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hey there everybody and welcome back to the addiction and mental
health Disorders Treatment manual this is unit 1 Part 13 enhancing
environmental motivation I'm your host Dr Donnelly Snipes
in this part we're going to explore environmental motivation and how to enhance it now in the last
part we talked about cognitive motivation which is one of those things where you're addressing
how you think about the world and that is very key for a lot of cognitive behavioral therapists
in environmental motivation we're really looking at stimuli in the environment so
this is something that is near and dear to behaviorists and behavioral therapists
spend about 45 or 50 minutes thinking about things in the environment and that means where you spend
most of your time at your home in your car at work or at school and anywhere else you spend a lot of
time think about things in the environment that either support your recovery lifestyle or trigger
Cravings or old feelings and behaviors it could be sounds sights smells it could be activity levels
for example if you have anxiety and you're trying to recover from generalized anxiety
being in an environment where there's a lot of activity and a lot of hubbub may be really
stressful and it may trigger your anxiety so thinking about things in the environment that
might trigger the issues you're trying to recover from whether it is mental health or substance
and think about things in the environment that are there that you could focus on that support
your recovery or things you could add to the environment that would support your recovery
what things sights sounds and smells in your environment at home work and when you're commuting
trigger addictive behaviors Cravings anxiety anger depression guilt grief pain or even illness
on a piece on different pieces of paper write down each one of those things because in things in your
environment that trigger anxiety are likely going to trigger some of these other things too so and
the same thing holds true for anger and depression and guilt Etc so it's important to recognize the
interactive nature of all these things which is why I keep asking you to explore them
so think about those triggers how can you change the environment to support a recovery lifestyle
what sights sounds and smells can you add in and how can you remove the negative for
example if you're trying to quit smoking one of the things we tell people who are trying to
quit smoking is to deep clean their house so and their car and their clothes so the
smell of nicotine is no longer lingering that's one of those things they can do to
support a recovery lifestyle removing nicotine products from their environment is another one
adding things that they like to do instead of smoking can also be helpful you know what
function did smoking serve and what can you add in order to achieve that same goal if smoking
helped you relax what else could you do if some smoking gave you something to do with your hands
what else could you do instead and how can you put that in the environment so it's there literally at
your fingertips how will a healthy environment help you feel better physically and emotionally
and in what ways does your environment
trigger dysphoria unpleasant feelings or Addiction in the past think about when you
were growing up you know other environments that you've been in what's been in those environments
that's triggered unpleasant feelings or addictive behaviors and be aware of those
because those are things that you may encounter in the present that you also need to adjust for