How to Make Your Own Comfort Box for Hard Times
Comfort Boxes Help When You are Feeling Stressed or Panicky
Comfort boxes can help you feel better during stressful times. Their contents can soothe, console and relax you. Making a comfort box is also a therapeutic experience. Comfort boxes are good for your mental health.
The History of Comfort Boxes
Imagine fighting in the mud and filth of the trenches far from home, with the fear of scattered shellfire. Then imagine the excitement of receiving a box filled with treats, such as books, magazines, cigarettes, cake, and jam. This would certainly help to make you feel closer to home, and ease the suffering a little.
During World War One many countries sent packages or boxes to the men in the armed forces. ‘Comfort’ funds were established in Australia to send supplies, or raise money. Examples of these boxes can be found at some museums. This practice continued in the Second World War, and ‘care’ packages are still sent today.
Many of these boxes were sent to hospitals to comfort the injured soldiers. According to The Canberra Times, Australian and New Zealand soldiers in World War Two especially appreciated the books:
“A senior medical officer in New Guinea thanked the Red Cross for sending boxes of comforts to his hospital: ‘In particular the reading matter was welcomed for it creates a feeling of mental wellbeing in the patients by allowing them to forget for a while the dreadful conditions and experiences they are enduring, and is — in my opinion — an important step towards their eventual recovery’…” ¹
Comfort Boxes Help to Soothe and Distract
Comfort boxes are often a part of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). DBT seeks to find a middle ground between detachment or numbness and suffering emotional upheaval.
A comfort box or calming box is used by many psychologists to help distract and soothe clients. They distract clients from feeling overwhelmed by their problems. They soothe them by bringing back fond memories, or helping them seek consolation or relaxation.
Comfort boxes are also used in hospitals, and to assist troubled young people, and those who are grieving.
How to Make Your Comfort Box
Comfort boxes are designed to help you plan for when you are feeling stressed, or depressed, so that you have all your soothing items in one place. This makes it easy to quickly find objects which help you relax when you are feeling distressed or panicky.
At The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s Harding Hospital, patients are encouraged to create their own boxes. This is easy to do.
Decorate the Outside of the Box
Patients choose a white box, but a plain shoe box will do. They decorate their boxes with pictures, quotations, affirmations, and any other decoration which is meaningful to them.
Patients do this over several days, allowing them to focus on “their best selves”. This is done in a group setting, so that “people often share their ideas with other group members, allowing others to meet their ‘best self’.” ²
Shoeboxes are usually quite small, so I would choose a larger box.
How to Fill the Inside of the Box
Several psychologists suggest that you should concentrate on the five senses when filling the box, and include items that appeal to each sense. Some ideas are:
Sight
· Family photos
· Photos of friends
· Travel photos and postcards
· Inspiring pictures
· A favorite feel-good DVD
Sound
· Favorite music
· A small music box
· Bells
Touch
· Stuffed animals, such as teddy bears
· Favorite scarves and handkerchiefs
· Hand creams
Smell
· Scented candles
· Perfumes
· Soap
Taste
· A bottle of bubbly
· Chocolates
· Biscuits
Psychotherapist Karen Carnabucci suggests using the three categories of strengths from the Therapeutic Spiral Model as a guide for the contents of your box instead. These are:
Personal strengths — traits within ourselves that we like and are proud of.
Relational strengths — aspects of relationships with others that feel supportive and loving or have felt so in the past.
Spiritual strengths– what nourishes and inspires the spirit, perhaps relating to a specific religious figure, nature, music, angels, or other life-supporting reminders.³
She provides a list of items in her article in Healing Magazine.
Why not start this project today? Creating a comfort box will help you focus and reflect on the things that calm you and give you strength. When you next feel stressed, anxious or overwhelmed, reaching for your comfort box will help you to encourage and strengthen yourself.
References
¹ Books were a great source of comfort for Australians and New Zealaners during World War II
³ Comfort Boxes are soothing antidote to anxiety and a great art project.
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