Tips to Manage and Prioritize Daily Tasks While Healing From PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health disorder that makes many aspects of everyday life challenging. While PTSD symptoms are unique to each individual, your mental health impacts how you manage and prioritize daily tasks. At Corner Canyon Health Centers, we understand the need to increase productivity and make the most out of every day while healing from PTSD. Learning to manage PTSD symptoms while ensuring that necessary daily tasks get done might seem impossible. However, with support and self-care, you can improve your productivity without adding stress. This is an important step on the path to a healthier and happier life. 

What Is PTSD?

PTSD is a mental health disorder that occurs as a result of trauma. It can happen to you at any age and due to a variety of trauma. This includes combat veterans. However, it also includes those who have both experienced and witnessed other types of trauma. 

If you have experienced trauma, it can be the result of both witnessing or experiencing situations that were shocking and frightening. For example, PTSD can result from seeing or experiencing military trauma, sexual abuse, physical abuse, or verbal abuse. However, it can also result from both witnessing or experiencing serious medical conditions, accidents, or natural disasters. 

About six of every 100 individuals will experience PTSD in their lifetime. While PTSD is often associated with combat service, proportionally, women are more likely to develop PTSD than men. Not every person experiencing the same event will develop PTSD. Instead, developing PTSD is a combination of genetics, other biological and environmental factors, and trauma experienced. 

Signs and Symptoms

In general, symptoms of PTSD begin within three months of the trauma experienced or witnessed. However, this is not always true, and for some people, signs and symptoms will not occur until later. In order to be diagnosed with PTSD, multiple types of symptoms must be present for at least a month. Additionally, they need to be severe enough to interfere with your personal or professional life. 

While signs and symptoms vary, if you are struggling with PTSD, you will experience some of the following for at least a month or more: 

• Flashbacks of the initial trauma
• Recurring dreams or memories related to the event(s)
• Physical feelings of stress
• Mental or emotional distress
• Avoiding places, people, or events that remind you of the event(s)
• Being tense or on edge
• Struggling with focus and concentration
• Easily startled
• Irritated or angry outbursts
• Difficulty falling or staying asleep
• Engaging in risky or reckless behavior
• Memory issues with the traumatic event or daily life
• Ongoing and uncontrollable negative emotions towards self or the world
• Loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities
• Feeling socially isolated
• Struggling to feel positive emotions
• Exaggerated feelings of blame towards self or the world

It is natural to react to trauma. Therefore, experiencing some of the PTSD signs and symptoms does not mean that you are struggling with PTSD. At Corner Canyon Health Centers, our team can help you to understand the difference between a normal trauma reaction and PTSD. This is important in getting treatment that helps you to truly heal from the mental health challenges you are facing.

How PTSD Impacts Daily Life

PTSD is a mental health disorder that significantly impacts your daily life. Whether you are experiencing symptoms related to sleep or having flashbacks, PTSD makes it difficult to function. This is true in both your personal and professional life. 

Specifically, PTSD can make it challenging to be productive and get through tasks that are vital in your daily life. Commonly, this means adding to negative emotions about yourself or the world that you are already feeling. This is why, at Corner Canyon Health Centers, we believe that a part of healing from PTSD is learning to both manage symptoms and stay productive to the level that you can in your life. 

Productivity

Being productive requires a combination of emotional, mental, and physical capacity. First, to be productive, you need to be able to focus on the task at hand. PTSD can hamper this. When your concentration and focus are decreased due to PTSD, getting work done both at home and in the office is particularly difficult. 

Additionally, an increase in negative emotions, a common symptom of PTSD, decreases your productivity. When you feel high levels of frustration or shame, you are less likely to feel capable of completing a task. Plus, these negative emotions can make it feel like it isn’t even worth completing the task at hand. 

Daily Life

In our modern society, daily life is a combination of mental, emotional, and physical stress. At work or home, you will need to manage your schedule, make sure tasks get done, and maintain relationships that are important to you. This might include simple tasks like getting dishes done or social outings like a kid’s birthday party.

With PTSD, these seemingly mundane and simple things become difficult. Going to a birthday party when you are feeling on edge or frustrated can be difficult and unpleasant. Additionally, remembering to do important tasks like getting the oil changed in your car can slip your mind. If you are struggling with PTSD, your life will be impacted on a daily basis in a unique way, depending on the symptoms you experience. They can range from person to person and day to day. 

Healing From PTSD

Struggling with PTSD impacts every aspect of your life. Fortunately, you can heal and move forward. Healing from PTSD is an individualized road. However, a combination of psychotherapy, often called talk therapy, and medication is often the most effective. At Corner Canyon Health Centers, you can work with a counselor who can help you understand the type of therapy that will be most helpful for you.

Holistic healing modalities like meditation are also helpful when healing from PTSD. Meditation helps to calm the body and mind while building skills that help you to manage any future symptoms. Other holistic modalities also help to address the impact that trauma has on you as a whole person. 

Individualized Treatment for Healing From PTSD

Treatment for PTSD needs to be individualized. This is because PTSD can range in severity and symptoms. For some, medication can make a significant impact on how they feel and can function. However, for others, psychotherapy will be the primary treatment. 

Healing from PTSD at Corner Canyon Health Centers is highly individualized. You will be treated as a whole person with a unique experience of PTSD and with trauma. This involved addressing unique symptoms you are experiencing. However, it also means tackling the trauma you have had and working through it in a way that is helpful and productive for you. 

