Maintaining a sunny disposition is a great way to go through life, especially a life of addiction recovery.
Maintaining a sunny disposition simply means that you prioritize your own happiness and make sure to think about the positives whenever you have a setback in your life. This combination will allow you to not get too low with the lows which will help you maintain a life of sobriety.
Positives of a Sunny Disposition in a Life of Recovery
Now that you have addressed your addiction many things will change in your day to day life but focusing on having a perpetual sunny disposition will make all of the next steps in your life easier.
You will experience many stressors as you adapt to a life of recovery. You will need to address personal relationships with friends and family, find new hobbies and activities, and develop new personal habits. If you choose to prioritize a sunny disposition all of these processes will be easier to handle.
When addressing your personal relationships, approaching difficult conversations with a positive and bubbly energy will make anything you say easier to take for your friends or family. Explaining that you need distance from them until you figure out your new lifestyle or that you need more help from them will come across as a positive choice you are making as opposed to an act of desperation or hostility.
Similarly, a positive attitude will also help you find new hobbies and activities. Thinking optimistically about new experiences greatly increases your chances of enjoying a new activity and will also help you make friends within that circle. Having fun and finding people with similar interests will then encourage you to continue enjoying and progressing at the hobby of your choice.
Finally, adjusting personal habits in recovery will also become easier when approached with a sunny disposition. Things like eating healthier, sleeping more, and avoiding your previous vices are all easier to deal with when you can focus on the positive outcomes rather than what you feel like you are missing.
How to Boost Happiness in Recovery
It is now clear that maintaining a sunny disposition while navigating a life of recovery is hugely beneficial to your success. However, staying positive through all of life’s problems is easier said than done. Luckily there are some relatively easy things you can do to stay more positive throughout life.
Prioritize Sleep
Your mood and how you handle stress is hugely affected by your sleep levels. Prioritizing your sleep and focusing on getting eight hours of sleep a night will help you maintain control over your emotions so that you can properly respond to events in your life.
To make adjustments to your sleep schedule you should keep a journal with how long you slept and how you felt. This will let you cater your sleep schedule specifically to your own needs. You should also focus on maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, spending an hour of quiet time before you go to bed, limiting naps, and creating a dark sleeping environment.
By approaching every day from a fully rested place you will allow yourself to prioritize critical thinking over emotional responses. This in turn will enable you to better focus on the positives in any situation.
Exercise
Making sure you stay active goes a long way in boosting your happiness. Exercising makes you feel good both mentally and physically. This combination will help you stay in a better mood most of the time and will prevent aches and pains from affecting both your mood and your ability to do things you enjoy.
If exercise is new to you, don’t feel like you have to dive right into running a marathon. Simply walking around the block, taking a beginner yoga class, or stretching in the morning is a great way to both boost your mood and start your journey towards exercising consistently.
Eat Well
Similarly to exercising regularly, food can have a huge effect on you both physically and mentally. Physically being overweight and out of shape is proven to zap you of energy which makes it more difficult to stay positive and find the sunshine in any situation. To combat this you should eat foods that provide you with energy and allow your body to work the way it should.
All diets work differently for different people but as a general rule of thumb you should eat more complex carbs, lean meats, and avoid deep fried foods. As you make changes to your diet you should quickly feel yourself seeing the positives in more situations.
Smile
Generally smiling is thought of as an effect of being in a good mood but it can actually work to put yourself in a better mood. Actively thinking about smiling can help you relax and will end in you feeling happier than you did previously. While this is not as long term of a fix as the above ideas it will still help you maintain a sunny disposition.
Focus On Breathing
Despite your work towards a sunny disposition you will still find yourself in situations that will test your mental strength. When you feel your shoulders tense up, your mind racing, and your emotions going wild you must act quickly. Instead of going with a rash response you should take a slow deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.
As you focus on your breathing you will immediately feel your shoulders relax and your thoughts slow down. This will then allow you to focus on a happy place which will bring back your sunny disposition. From there you will be able to react in an effective way that will prevent escalation of the situation which will make your life easier and happier in the long run.
Maintaining a Sunny Disposition
As you work to navigate a life of sobriety and a journey of recovery it is hugely beneficial to maintain a sunny disposition. Focusing on the positives in any situation will enable you to fight the urge to relapse, enhance your daily life, and help you find new activities and friend groups that will make you happier than ever.
