Treating PTSD: 10 Reasons You Need to Develop A Joy Addiction
Friday, November 6th, 2009 • BRIDGE THE GAP Healing Workshop •
On Wednesday I wrote about where joy fits into the healing process. Today, a simple post covering WHY joy is such a necessary element in the healing process.
I’ll be honest, when I was struggling with PTSD the idea of joy hit me by surprise. It wasn’t a therapy I was looking for. Actually, it snuck up on me on a really horrible day. Like so many bad emotions it completely overwhelmed me in an unexpected moment.
The thing was though, it left me wanting more. It left me shocked and stunned that I could actually feel that way in the middle of such a bad case of PTSD.
But here’s the thing about the brain. Research continues to reveal our neuroplasticity, which means the brain is built to heal itself. (Want to learn more about this? Check out the info on our PTSD & the Brain page.)
So, if the brain is poised to change and heal, how can we help it? Joy — and forming a habit of it — can do wonderful things for and to you. Want a quick overview? I’m so glad you asked…..
Your recovery needs energy, focus and moments of exhilaration. The following reasons pull together just a sample of why you need to develop a joy addiction:
1. A joy addiction puts you on a schedule of feeling good.
2. The minute you smile the body releases serotonin; a nifty chemical that, in addition to other things, helps you sleep.
3. A joy addiction puts in place a new pattern to break the old one — the trauma addiction that PTSD becomes.
4. The brain likes to learn. It seeks patterns. Teaching it the new skill of accessing joy is a fun game for it.
5. As with any bad addiction, a good addiction makes you crave it. How nice, for a change, to crave joy rather than despair!
6. Joy focuses you on the present moment, which is exactly where you need to be in order to heal.
7. Joy allows you transcend pain by lifting you up on a fountain of bliss.
8. Joy is an extremely powerful change agent.
9. Joy links us back to that innocent part of ourselves that is carefree and happy and uncontaminated by experience.
10. More than anything, the rush of bliss provides courage. In that joyous state when we feel happy and free we find the beginning of the path out of trauma’s deep abyss.
With all that good stuff just waiting to ramp up your healing, don’t you crave it already?
(Photo: Alicepopkorn)
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Tags: addiction, brain, despair, healing, Joy, neuroplasticity, ptsd, research, The Healing Power of Joy
I have thought about this post since I read it yesterday morning. The words you used that keep ringing in my ears is that, “your recovery needs energy, focus and EXHILARATION.”Yes, exhilaration! I’ve been doing my own exercise - what is exhilarating for me? I’m happy to have thought of things that I do (effort) to be exhilarated, like walking vigorously, dance, Pilates, quilting, and things that I can watch (passive) like seeing a live show, staring at the ocean, and (semi-passive) reading to my grand-daughter. Joy is the subject, exhilaration is the by-product.
@Erin — Great idea for an exercise! We should all do that periodically. How did the exercise go? Did you think of things right away?
I love the way you’ve broken all this down into active, passive and semi-passive. Interesting approach. A novel idea!
And ys, joy is the subject; exhilaration the by-product. What a combo.
I like your clarity and creative thought process. You should share them more often!
Joy definitely replaces the sadness and despair! Thank you for this wonderful list. A great follow-up post would be “how” we can create joy, eh?
One of the things I did, and have my clients do, is make a list of all the things they enjoy doing (or did enjoy doing) and pick one thing at a time from the list and do it, to enhance the joy in life. Trying to make the list as long as possible, always adding to it, is very helpful. Some people have only one or two things and others’ have nearly 100.
Elizabeth
@Elizabeth - You’re one step ahead of me! I’m working my way up to the how…. we’ll get there soon!