How to Comfort Yourself Effectively (2023)

FAQs

What is self-soothing techniques? ›

MD. Self-soothing is a coping strategy that involves engaging in pleasant, comforting, and calming activities focused on the five senses to relieve stress. These allow one to move their mind away from unwanted thoughts, feelings, and impulses.

Generally, self-soothing behaviors are repetitive behaviors which were learned during a period of time when the child was under-stimulated and needed to create his or her own way of occupying his/her time, or self-soothing was used to meet the child's emotional needs at the time.

There are many different conceptualizations of coping strategies, but the five general types of coping strategies are problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, social support, religious coping, and meaning making.

Self-soothing can be anything that helps you self-regulate and feel more grounded, from deep breathing to channeling that energy into exercise. Working with a therapist is another great way to learn more coping skills for stress, anxiety, or trauma.

How do I stop emotionally reacting? ›

Triggers can include sights, sounds, smells, or thoughts that remind you of the traumatic event in some way. Some PTSD triggers are obvious, such as seeing a news report of an assault. Others are less clear. For example, if you were attacked on a sunny day, seeing a bright blue sky might make you upset.

Write in a journal, listen to music, spend time with friends or family, and/or draw to express the emotion sadness. Think about the context of the sad feelings. Are they related to a loss or an unhappy event? Think about the feelings in a non-judging way and ride the wave of the experience.

Sadness affects the Lungs,⁶¹ the Liver,⁶² and the Heart and may influence the functional relationship between these organs. Sadness and grief induces Heart and/or Liver Blood Deficiency and may also impact the functions of the Uterus.

Emotional information is stored through “packages” in our organs, tissues, skin, and muscles. These “packages” allow the emotional information to stay in our body parts until we can “release” it. Negative emotions in particular have a long-lasting effect on the body.

Ever since people's responses to overwhelming experiences have been systematically explored, researchers have noted that a trauma is stored in somatic memory and expressed as changes in the biological stress response.

A big event or a buildup of smaller stressful life situations may trigger excessive anxiety — for example, a death in the family, work stress or ongoing worry about finances. Personality. People with certain personality types are more prone to anxiety disorders than others are.

What are 5 coping skills for anxiety? ›

Follow the 3-3-3 rule.

Look around you and name three things you see. Then, name three sounds you hear. Finally, move three parts of your body — your ankle, fingers, or arm.

This technique asks you to find five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Using this with someone who feels anxious will help to calm them down and reduce their feelings of anxiety.

Anxiety can be caused by a variety of things: stress, genetics, brain chemistry, traumatic events, or environmental factors. Symptoms can be reduced with anti-anxiety medication. But even with medication, people may still experience some anxiety or even panic attacks.

A little anxiety is fine, but long-term anxiety may cause more serious health problems, such as high blood pressure (hypertension). You may also be more likely to develop infections. If you're feeling anxious all the time, or it's affecting your day-to-day life, you may have an anxiety disorder or a panic disorder.

Typical reasons for feeling overwhelmed with life

This could be an accident, a natural disaster, or witnessing a crime. Other common reasons for overwhelm are life changes that take time to process, such as going away to school, breakups or divorce, a new and challenging position at work, and bereavement.

When your stress level exceeds your ability to cope, you need to restore the balance by reducing the stressors or increasing your ability to cope or both. Try using one of the four A's: avoid, alter, accept or adapt.

What are 10 coping skills? ›

Take brief rest periods during the day to relax. Take vacations away from home and work. Engage in pleasurable or fun activities every day. Practice relaxation exercises such as yoga, prayer, meditation or progressive muscle relaxation.

Babies cry a lot because it is a method of communication for them. When baby first begins to stay asleep throughout the night, it is because they are learning to self-soothe. Babies typically learn to self-soothe around 6 months. Check out what else to expect from your baby.

While it can sound harsh, the idea behind crying it out, as it's called, is that a baby can learn to soothe themselves to sleep versus relying on a caregiver to soothe them. And self-soothing may lead to solid and more independent sleep skills over time.

Crying may be one of your best mechanisms to self-soothe. Researchers have found that crying activates the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). The PNS helps your body rest and digest. The benefits aren't immediate, however.

It's common to feel irritable from time to time, but if you feel unusually irritable or irritable all the time or on edge, it is important that you talk to your doctor as it could be a symptom of a mental health condition, like depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder, or a physical condition.

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) interferes with emotional stability. People with histrionic personality disorder are prone to emotional overreaction in a wide variety of situations, and from the viewpoint of others they may seem constantly on edge.

Initial reactions to trauma can include exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation, confusion, physical arousal, and blunted affect. Most responses are normal in that they affect most survivors and are socially acceptable, psychologically effective, and self-limited.

Feeling jittery, nervous or tense.

Women experiencing PTSD are more likely to exhibit the following symptoms: Become easily startled. Have more trouble feeling emotions, experience numbness. Avoid trauma reminders.

What does a traumatized person look like? ›

Trauma often manifests physically as well as emotionally. Some common physical signs of trauma include paleness, lethargy, fatigue, poor concentration and a racing heartbeat. The victim may have anxiety or panic attacks and be unable to cope in certain circumstances.

Animal meats, hydrogenated oils, and many of the chemicals and preservatives in processed foods all have inflammatory qualities. Take these steps to improve your mind and body health: Eat probiotics, in fermented foods (sauerkraut, pickles) yogurt and kefir for gut health.

For physical health problems, this could include labs (like bloodwork), tests (like an x-ray, scan or biopsy) or a physical exam. For PTSD, an assessment includes answering questions about your thoughts, feelings and behaviors. PTSD is most often diagnosed, or confirmed, by a mental health provider.

Listen to soothing music, read a book or magazine, work on a puzzle, or on your hobby. Doing something that distracts you from the day's stress and anxiety can be relaxing and bring comfort. Sit outside in the sun and enjoy a few minutes of peace and quiet.

Meditation is a great way to spend a short mental health break. Follow a guided meditation, or simply take deep breaths and try to calm your mind. Either way, your brain will appreciate hitting the “pause” button for a few minutes.

The most common thread is that they remind us of how protected and secure we may have felt in childhood, he says. “Consuming these comfort foods is an unconscious attempt by us to actively moderate our mood and to alleviate negative feelings like those many of us are experiencing during this pandemic.”

What does comfort feel like? ›

Comfort, as a noun, is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a state or situation in which one is relaxed and does not experi- ence any or much physical or emotional pain” (“Comfort,” n.d.). Words commonly associated with comfort include calm, cheer, console, relieve, and soothe.