Self soothing skills
Unpleasant memories or thoughts about a traumatic event, can sometimes occur unexpectedly, and social support may not be readily available.
Therefore, it is important to learn coping strategies that you can do on your own. Coping strategies focused on improving your mood that you can do on your own are sometimes described as self-soothing or self-care coping strategies.
Effective self-soothing coping strategies may be those that involve one or more of the five senses (touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound). Listed below are examples of self-soothing strategies for each sense.
Touch
- Soaking in a warm bath
- Getting a massage
- Relaxing in the warmth of the sun
- Stretching
- Going for a swim* (only those who can)
- Changing into comfortable clothes
- Playing with an animal
Taste
- Eating a comforting meal
- Sipping herbal tea
- Eating healthy food
- Slowly sucking on hard candy
Smell
- Shopping for flowers*(those who can't go out,can do online shopping)
- Smelling lavender or vanilla
- Lighting a scented candle
- Deeply breathing in fresh air
Sight
- Seeing a funny movie or watching a funny television show
- Reading a good book
- Looking at pictures of loved ones
- Looking at pictures of a past vacation or places that you would like to visit
- Watching the clouds
Sound
- Listening to relaxing music
- Singing to yourself
- Saying positive statements to yourself or self-encouragement
- Playing a musical instrument
When engaging in these strategies, make sure to focus completely on the task at hand. That is, be mindful of your senses and what you are experiencing, and anytime you are distracted, simply bring your attention back to what you are doing.
Come up with your own self-soothing strategies that you can do when you are upset. Try to come up with as many as you can. The more you can come up, the better off you will be in improving your mood when you are experiencing distress.
