’t matter so much, it was the process of allowing built up feelings out that mattered the most.

Whether you’re using journaling as a distraction, a way to facilitate the acceptance of negative thoughts, a pause button, or all of the above, turning to a pen and paper (or your online journal) can be a really effective way to avoid a relapse that is being driven by intense emotions.#

 

“In the same way you hit the brake when you’re driving, when you put feelings into words, you seem to be hitting the brakes on your emotional responses.” –

 

Dr. Matthew D. Lieberman, Professor of Psychology at UCLA.

So the next time you feel you are becoming overwhelmed by painful or negative emotions, or when you’re just not happy in your recovery,  why not give yourself a 5-10 minute time out to write about what you’re experiencing. Write whatever comes to mind, just let it flow, and see if you feel the same sense of relief as I did when using this technique.

Catherine 
ED Recovery Coach 
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