Get Your Calm On With Self Soothing for Anxiety
Self-soothing for anxiety is a great self-help tool that doesn’t involve the need for medication or negative habits to help you feel calmer. Many of us have learned to self-soothe naturally as children but as adults, we have access to more resources and are able to create better positive coping mechanisms to assist us when we are feeling upset, worried or scared.
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Self-Soothing Definition
The very definition of self-soothing is to do something for yourself to make yourself feel better when you feel upset or scared. Traditionally the term has been applied to children who stopped crying or being upset by themselves because of some action they took to make themselves feel better. This may have been by sucking a thumb, cuddling a toy or rocking back and forth. As adults, we can resort to more sophisticated methods of helping ourselves.
Self-soothing for anxiety can help you to feel safer, grounded, calmer and more relaxed thereby helping you to manage your condition. When practiced regularly it can have a bigger impact by reducing stress which may have been causing your anxiety in the first place.
Self-soothing for many is like an automated reflex for many as it feels completely natural to do something to comfort yourself. Yet it makes complete sense to start to use some of the many products that are around to help yourself feel better faster.
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Self-Soothing Strategies Involving the Senses
So what are the best techniques you can use as an adult to help you with self-soothing for anxiety? We always believe that each of our clients should look to the five senses as a way of working out what would work out best for them. We all naturally have a preference for certain sensory soothing so the key is to find out which one helps you feel more comforted and calm.
If we look at the five senses here are five areas where you can use self-soothing.
- Touch – Imagine using a blanket to comfort yourself, or squeezing a stress ball or even stroking a pet.
- Sound – The right kind of music can be a huge stress reliever for many or a guided meditation can help.
- Sight – Does looking at certain pictures help you feel calmer or watching a great film?
- Taste – Certain nostalgic foods make us feel better. Just beware using comfort food too often as it can cause you to put on weight.
- Smell – Perhaps a certain candle smell makes you feel relaxed or perhaps a perfume scent.
The purpose of all these self-soothing techniques is to take your mind away from your worries and fears and remind your mind of safe feelings to calm and relax you.
Self-Soothing Techniques You Can Use Today
Whilst using the senses is one way to self-soothe there are other ways to change your general mood and feelings. There are many calming and grounding techniques that can also help you and which you can do yourself without any outside intervention or medication.
Positive Affirmations – Using positive affirmations for anxiety can help you to change your mindset and assist you in feeling calmer and more in control. We have 50 you can choose from in our article on anxiety affirmations.
Mindfulness – Self-soothing for anxiety using mindfulness techniques is an increasingly popular practice. The mindfulness exercises take you away from worrying about the future and get you to focus on the present. They are a great way of stopping you mind getting into a loop of uncontrollable worry.
Breathing Exercises – There are a large number of breathing exercises that you can do to help calm down anxiety and help you feel calmer. These are so simple to practice and are great at helping our clients slow things down.
Distraction – Any distraction activity can be useful for self-soothing. If you love doing a jigsaw puzzle for example and it takes your mind away from your worries then it would be a great tool to use to assist you in creating positive change.
Exercise – Getting up and doing an activity whether that be going for a walk, a swim or even dancing can boost endorphins and use up excess adrenaline. Exercise is a proven way of helping feelings of anxiety and depression and making people feel better.
Change of Location – Just moving to another spot can help us see things from another perspective and make us feel better. Some people may see their bed as a sanctuary whilst others may have a favourite armchair. Sometimes the location change is a little further afield. Providing it doesn’t take too much time and effort if it helps you lower your anxiety levels then do it to self-soothe.
Creating an Anxiety Box
A great way of helping yourself is to create an anxiety box. This is simply a large box or chest containing a self-soothe kit for you to use whenever you need it. In your box, you simply place products that you can use whenever you feel the need for comfort and reassurance. Here are some ideas of what you could put in yours to use when self-soothing for anxiety.
Ideas Related to Touch
Sienna Hoodie Blanket – What’s not to love about wearing this amazing hoodie blanket to make you feel warm and cosy. It’s soft to the touch and oversized so that can snuggle into it when on the sofa or in bed. This is the perfect self-soothing outfit plus it comes in a number of colours.
Jaymag Weighted Blanket – We have an entire article on weighted blankets and how they can be used to help reduce anxiety. Have a look at our recommendations and learn how to get a perfect size and weight for your particular needs.
Ideas Related to Smell
Neom Calm and Relax Candle – If you love certain smells then this luxury Neom candle is the perfect way to create a scent to soothe and relax you. This particular candle has 17 essential oils in it designed to help you relax.
Vamoar Aromatherapy Oils and Diffuser – Diffusers are a great way of moving a wonderful scent throughout a room in your home. This Vamoar diffuser comes with 10 essential oils but of course, you can add others to your collection. As an added bonus the diffuser has different coloured lights which can help to change your mood.
Ideas Related to Hearing
Guided Meditation – Self-hypnosis audios or guided meditations for anxiety are a great tool to use to switch off a busy mind and help you to feel calmer. All our clients use at least one of our audios as part of their therapy sessions with us. We have a great download collection for anxiety with five audios to help relax you, assist you with sleep and well as calm down feelings of panic.
Sound Spa – This white noise machine also has a sound spa attached to it. The system comes with 9 sounds including sea, thunder, soothing music, white noise, wind, stream, summer night, rain and relaxation that you can use depending on your mood and needs. This is a great tool not just for self-soothing but also for meditation or helping you get a good nights sleep.
Ideas Related to Seeing
The Little Book of Calm Colouring – Adult colouring books are a great way of reducing stress and helping you focus your mind into a distractive activity. This book is designed to be more portable than a typical adult colouring book which means you can take it with you wherever you go.
Mindfulness Cards – These mindfulness cards include mindfulness meditations for you to follow as well as exercises to help change your mood. Again they are portable meaning you can slip them in a bag and transport them with you. These are a great tool to help you practice activities that create positive change.
Ideas Related to Taste
Gummies for Anxiety – We could have recommended your favourite sweets or comfort food but of course if you were to use food to help with your emotions you are going to put on weight. Instead why not try some gummies for anxiety. These are designed to help reduce your stress levels and as you are only having on or two at a time you won’t pile on the pounds.
Anxiety Therapy Solutions
Self-soothing for anxiety is of course only one solution in your toolkit when it comes to managing your mental health. We have a number of self-help tools that you can use to help you understand your anxiety triggers, challenge unhelpful thinking and promote relaxation and wellbeing. Why not try our self-hypnosis downloads for anxiety, our online anxiety course or use our anxiety tracker printables to identify what might be triggering your problems.
Never feel ashamed or worried about contacting a professional if you need extra help. We work with clients all over the world to help them reduce anxiety, lower stress and generally help them feel better. For more information about our one to one sessions simply contact us for more details about our online anxiety therapy programs.
Why Not Read More About Natural Anxiety Relief:
10 Things to Stop Doing if You Have Anxiety
Hypnosis for Anxiety – The Complete Guide
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