Happiness exercises could help those who are recovering from addictions

In short, based on the text, self-administered … that does not seem to be a very good solution for addiction. But a new study from the Mbadachusetts General Hospital's Recovery Research Institute (MGH) says such exercises can help adults recover from substance use disorders by significantly increasing their immediate happiness.

This study is the first of its kind to test whether positive psychology exercises stimulate the happiness of people recovering.

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"Addiction scientists are moving more and more beyond the traditional goal of reducing or eliminating substance use by advocating treatment protocols that include quality of life," he said. Principal author, Bettina B. Hoeppner, PhD, Principal Investigator at the Recovery Research Institute.

"Yet orchestrated positive experiences are rarely integrated into the treatment of drug addicts."

With the help of a randomized online survey, the team badigned 500 adults – who had reported current or past substance abuse addiction – one of five short textual exercises. These lasted on average four minutes. The exercises were designed to give each participant an injection of happiness and to see how it would help them cope.

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Participants reported the most significant happiness gains after completing an exercise called "Reviving Happy Moments", in which they selected one of their own photos that captured a moment of happiness and entered a text describing what was happening on the picture. Another exercise called "Savoring", in which participants described two positive experiences they noticed and appreciated during the previous day is the second, followed by "Rose, Thorn, Bud," in which they listed a moment and challenge of the day before. and something nice they anticipated the next day.

One of the exercises, "3 Hard Things," in which participants were asked to write about the challenges they had faced the previous day, had resulted in a significant decrease in happiness.

The authors explain that happiness is an essential element of long-term sustainable recovery.

They write that they recommend these positive psychology exercises for the treatment of addiction because of their ease of use and their effectiveness in this study.

"These results highlight how important it is to meet the challenges of recovery with positive experiences," says Hoeppner, an badociate professor of psychology at the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

"The recovery is difficult and for the effort to be sustainable, positive experiences must be achievable along the way."

The paper "Do self-administered positive psychology exercises work for people recovering from problematic substance use? A randomized online survey "has been published online in the Drug Treatment Journal.

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