hey there everybody and welcome to this presentation on triggers out with the
bad and in with the good I am your host dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes
the first thing we want to talk about is what are triggers we hear this word a
lot but what exactly are we talking about and triggers are anything yeah I
know that helps a lot anything that prompt a reaction a
positive trigger is something that prompts a positive feeling or a positive
action out of you a negative trigger if you will is something that triggers an
unhelpful response or an unpleasant feeling in you something that triggers
anxiety or anger or depression is going to be what we're calling a negative
trigger so to speak it's important in recovery to not only eliminate the
unpleasant triggers and in substance abuse recovery we talk about triggers a
whole lot and eliminating people places things reminders you know cleaning out
the closet doing all those sorts of things but it's also important to add
triggers that remind you to do the things that are necessary for a rich and
meaningful happy healthy life what categories do those fall into you know
what are we talking about here well physical triggers are things when you
feel a certain way physically if I get up and I am achy and in pain you know
that could be a trigger for a bad mood so what are some things that I can do to
help myself feel better there are not a whole lot of things but I can remind
myself to go to the gym you know I know that seems counterintuitive when you're
a key but sometimes just getting those joints moving can help things feel a
little bit better physical triggers if I haven't had a good night's sleep then
I'm probably going to be noticing more negative stuff and be more negative so
it's important to get good quality sleep and in order to do that what do I need
to do to remind myself to trigger my sleep now a lot of the triggers we're
going to talk about our environmental so we'll get there in a minute but it's
important to remember that physical states pain exhaustion well those are
the big ones may trigger you to feel or react in a
certain way hunger that's the other one pain exhaustion or hunger being aware of
your blood sugar levels is really important to helping you feel calm and
clear-headed and your hydration as well can help you feel more focused and more
energetic so sleep hydration nutrition and addressing physical pain issues are
all going to be really important and you can do some of those you know figure out
what do you need to do to remember to drink water what do you need to do to
remember to minimize stimulants what do you need to do to remember to stretch so
you don't wake up in the middle of the night in pain for example for me I have
a stretching mat that I have right by my bed so I can lay that out and stretch at
night before I go to bed whatever it is that triggers you reminds you to do the
things that you need to do to be happy and healthy affective triggers and these
are things that are going to trigger your mood what can you do in order to
help yourself feel happier is it you know can you think about things that are
gonna help you feel happier can you add things in the environment that are gonna
make you feel happier what is it that makes you happier likewise what is it
that makes you unhappy and how you how can you minimize those things and they
may be thoughts they may be things in your environment they may be things you
see they may be social media they may be news media whatever it is
think about what triggers your unhappiness and try to minimize that and
what triggers your happiness and maximize that add that in so you're
surrounded by reminders of happiness on you know a regular basis throughout the
day and that includes in your car if you drive or in your briefcase or whatever
if you happen to ride the subway or the Metro or the El or whatever they call it
where you are cognitive triggers are things that we think that make us
either happy or angry or anxious or whatever
what sort of cognitive triggers what sort of thoughts do you have that
trigger unpleasant moods and a lot of times we call these unhelpful thoughts
or cognitive distortions personalization all-or-nothing thinking jumping to
conclusions without having all the facts mind-reading there's a lot of cognitive
distortions out there and on our YouTube channel
all CEUs education there are a bunch of videos on addressing negative thinking
styles as well as addressing cognitive distortions so you can look for further
videos on those there but I want you to also think about adding in cognitive
triggers adding in thoughts every day that make you happy
have you know like your own little fortune cookies around or set on your
mobile device to have push notifications come through that provides you with a
positive message once an hour things that are going to trigger happy thoughts
thoughts of strength thoughts of empowerment thoughts of courage thoughts
of determination thoughts of compassion all of those thoughts anything that
triggers those thoughts are going to help trigger a happier more energized
mood and physiological state of being now environmental is the big one you
know triggers we typically think of as environmental sights sounds and smells
basically you can do taste and touch in there but those are a little bit harder
sites what things in your environment look around right now what things in
your environment make you feel drab make you feel depressed make you feel
overwhelmed make you feel angry anxious any of those unpleasant emotions and
what can you do to eliminate those if you're in an environment one place I
used to work the walls we're also this pee puke blue green color that just
felt very cold and institutional to me it drove me crazy interestingly the
first house we moved in into in that particular city also had the same color
walls and that was the first thing I did when we moved into that house was
changed the color of the walls to a butter yellow I love butter yellow I
love butter too but that was important for my mood because it changed the mood
changed the aura if you will of the of all of the rooms when it was a brighter
warmer color you may not realize how much influence colors have if you can't
paint your walls because you live in an apartment or something one thing you can
do is get rolls of art paper or actual what's the word I'm looking for
wallpaper the rolls of wallpaper and instead of pasting them to the wall so
it's permanent you can use little finishing nails or thumbtacks to put
them up on the wall so you have an accent wall somewhere that has things
that make you happy or a color that makes you happy you know if it were me I
would probably have wallpaper that had different critters on it and different
flowers and stuff but the cool thing if you don't stick it to the wall if you
just use little finishing nails you can periodically switch it out with other
things that make you happy so there are a lot of different things that you can
do in your environment to address the sites that you see if it's somewhere
that you can't do anything on the walls or you may not be able to put up
pictures maybe at the office they don't want you to personalize it which is
unfortunate but sometimes that's the way it is okay what can you put on your
mobile device can you create a photo album on your mobile device can you on
your computer create a screensaver that goes through some of your favorite
pictures that make you happy you want to be able to have somewhere that you can
go when you need to take a mental break other
sites that might bother you besides color can be disorganization it can be
when you're driving to work there can be things that make you unhappy or stress
