Managing Distress - How to Soothe with Senses
How to Manage Distress - Soothing Strategies (Part 2 of 4)
Disclaimer: All strategies within this series are derived from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), a treatment developed by Marsha Linehan to treat people experiencing significant emotion dysregulation/fluctuations. People with existing medical issues relating to blood pressure/heart should consult a GP before attempting some of these strategies. If you require professional support in a crisis, please call your local Mental Health Triage Team or Emergency Services (000) if you are not safe.
Soothing Skills are typically helpful for managing our distress within the mild-moderate range. These can be useful when you notice you are starting to have increasing emotions and want to bring yourself back down, or when you have already experienced an emotion intensely and are wanting to calm or feel better after that experience. A reminder that for high distress, the other skill set previously posted is likely to be more effective.
We all have sensory preferences, or things that we enjoy within our sensory experience of the world. We can use these experiences to calm our body and our brain or to increase our enjoyment in our experience if we are feeling a bit disconnected. Everyone’s preferences are different, however I have listed some of the more commonly enjoyed/calming sensory activities people may want to try:
Sight: Sight based soothing may not in itself be enough to calm you down if you are distressed, and is often best when combined with other senses. Some commonly liked sensory related sights are: watching moving water, watching the sunset, seeing a nature setting, viewing images of things you like (e.g., interests, pets, and friends/family), watching a repetitive movement e.g., ASMR videos.
Hearing: Music is by far the most endorsed technique by people I have worked with in the past for hearing. This would involve choosing music that makes you feel happy or calm, rather than choosing music that is likely to make you more emotional (there’s definitely a time for this, but it isn’t when you are trying to soothe). Other sounds that people can enjoy/find calming are sounds of water, birds/nature sounds, listening to voice messages or videos from loved ones, white/brown noise.
Taste: Taste preferences are hugely variable, however for taste based soothing, a lot of people tend to go for cheese and chocolate. The reason behind this is that both foods tend to induce the chemicals in our brains associated with relieving pain and increasing happiness. Crunchy textures (e.g., potato chips) are also often well liked by people. The trick with taste soothing is that it isn’t about how much you eat, it is more about slowing down and really enjoying the taste of the food. For people who have previously had disordered eating, I would suggest using other strategies first as this can be triggering.
Touch: Certain textures are more liked by each of us. Common preferences in this area are typically soft objects, furry/fluffy objects (like patting your favourite pet), certain clothes or bed sheets, blankets, and smooth textures. I would encourage you to have a touch of things in your environment and see what feels best for you!
Smell: Smells can bring us comfort when we are feeling emotional. Often we may find we seek smells that were comforting for us when we were younger, or at a time in our lives we felt safe and comforted. Common smell options may include: Cooking smells, oils, candles, bath bombs, perfume, room spray, smell of flowers.
Movement: This tends to always be the forgotten sense, wherein people at times don’t recognise the impact movement can have in regulating their body and emotions. Typically our brains tend to find rocking movements particularly soothing, such as rocking in a chair or swinging back and forth on a swing. This is also the reason when children are quite distressed, we might see them rocking in place even if they don’t know why they are doing this. Other movements that can be helpful for people are swimming, dancing, or stretching.
Happy World Mental Health Day!
Josie :)