Set A Daily Sugar Quota Where It Matters Most
Eating and drinking too much sugar can lead to weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease, note the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So focus on eating sweets when you enjoy them most. For many people, that means desserts. Dont waste it on hidden sugars in dressings, spreads, peanut butter, breakfast cereals, and soda, or added sugars in coffee or tea.
Once you reduce your sugar intake for the day, it will help you lose your sweet tooth. Again, sugar is incredibly addictive: The more you eat, the more addictive it becomes and the more it takes to satisfy you. The opposite is also true. As we eat less sugar, our tastebuds adapt and can be satisfied with less sweet options, says Eich.
Stay Away From Temptations That Help Feed Your Addiction Or Bad Habits
Staying away from temptations is a lot easier than you think. You contribute to your addiction or bad habits when you put yourself in familiar places where your triggers are present. The world is full of fun activities you dont have to be limited to a bar or a pill to have a good time. If your friends try forcing you to come out and drink or do drugs with them while you are attempting to get sober, then be honest and upfront with them. Good friends will help you achieve your goal, not set you backwards.
How bad do you want to be successful at breaking a bad habit and forming a positive one? Use that strength to remove temptations from your life. Certain people also trigger giving into our habits. Avoiding these people and their influence is the best solution to getting away from any triggers they may cause. Out of sight, out of mind.
Learning To Cope With Cravings
Of course, we all know that not all cravings and triggers can be avoided. Addiction recovery is not about being stuck in your room, hiding away from life. This is why therapy focuses tremendously on addressing your addictive behaviors and giving you the right tools to cope with these stressors, cravings, and triggers. You must have a friend or a sponsor you can call whenever you feel like slipping back on your progress, sometimes talking it out can prevent a relapse.
Another popular method to cope with cravings is urge surfing, which is incredibly helpful when theres nothing else you can do about a trigger. Heres how to practice urge surfing:
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Action Steps For Quitting An Addiction
Because change is so difficult, it’s useful to have a guide when attempting to kick an addiction to drugs, alcohol or behavior. Research shows that the following steps can help you move toward your recovery goals. You have the greatest chance of success if you adopt all five steps.
1. Set a quit date. It might be helpful to choose a meaningful date like a special event, birthday, or anniversary.
2. Change your environment. Remove any reminders of your addiction from your home and workplace. For example, separate from those who would encourage you to be involved with the object of your addiction . If you are trying to quit drinking, get rid of any alcohol, bottle openers, wine glasses, and corkscrews. If you’re trying to quit gambling, remove any playing cards, scratch tickets, or poker chips. Also, don’t let other people use or bring reminders of the addiction-related substance or behavior into your home.
3. Distract yourself. Instead of giving in to an urge to use, come up with alternative activities, such as going for a walk or calling a friend or family member to talk, so that you keep busy until the urge passes. Be prepared to deal with things that trigger your cravings, such as being in an environment where others are using.
4. Review your past attempts at quitting. Think about what worked and what did not. Consider what might have contributed to relapse and make changes accordingly.
Image: D-Keine/Getty Images
Figure Out Your Triggers
Triggers are different for everyone. We sin when we are enticed and drawn away by our own lusts. Sin is, essentially, personal.
What triggers you may not trigger anyone else. For some people, triggers are emotional. For some, theyre situational. My triggers were a little bit of both. I found myself more tempted when under a lot of stress, when I watched movies on my laptop, and when I used a lotion I used in college. I learned to manage my stress, got rid of my laptop for a while, and threw away the lotion.
Not every trigger is avoidable, but when you know what triggers you, you are able to develop a plan for how to approach each one.
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How Relationships And Addiction Are Connected
Love addiction or addiction to people arent formal mental health diagnoses.
In fact, the term addiction is no longer used in general. Instead, medical experts talk about substance use disorder.
But people and relationships arent substances, and they dont have the same effects on you.
Although not everyone agrees, some researchers suggest you could experience symptoms similar to those of someone living with substance use disorder.
For example:
- significant changes in mood, including feeling fearful or anxious
- neglecting other responsibilities and relationships
- having your life revolve around that person
- staying in the relationship even when experiencing negative consequences
- symptoms of withdrawal when apart from that person
But while emotional dependence can lead you to engage in behaviors that may mirror symptoms of substance use disorder, this isnt the same as addiction. The causes and processes in place are different.
because theres limited to no evidence for it. That includes relationship and sex addiction.
Researchers also distinguish between substance addiction and addiction in relationships because love, unlike substance use, is a desirable experience for most people.