you out if if you need to alter your route to work so you're not driving past
something that triggers you negatively then you may need to do that and take a
few extra minutes for some people for example traffic is a huge stress trigger
for them it's going to be important for them to arrange their schedule so
they're not driving in the heaviest traffic in the middle of rush-hour
sounds can also be positive or negative triggers and I talked about this a
little bit in the last video I love the sounds of birds especially Black capped
chickadees and Eastern to--he's obviously you're not just going to get
those oh and Cardinals I love the little chipping they make and I love it
especially if it's associated with actual birds that are at my actual bird
feeder that doesn't isn't always possible when I'm at the office that's
not something that I have that's something I have at home at the office
though I can listen to background noise that has bird songs on it or different
sounds and a lot of times you can just go on YouTube and find soundtracks that
are like eight hours long that are woodland sounds or nature sounds or
whatever you're looking for it's probably on YouTube for free you don't
need to go out and buy some expensive noise machine or sound machine other
sounds you might like include music when I am trying to concentrate I don't like
sitting in complete silence that's just me so I will put on instrumental music
like Vivaldi which I happen to like you need to figure out what you like to hear
what makes you happy to hear and put that on likewise you need to know the
things that make you stressed out loud sudden noises dogs barking maybe
thunderstorms stress you out any sounds that cause you stress or anxiety
you need to figure out ways to eliminate those as much as possible
if lots of background noise maybe you work in one of those air offices that
everybody is in the same bullpen and there's just constant noise and talking
and it's just overwhelming you may need to invest in some noise cancelling
headphones or some earplugs that you can put in so you can get a little bit of
silence and get reground it and not feel bombarded constantly and finally smells
smells are our strongest memory trigger I'll say that again
smells are our strongest memory trigger so if you smell something
maybe you smell something I remember I had one professor teacher when I was in
grade school it was my drafting teacher smelled of stale cigarettes and coffee
and had the worst breath you have ever experienced in your life and he was
always coming over behind us this was when we had the old fashioned drafting
boards and leaning over our shoulders to help us with our with our drafting and I
remember every time he would come near just kind of greeting my teeth going oh
please I hope he doesn't look at my paper not because I had a problem my
paper I just didn't want to smell his breath so periodically if I smell stale
cigarettes and coffee I'll get a whiff of something that smells just like that
and I'm like oh and it brings me right back there you know he was a nice enough
man but it brings me right back there remembering that particular experience
but I can also go to you know one of the stores you know the big box stores or
whatever and start smelling some of the wax tarts
those aren't essential oils those are just smells and some of them I smell and
I remember a time that I smelled that in the past that made me very happy and
getting those particular wax tarts I focus on in order to create an
environment that reminds me of happy times which causes my brain to dump
those happy chemicals and those relaxing chemicals like GABA
smells don't have to be Essential Oils now there's a lot of research out there
that essential oils can be very beneficial to triggering positive
feelings but they can also get expensive I would say until you figure out if
smells work for you which they probably will you just have to find the right
ones you know stick with things that you know stick with things like cinnamon or
chocolate or coffee or whatever it is that makes you happy
find something that smells of that and
try to figure out how to incorporate it in your environment
smells are super easy to incorporate you can put them on little cotton balls if
they're the wax tart so you don't have to do anything you can take a little wax
tart and put it in a ziploc bag and put it in your purse if you're a female or
your backpack or whatever it is and whenever you need a whiff of it you can
just open that bag you can take those wax tarts you can also put them in your
dresser drawers in order to you know have that smell permeate your clothes a
little bit if you use particular oils you can get them online to create fabric
softeners that you can use if if you're down with that that's a lot of work
doing that you can take the wax tarts and you can keep them please keep them
in a jar or something so they don't melt when it gets hot but you can keep them
in your car you don't have to go out and buy a bunch of different expensive you
know clip-on things for the car and this and that
smells permeate quite a bit they have little rings that you can put on top of
candles and put an essential oil or a smelly oil I don't know what the word is
I'm looking for today but you can put it on the ring and as the bulb heats up the
ring it makes the aroma spread throughout the room there are a lot of
options that you have and finally relational or interpersonal
triggers the bad ones are people that trigger
stress anxiety depression frustration resentment guilt grief you know there's
a lot of unpleasant feelings that can be associated with with relationships
however there's also good triggers and you want to think of those think about
times that you've been in relationships that have made you feel loved and
accepted and warm and people that you've admired and people who've admired you
those are all the positive triggers and keep pictures of those people or those
events in your in your sight in your memory so you can remember that there
are people there supporting you and for the people who are more difficult to
deal with for some reason figuring out ways to accept that if they have to be
in your life maybe their family recognizing that they are probably doing
the best they can with the tools they have at that point in point in time
having compassion and empathy for how unpleasant it must be in their head for
them to be that unpleasant to everybody else try to understand or understand
that that's just the way they are they are going to be critical
they were that's the way they were raised maybe their parents were critical
and their parents were critical so that's what they do they don't mean harm
by it they think they're helping but it may not be so helpful recognizing not
only what they say or what they what feelings they trigger but why and most
of the time people are not acting out of malice they are acting from their own
place of dysfunction or experience and it's up to us to be able to set
boundaries and either communicate with them assertively that that is not
helpful it would be more helpful if you would do XYZ always present a solution
or figure out ways that we can accept people as they are even if they are a
little bit cantankerous I hope that helped
you some ideas for things that you can do in your environment that you can
start doing right now right now today you know on your way home from work
wherever you're at stop by somewhere that has those little wax tarts
obviously those are one of my favorite little things and find something that
you can smell that makes you think that smells really good I'm relaxed and that
can help you move one step toward feeling a little bit happier thank you
for watching