Self-Soothing
to Lift Your Spirits
If you have family and friends who can support you, that’s great. If not, you can get rid of a flashback/just a bad mood on your own:
* Name the objects you can see: there’s a white cup with flowers, my beige sweater, and so on. This will bring you back to reality from your emotional spiral.
* Ask yourself the following questions: What are the 5 things I see now? What 4 things can I touch? (And touch them.) What sound/sounds am I hearing now? What scents do I smell? What tastes? (And put a grain of salt/a piece of chocolate on your tongue/take a sip of tea, juice, etc.)
* Put your hands under cold water. If possible, rinse your face as well. Or make yourself a warm (that part’s mandatory) drink, or hold your hands under water warmer than human body temperature. The temperature difference helps reduce stress.
* If you remember the traumatic event, how old were you then? How old are you now? How much time has passed? Realize that you are now safe and in control.
* Imagine that you have a TV remote in your hands and you see the traumatic situation on the screen, like a movie. You can turn down the volume, slow down or speed up the film, rewind it…and switch to something more enjoyable.
* Try to observe your fear, resentment, anger and other negative emotions as if from the outside, not allowing them to engulf you. Mentally separate them from you, place them in a balloon and send on their way.
* Relax the muscles of the body and face in turn, focusing on areas that are especially tight.
* Massage your ears and neck (on the sides and back). This will have a beneficial effect on your nervous system, bringing it from a state of agitation to calm (massaging other parts of the body, especially tense ones, is also effective).
* Breathe into your belly, inhale for a count of four, exhale for a count of eight. The slower and deeper, the better. This also activates the parasympathetic nervous system and promotes relaxation and calm.
* Imagine yourself in a safe place where you felt good (or imaginary).
* If you are talking to a person who is pushing your buttons, apologize and leave (or take a break for half an hour, or at least 10 minutes). If this is not possible, chew gum. Intensive chewing of solid foods (like apples or carrots) effectively reduces stress, adrenaline and cortisol levels — by 25% in half an hour. This also applies to chewing gum. However, do not chew too much gum on an empty stomach: the hydrochloric acid produced when you chew can eventually cause gastritis.
* Express gratitude for any 3 things (for example, a roof over your head, food on the table, and that now YOU are in charge of your own life as your best caregiver). When we feel gratitude, the whole body relaxes, which is the opposite emotion of anxiety, anger, and sadness.
* Visualize yourself hugging your inner child. The hormone of love and tenderness oxytocin, which is released when you do this, will help you calm down. In addition to the anti-stress effect, this substance also stimulates the production of the happiness neurotransmitters endocannabinoids. By the way, oxytocin is very important for normal child brain development. It is very important that the child is picked up, hugged. If you cried all alone and no one comforted you, mentally take that baby in your arms yourself. Send love to your little neglected self and to the version of yourself who is going through hard times.
* Inhale deeply and exhale with a “VOOO” sound, trying to get the vibrations to come through your chest and stomach. This funny and easy exercise by Peter Levine quickly switches your nervous system from fight-or-flight mode to rest-and-cooperate. More specifically, this exercise activates the ventral vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the longest, and at the same time most highly branched nerve in the human body, responsible for many important functions. It runs from the brain deep into the body and differs from all other nerves in that it can transmit “orders” both from the brain to the body, and vice versa — signals from the body to the brain “I’m all right”/”I feel bad.” If you frown or hunch over, the vagus nerve sends the message: “I’m stressed” to the brain, the command center of the body. The ‘forced smile’ effect is also founded on the work of the vagus: if you stretch your lips into a smile, eventually, your mood actually will improve. The longer you live in a state of activated ventral vagus (calmly active), the sooner your mental and physical injuries heal. And the more actively new positive neural pathways are formed in your brain.
For all its simplicity, this exercise is amazingly effective: even if I start crying from heavy emotions, it calms me down very quickly. It puts my husband in a good mood in just a few seconds, even when he’s very annoyed.
TO BE CONTINUED! There will be even MORE IMPORTANT information in my new posts! Especially for people traumatized by toxic partners and narcissistic parents. Stay tuned to find out how to protect yourself from toxic personalities, how to heal from abuse, and how to get rid of malware of codependency and CPTSD. How to find and keep real love, how to create healthy relationships!
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