Tips for Enhancing Self Confidence | Unit 1 Part 24 | Addiction and Mental Health Recovery

Hey there everybody, and welcome back to the Addiction and Mental Health Disorders treatment Manual. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. This is unit one, part 24, enhancing self efficacy. We talked in the last section about what self efficacy is. And I asked you to think about how confident, how much efficacy you had, about the changes that you want to make in order to increase self efficacy. There are certain things that you can do. One of them is what we call rehearsal and mastery experiences. If there are skills and tools that you either need to learn, you don't know it all yet, and you need to learn them, or if you have them but you're not really good at them, like assertive communication, think about those and then you can practice them. You can rehearse them until you feel comfortable. You can rehearse them in the mirror, you can rehearse them in your mind using guided imagery, or you can rehearse them with another person. But rehearsal helps it become more second nature. Just like basketball players practice every single day, they're not playing games every single day, but they practice every single day they're rehears in order to master their skill. So then when they do get into a tournament or a competition, they're able to succeed. So they're increasing their self efficacy through practice and rehearsal in order to be the best that they can be. Skills that a lot of people need to rehearse, especially in early recovery refusal skills. And this can be addiction refusal skills like not drinking, not smoking, those sorts of things. But it can also be refusal skills for in, in environments, if somebody tells you how you should feel or wants you to go do something and starts pressuring you to go do it, like go out to the movies when you really need to make sure that you get a good night's sleep. Practicing those refusal skills. Assertive communication is also important. And all of these are kind of involved with each other. Assertive communication is communicating your needs and your wants and that they're important and the other person's needs and wants are important. So I hear you really want me to go to the movies with you tonight. However, I have got a huge day tomorrow and it's really important for me to get sleep. So acknowledging the other person's needs and wants, not saying that they're not important, but saying this is what you need. So you're setting, you're letting them know that your needs and wants are just as important as theirs. Boundary setting goes along with assertive communication. Our boundaries are encompass our space, our thoughts, our feelings, our personal space. Our stuff. I have videos on all of these things on the YouTube channel. But basically rehearsing, setting boundaries. A lot of times in recovery, people have had their boundaries stomped all over and others have told them how they should feel, what they should think, how they should act, or even invaded their physical boundaries and made them feel uncomfortable. So learning how to set those boundaries and say, all right, I hear that you disagree with my point of view. However, it's my point of view and I have the right to hold on to my point of view even if you don't like it. And distress tolerance skills is another thing that can be really helpful to rehearse when you start feeling an urge, a craving, or an unpleasant emotion. Learning that you can tolerate that feeling, tolerate that distress without having to act on it. And I use the mnemonic tags using empowering thoughts, activities that help you distract until that feeling goes away or tamps down a little bit. Using guided imagery to help see yourself effectively dealing with or tolerating the problem or sensations. Sometimes, you know, either a noxious smell or a really pleasant smell or loud sounds or something else can help you kind of jar you out of that place where you're worrying or you're angry or something, something else. It turns your attention away from it for a minute. Distress tolerance is not about avoiding it, it's about allowing yourself to tolerate the distress until you can get into your wise mind where you can think more clearly about what's the best way to solve this problem. Guided imagery experiences can be really helpful, and I mentioned that just a minute ago, but you can use guided imagery to help see yourself envision yourself refusing a, an offer of alcohol or doing something that's really scary. If you've got anxiety, you can envision yourself approaching that task. Guided imagery is used by a lot of athletes in order to help them practice when they're not actually practicing. But they found that seeing yourself do it in your mind's eye actually does help with reprogramming or programming that nervous system. Golfers, divers, you know, lots of athletes envision themselves doing it in order to help create that neural pathway. Role modeling is another intervention that can increase your self efficacy. Looking at other people who have accomplished the goal that you're working towards and going, okay, if they can do it, I can do it. Getting social support. A cheerleader can be really helpful if it is a significant other, a sponsor, whoever it is. Find people who are able to sort of whisper in your ear, if you will. You got this? Somebody who can be there even when on the days that you're feeling really frustrated or really defeated, they're there to help you kind of pick up the pieces and say, all right, here we are. Let's figure out what we need to do in order to get back on the horse and start moving forward again. And biofeedback can also be helpful when you're in your stressed out state. When you're in that fight flight freeze sort of state, you're not thinking clearly. So practicing with biofeedback can help you get into your wise mind. It can help you learn how to trigger that vagus nerve through either deep breathing or any other activity that you find. Helps you get grounded, get centered so you can get into your wise mind and figure out how to address the problem. Okay, so spend about 50 minutes your activity for today and think about or discuss strategies for an Interventions for each of the following things to help you cope with them. What is it that you can use? What skills, tools, ideas can help you cope with cravings and urges? Cravings. They're pretty obvious, you know, to eat, to use those sorts of things. Urges may be things if you're struggling with depression, you may have the urge to go back to bed and just pull the covers up over your head. Anxiety. What strategies can be helpful to cope with anxiety? Anger, depression, Pain? Keep asking yourself that question. What strategies might be helpful? And then any of those strategies you don't feel a hundred percent confident in. How can you rehearse them? How can you practice using them before you're kind of on the spot in order to strengthen those tools so they're they're primed and ready when you need them?