What is Self-Soothing?

How do you calm yourself down?

Self-Soothing is when you engage in activities designed to help you reduce your distress or overwhelm by using the five senses to calm yourself down.

Think about when a baby is overtired and gets worked up. What do we do for it? Swaddle it, feed it, sit in a dark room and cuddle it while we rock it to sleep with shushing noises. We reduce the stimulation and use strategies designed to calm the senses so the baby can settle and sleep. For adults, we use modified strategies, like a weighted blanket instead of a swaddle (though if you want to turn yourself into a burrito, go right ahead).

Self-Soothing needs to be carefully used so that it doesn’t turn into Detached Self-Soothing. This skill is not permission to eat a tub of ice cream and watch TV for 12 hours, but it is permission to stop and engage your Soothe System so you can unwind and destress.

To do this, we use the five senses.

Here are some examples:

Sight

• Scroll through your camera reel on your phone
• Look at family albums
• Find images of holiday destinations on the internet
• Watch out your window
• Watch the clouds go by
• Scroll through Pinterest to plan your dream house
• Watch your favourite tv show or movie
• Hang up pictures around the house
• Draw, paint or colour in
• Watch videos on YouTube. We made a playlist for you to try.
• Tidy up the space around you

Sound

Listen to your favourite music
Listen to new music by searching for playlists based on the mood you want to get into.
Listen to the birds outside
Listen to binaural beats
Listen for kids laughing, the breeze in the trees
Play songs that you will sing along to
Use an app to listen to rain sounds or white noise

Smell

Light a candle
Spray air freshener
Put on perfume
Use an oil defuser
Open the windows and let in fresh air
Put some fresh flowers in a vase
Go to the beach and smell the salt air
Cook something with garlic and chilli

Taste

Make a cup of tea
Suck on some strong mints
Drink some really cold water

Touch

Wrap yourself in a weighted blanket
Get a massage from someone else
Play with a popper
Use a spiky massage ball
Put clean sheets on your bed
Use your favourite moisturiser or body oil
Have a warm shower
Play with play-dough, putty, slime or kinetic sand
Lay in the sun

It will be easier for you to use this skill if you have everything you need ready to go before you need it.

To help with this, we have made some Self-Soothe kits for you to purchase that include some of the items we mentioned above. Head over to our Resources page to check them out.