Still, research from 2016 suggests that because romance can stimulate the reward centers of the brain in a similar way to substances, it could lead to certain patterns that mimic what some people call addiction or, more accurately, compulsive behavior.
Signs Of A Sugar Addiction
Unlike many other substance use disorders or behavioral compulsions, sugar addiction is often easy to spot. The clearest signs of sugar addiction involve consumption of large amounts of food or drinks laden with sugar. The individual may eat constantly, eat to combat boredom, and become hyper and crash. They may even talk about craving sugar after stressful or irritating life experiences.
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Tips In Overcoming Food Addiction
For food addiction recovery, it will take a lot of willpower and sacrifice to overcome it. It may take weeks or months, but you have to believe in yourself to overcome this. Everybody has different food cravings, and breaking food addiction is going to be different for everybody. But here are some tips you can start with:
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Make Your Smartphone Less Appealing
You can also make your phone less visually engaging, by changing the screen to grayscale or turning off notifications, for example. Dr. Alter suggested periodically rearranging the apps on your phone so that they become harder to find and less likely to lure you into a mindless loop of checking and rechecking simply out of habit.
Both experts advised deleting certain types of apps especially the ones you know that you have a hard time avoiding .
Use apps that enrich your life, that add value and meaning or that you need for work, not ones that take you down a rabbit hole, Dr. Lembke said. And if the apps that add value to your life are the same ones that you feel addicted to, Dr. Lembke recommended creating some space using the tips above.
The big question to ask yourself with screens is: What else could I be doing right now? Is there something I could be doing that would be better for me? Dr. Alter said. Thats important now more than ever because of how much time weve been forced to spend on screens during the pandemic.
Annie Sneed is a science journalist who has written for Scientific American, Wired, Public Radio International and Fast Company.
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These Steps Are For Any Type Of Addiction
So here we are. In this blog I will outline the steps I have taken to live a life of sobriety. These tools are not just for alcoholics or drug addicts. These steps are for everyone. I believe that we all suffer from addiction in our own unique ways. Maybe youre addicted to social media, or food, or love, or maybe youre simply addicted to fear. It doesnt matter how addiction plays a role in your life. What matters is that you learn there is a way out of the cycle.
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The Most Addictive Drugs
The top three most addictive drugs are heroin, crack cocaine and crystal meth. This is due to how quickly these drugs cause dramatic physical and mental effects, including hijacking the brains neurotransmitters, which are chemicals the brain uses to control and monitor behavior and reinforce life-sustaining actions such as eating food. Your brain will literally train you to keep using illicit drugs in the same way that it trains you to take care of your physical wellbeingonly this training is much more powerful because the brain is releasing 10 times as much dopamine in response to illicit drugs than it ever does for healthy behaviors.
Once you are physically addicted, you will experience withdrawal symptoms when you stop taking your drug of choice. While everyones detox experience is different, there are some general symptoms and timelines you can expect.
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It Takes 2 Months To Change Repetitive Behavior Patterns
According to a 2009 study conducted by researchers at the University College London and published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, it takes 18 to 254 days for a person to change their behavior patterns and form a new habit.
The study also concluded that, for most people, it takes 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic.
What Could Influence Time Needed To Break An Addiction
A variety of factors:
- How long the person have used addictive substances
- The behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that encourage addiction
- The persons immediate environment, including peer pressure, negative influences
- If they have another mental or physical health problems
- The persons motivation and willingness to change
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Why You Should Hesitate Before Detoxing From Cocaine At Home
While cocaine withdrawal is not as dangerous as many other forms of withdrawal, there can be life-threatening symptoms if you have been using cocaine in conjunction with other drugs and/or alcohol, or if you have an underlying health condition that may have been masked by drug use. Withdrawal symptoms such as severe depression can lead recovering addicts to harm themselves, and paranoia and aggression can make them a danger to others.
Even if you do decide to detox at home, please do so with the help of an outpatient addiction treatment program, so you can address personal issues and learn skills to support your continued, lifelong recovery.
Select a state to find options for rehab centers in your area.
Be Patient With Yourself
Remember that breaking a sugar addiction takes time, so its important to be kind to yourself throughout the process. Dealing with any kind of addiction takes time and effort,Rebecca Lewis, registered dietitian at HelloFresh, told me. Take it one day at a time and if you fall off the horse dont let your addiction spiral out of control, instead take a deep breath, remember this is a journey, and get back to recovery.
We all slip up in the sweetness department, so just brush yourself off and try again.
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Tips For Finding The Best Drug Addiction Treatment For You
Remember that no treatment works for everyone. Everyones needs are different. Whether you have a problem with illegal or prescription drugs, addiction treatment should be customized to your unique situation. Its important that you find a program that feels right.