Staying Productive While Healing From PTSD

Being diagnosed with PTSD means having symptoms that impact your ability to function daily. However, staying involved in your life requires some amount of productivity. Fortunately, several things can help. Managing symptoms, prioritizing your self-care, and making adjustments to how you feel and what you need to get done can all help. Remember, healing from PTSD is a process. If you keep trying and adjusting, you can find ways to stay productive without increasing your symptoms. 

Symptom Management

PTSD symptoms will vary from day to day, and you will experience a unique set of symptoms. However, regardless of what the symptoms are, managing them is the first priority. Symptom management has many positive benefits, including feeling better. However, it is also vital in staying productive. 

For example, if you are feeling irritated or on edge, you are much more likely to have decreased focus and productivity. Practicing breathing methods, meditation, or exercising can all be ways to help decrease irritability. While these methods will help you feel better overall, they will also increase your capacity to complete tasks that are important to you. 

Adjusting While Healing From PTSD

Our society is highly focused on productivity. When you think of being productive, you may think of running errands, getting work done, or cleaning up the house. However, the definition of a productive day is subjective. Adjusting this definition while healing from PTSD is one method that can help you to keep moving and get things done. 

You can adjust your definition of productivity to better fit how you feel will look different each day. Let’s say you didn’t sleep well the night before and are feeling highly triggered on a Saturday. You may have initially planned to mow the lawn, clean the house, and go to the store. However, due to how you feel, the “productive” list you made for yourself may feel overwhelming. Fortunately, you can change it. Try taking something off the list. This can help you to feel able to complete some tasks without increasing your symptoms or dropping the list altogether. 

Prioritizing Self-Care

When you are struggling with PTSD, prioritizing self-care is important. PTSD impacts your mental, physical, and emotional well-being. Therefore, you need to heal in many aspects of your life. Self-care is a tool that you can use that can make a significant difference in your path to healing from PTSD.

Prioritizing self-care can include many different things. Most commonly, self-care is thought of as exercising, eating healthy, and managing stress. However, self-care also includes mental and emotional care. For example, getting treatment for PTSD by seeing a counselor is self-care. 

Prioritizing self-care helps you to feel better overall. This differs from managing symptoms as it is not reactive but proactive. For example, getting enough exercise can help you sleep better. 

Creating Alternative Options While Healing From PTSD

Structure

PTSD is a mental health disorder that impacts your ability to think, focus, and function daily. Commonly it impacts productivity because you may not be able to do the same things in the same ways as you did before witnessing or experiencing trauma. However, you can create alternative options that help you to stay productive while healing from PTSD.

There are many different ways to get things done. For example, let’s consider grocery shopping. If you used to go shopping at Costco twice a month for groceries, this might seem overwhelming while healing from PTSD. However, you can still get groceries by using different options like ordering them to your home or using a curbside pickup at your local store. 

Support While Healing From PTSD

Having PTSD can feel isolating. Due to your symptoms, you may find yourself steering clear of those you love to ensure you don’t blow up. However, getting support while healing from PTSD is helpful for the healing process and can help you to stay productive.

Getting support helps you to stay productive in multiple ways. First, having others to lean on can ensure that you get done what you need. Your loved ones can assist you in staying productive at home by stopping by to check in or dropping off some meals when you are struggling. 

Additionally, your support network can help you by listening and talking through challenges that you are facing in regard to productivity. This might look like talking on the phone once a week or meeting up for dinner. Regardless, having a support network to talk to and problem-solve with can make a significant difference in your ability to stay productive and feel better. 

Healing From PTSD One Step at a Time

PTSD is a complex mental health disorder. Your challenges with PTSD will be unique. In addition, the path to healing from PTSD needs to be individualized to manage symptoms and fully heal. However, like healing from many mental health disorders, it needs to be taken one step at a time. 

The first step to healing is recognizing that you are experiencing symptoms that are disrupting your life. This acknowledgment allows you to see that you need help and that you can get help. Once diagnosed, healing from PTSD is a combination of treatments that both help to manage your symptoms and heal from the traumatic situation (s) that you have experienced. This may include working with a counselor to break down the initial trauma and/or improving your understanding of how it has impacted your life and your actions. 

As a result of the complex changes that occur due to PTSD, every day will be different. You may experience days where you feel many positive emotions and very few symptoms of PTSD. However, due to the nature of healing, other days will be difficult. Taking it one day at a time will help you to address your needs as they come up. Your productivity will vary, and your definition of a productive day can change. However, by caring for your needs and getting help, you can regain health and happiness in your life. 

Healing From PTSD at Corner Canyon

PTSD is a mental health disorder that is often co-occurring with other challenges. Healing from PTSD at Corner Canyon Health Centers takes all of the challenges you are experiencing into account. During the comprehensive intake, you will be asked to outline the challenges you are facing, your past history, and more. This gives staff our staff a clear picture of you as a person and how we can help.

PTSD treatment at Corner Canyon is offered in a variety of ways. We offer residential care for those who will do their best by staying away from home to heal. However, we also offer care options that you can live at home while attending treatment at our facility. 

All of our treatments will be individualized to meet your needs. Therefore, if you are struggling with PTSD and substance use disorder (SUD), your treatment will address both of these challenges. Regardless of your mental health difficulties, our treatment for PTSD will address underlying causes and how your trauma has impacted you. 

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health disorder that disrupts your life. The symptoms make it challenging to function daily, deal with stress, and stay productive. At Corner Canyon Health Centers, we can help. We offer treatment for PTSD and commonly co-occurring disorders like depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders (SUDs). If you or your loved one is struggling to stay productive with PTSD, you are not alone. Our staff can help you heal from trauma, build new skills, and take the first steps towards regaining your health and happiness in your life after trauma. To learn more about Corner Canyon Health Centers and our treatment programs, call us today at (877) 717-6237.