Procrastination

5 Ways I keep my stress level down and over come procrastination.

I need to make sure I keep up with things and procrastination is bad for me.  If I wait to long to do things I just forget them, run out of time, stay stressed longer than I should, and get people frustrated with me.

1. I write everything down or text my self messages. If I get it out of my head I tend to stay more relaxed too.

2. Looking at my list I will do the biggest thing on their first. This is generally the one item if I do will take most of the time of my day but it will also take care of lots of little things on the list.

3. I tell my self to do the one thing that I generally don't want to do (which is generally the big item) first. The reason why is because even if I choose to do the less difficult thing first I am still thinking about the big item and it is consuming allot of my brain space until I do.

4. What ever items I don't finish go on to the next day list.

5. I make sure if I add things in my day I do write them on my list. I love to see that check mark next to each item I finish :>)

Cheers :>)

April 10th, 2012

5 Ways to Deal With Urges and Cravings

By Randy Lindel, Facilitator, SMART Recovery® Boston

Read on for five (5) practical ideas on how to cope with urges and cravings after you have decided to abstain from drugs and alcohol.

Cravings are normal

Everyone who’s engaged in addictive behavior will experience uncomfortable cravings (“I want it badly”) and urges (“I have to do it now”). They are normal. And fortunately, they always pass with time. At the outset of recovery, they can be pretty intense, but each one will subside if you can wait it out and have a plan for relapse prevention. Cravings and urges will decrease in strength and frequency over time. You can make this happen by adopting some coping strategies that work best for you.

Learning to resist cravings

For many people, urges and cravings to use drugs or alcohol trigger automatic responses. They are without conscious thought: I want [fill in the blank]. = I get it. Learning to say NO to these intense, ingrained desires is one of the biggest challenges in recovery. The good news is that you can understand these desires and learn to resist them.

In fact, “Coping with Urges and Cravings” is Point 2 of the SMART Recovery 4-Point Program®. The SMART Recovery Handbook has collected nearly two dozen strategies for dealing with them. Some of the approaches that work best for many are summarized with the easy-to-remember acronym DEADS – as in “Combat Urges DEADS.” Each letter stands for a useful approach:

D = Delay. The mental activities of cravings and urges disappear over time unless you actively maintain them with your attention. Given time, they will run their course and disappear. If they aren’t gone in 10-15 minutes, then chances are you are still exposed to the stimulus that cued the urge in the first place. Just don’t give in no matter how bad the urge is and it will pass. All the urges you have ever had have passed. Once you have denied an urge, you know you can do it again and again. And after a short time, there will be fewer cravings and the ones you have will diminish in intensity. Waiting them out is a great step to recovery.
E = Escape. Just leave or get away from the urge provoking situation. Run away from it. Leave the pub so that you can stop staring at the beer taps. Leave the supermarket where all the bottles of wine are so nicely displayed. If there’s an alcohol ad on TV, switch the channel. Just the act of escaping the trigger will focus your mind on something new – which will quickly lessen the urge.
A = Accept. Put your urges and cravings into perspective by understanding that they are normal and will pass. It’s important in the recovery process to learn to accept discomfort. It won’t “kill” you and will be gone pretty quickly. You’ll feel good about what you’re learning and achieving.
D = Dispute. If you’ve worked through the ABC or DISARM exercises, you may have developed a rational “Effective new belief” or counter statement to help you attack your (irrational) urges and cravings. These exercises help you productively diagnose past addictive situations and develop useful tactics for disputing them when they occur again – which will help them pass much more quickly.
S = Substitute. When you get an urge, quickly substitute a thought or activity that’s more beneficial or fun. Take a walk or any other form of exercise. Pick up something new to read or turn on something to listen to. The possibilities to substitute (and lessen the craving more quickly) are endless. Think about and write down some possibilities to  have a list on hand when an urge occurs. Then just pick one to employ an effective response.

Thanks to our colleagues at SMART Recovery UK for some of these ideas for addiction recovery. I hope they help you to find ways to say NO to your urges and cravings.

http://blog.smartrecovery.org/2012/04/10/5-ways-to-deal-with-urges-and-cravings/

My first post on drugs and the effects to behavior and actions

This week we are studying the routes one can take to get a drug of any kind in to their body. This particular one I wanted to learn more about....

The method I chose is Transdermal administration of drugs. I have many people I know who have these patches and wanted to learn more about them. The patch is a Polymer Matrix fabric embedded with a high concentration of the desired drug. It is a very concentrated amount of medication with a slow sustained disbursement rate. Health care workers really like this type of administering the drug because the chances of needle pricks and other issues are gone. People like it because there is no pain or needles to see.

Currently the patches can administer medicine to help with nicotine cravings, motion sickness, relieve pain and angina pectoris (coronary artery disease.), and provide hormones for women in menopause or contraceptives.  There are some drawbacks though, because the skim is designed to protect us it blocks many materials from entering our bodies. There are currently a limited amount of drugs that can break the skin layer.

New techniques are giving new options though. Research shows that using hand held ultra sound devices can trigger energy waves in tissue to open and allow the molecules from the patch to absorb in. Another new technique is patches with tiny fiber width needles on the patch that do not trigger pain stimulus receptors. This way the drug and get through the toughest out layer. In addition to penetrating the skin enough to allow the drug in there is now a process that is capable of pulling molecules out of the body to test glucose for diabetics. How great for diabetics to hopefully not have to prick their fingers anymore and not have to give them self’s shots either.

Transdermal administration is controlled and has prolonged absorption. This helps the liver metabolize the drug molecules before the absorption is complete. It will be very exciting to see more drugs/medications in this form.   

Lots of Cheetos

THE AMBIEN COOKBOOK

by PAUL SIMMS

Issue of 2006-07-31
Posted 2006-07-24

The sleeping pill Ambien seems to unlock a primitive desire to eat in some patients, according to emerging medical case studies that describe how the drug’s users sometimes sleepwalk into their kitchens, claw through their refrigerators like animals and consume calories ranging into the thousands.
—The Times.


Sorpresa con Queso
Ingredients:
7 bags Cheetos-brand cheese snacks
17 to 19 glasses tap water
5 mg. Ambien 

Place Cheetos bags in cupboard.

Take Ambien, fall asleep.

Wait 2-3 hours, then sleepwalk to kitchen, tear cupboard doors off hinges in search of Cheetos.

Find Cheetos, eat contents of all 7 bags.

Fall back asleep on kitchen floor.

When awakened by early-morning sunlight, get up and say, “What the—?”

Wipe orange Cheetos dust from fingers, face, and hair.

Drink 17 to 19 glasses of water from kitchen tap.

Return to bed. From The New Yorker magazine...