Treatment should address more than just your drug abuse. Addiction affects your whole life, including your relationships, career, health, and psychological well-being. Treatment success depends on developing a new way of living and addressing the reasons why you turned to drugs in the first place. For example, your drug dependency may have developed from a desire to manage pain or to cope with stress, in which case youll need to find a healthier way to relieve pain or to handle stressful situations.
Commitment and follow-through are key. Drug addiction treatment is not a quick and easy process. In general, the longer and more intense the drug use, the longer and more intense the treatment youll need. And in all cases, long-term follow-up care is crucial to recovery.
There are many places to turn for help. Not everybody requires medically supervised detox or an extended stint in rehab. The care you need depends on a variety of factors, including your age, drug-use history, medical or psychiatric conditions. In addition to doctors and psychologists, many clergy members, social workers, and counselors offer addiction treatment services.
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contest the determinations made as to the claims included in this Objection, a claimant must file
and serve a written response to this Objection so that it is received no later than
the Response Deadline. Each Response to this Objection must be filed with the Office of the
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Floor Wilmington, Delaware 19801, and served upon the following addressee, so as to be
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Gradual Vs Cold Turkey
I bet you are wondering, is it better to quit sugar gradually or cold turkey?
Well, the answer is, it really depends on you. Some people prefer a gradual process, while others find doing abrupt changes more effective. So, it is up to you to figure out what works for you.
Gradually reducing your sugar consumption
Instead of eating a big slice of cake after every meal, try reducing it to half a slice. Then once you are used to half a slice, decrease it to a quarter of a slice until you are no longer feeling the intense craving to eat more sweets than what your body actually needs.
This method is especially great if youve already tried going cold turkey but failed. If youve already tried sudden withdrawal and you noticed that you tend to yo-yo when you do, then try the gradual method instead!
Cold turkey
If you think going cold turkey will best work for you then you must do it right. Clean out your pantry and your fridge!
Like what they say out of sight, out of mind.
Steer clear of your favorite ice cream shop before going home from work, and make sure to keep yourself fed. Avoid feeling hungry, at least for the first few weeks. Since the hunger might intensify the cravings. Hunger most often than not results in binge eating.
Tip for going cold turkey: If you find yourself suddenly craving sugar, try to distract yourself with an activity.
Is It Really Possible To Be Addicted To A Smartphone
Smartphone overuse can manifest in many ways. Maybe you regularly stay up late scrolling through Instagram or TikTok. Or the allure of your smartphone makes it difficult to be fully present for yourself, your work or those around you.
Phone or screen overuse isnt officially recognized as an addiction in the American Psychiatric Associations official manual of mental disorders. But there is a growing number of mental health specialists who recognize that people can get addicted to their smartphones, said Dr. Anna Lembke, an addiction expert and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University.
Dr. Lembke noted that an addiction is partially defined by the three Cs:
Control: Using a substance or performing a behavior in ways that would be considered out of control, or more so than intended.
Compulsion: Being intensely mentally preoccupied with and using a substance automatically, without actively deciding to do so.
Consequences: Continued use in spite of negative social, physical and mental consequences.
Many of us can recognize some of these behaviors in our own phone use.
Dr. Alter, on the other hand, doesnt consider smartphone or screen overuse as a true addiction, and both he and Dr. Lembke noted that there is disagreement within the health community about this. I dont think it rises to the level of a medical addiction, Dr. Alter said. To me its more of a cultural malady than anything.
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How My Sugar Addiction Started
I know exactly how I got here, and it involved a lot of chocolate bars! You see, I just got back from an incredible hiking trip on the John Muir Trail through Californias Sierra Mountain Range. The scenery was truly epic. Awe inspiring at times. The food was not.
Soaring views
and re-hydrated Thai curry.
On this hiking trip, my diet consisted mainly of oatmeal, low-carb protein bars, beef jerky and other cured meats, nuts and nut butter, and various freeze-dried camping meals that only require the addition of boiling water to reconstitute. Oh, and a multi-vitamin.
Because my wife and I were often hiking for 10-hrs a day up and down mountain passes, I was trying to eat around 3500-cals a day. I dont usually count calories, but Id estimate thats about 1000-cals more than normal. It wasnt easy to eat that much, especially because so much the food wed packed didnt taste all that good.
For all my hard-gainer clients who are trying to add muscle and need to eat their faces off, I truly sympathise with the force feeding you endeavour to do.
It was around day five when I really went in on the chocolate bars. I ate at least two per day. Plus chocolate covered almonds and other snacks.
