RESOURCES
How do we grow and make changes when it’s difficult?
These discoveries, applications, and tools are adapted from: A mixed-methods experience sampling study of a posttraumatic growth model of addiction recovery. Scientific Reports 14, 3511.
DISCOVERIES
Our personal relations and interactions can be our most prevalent source of stress, or a pivotal source of support.
Experiencing more stress throughout the day predicts more impulsivity and less self-control.
But, experiencing close supportive relationships and personal interactions, increases positive emotions, thereby decreasing impulsivity and increasing self-control. This makes it easier to be creative—including when making important and difficult changes in our habits and routines. (Impulsivity is the tendency to act out of urgency, which over time has negative outcomes. Self-control is the tendency to act, not out of urgency, but out of consistent reflection about what one values or is good, which extensive research shows leads to better outcomes over time.)
APPLICATIONS
Here are a few reflections to help you apply these discoveries in your own life. They only take a few minutes.
Think of 1-3 people you know who care for and support you.
(Support doesn’t mean always agreeing with you, and sometimes means saying things that are hard to hear out of care for you.) Spend several minutes reflecting on ways they have shown they care. How can you be reminded of their support throughout the day? Perhaps set an alarm saying: “Remember how X cares for you.”
Spend some time reflecting on when and where you tend to feel stressed in your daily life.
In what settings? Around which individuals or in which groups? What is your impulsive way of responding in these situations and what does this result in? What would it look like to not respond in these ways—to either do nothing, or something creative that expresses care and support?
What are some times and places where you have experienced being a part of close, supportive groups?
Reimagine these times: What was going on? What did others do? What did you do to participate? When is the next time, and in what ways, can you participate in something like this again soon? Would there be a way to make this part of your daily or weekly routine?
TOOLS
Here are some tools, along with instructions, to help you apply what we’ve discovered in your own life.
These tools can be used by individuals or groups.
This link will take you to our mobile app called LifeData, which will provide a way for you to receive notifications, which will remind you to reflect on the social support you have. It will also remind you to think about ways you can contribute to supporting and caring for others throughout your daily life. Additionally, it will help you reflect on how this is impacting your impulsivity and self-control throughout the day.
The first matrix allows a way to reflect on people and places where you feel supported and close to others as well as those where you feel isolated and stressed. The second matrix provides a way to reflect on the things you do that contribute to social support and closeness with others, or isolation and stress. Take some time to think through things you do—things you participate in—all the way through: beginning, middle, and end. Finally, for each matrix, there is a reminder. You can print these out and write down something you’ve noticed and plan to change from your reflections as a daily reminder. You can carry this with you throughout the day.