5 Ways to Self-Soothe When Urges Become Intense

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Self-soothing is an important emotional regulation strategy, one that we need throughout our whole life, a need that is initially satisfied and then later taught to us by our parents. If our parents lacked the skills to regulate their own emotions, it’s highly unlikely that they could have taught them to us. After all, you can’t teach what you don’t practice yourself!

So when an unpleasant feeling arises, in the absence of tools to regulate yourself, you may want to escape from it. Often that escape is found in picking or pulling. In effect, our minds start thinking about different forms of discomfort or stress as a signal that the appropriate way to react is to pick or pull. That’s when problems start.

The most efficient way to deal with excoriation disorder or trichotillomania is to make sure the urges don’t arise in the first place – by changing your lifestyle and learning how to process your emotions, but that’s a journey, not a one-time thing you do and then you’re done. In the meantime, it’s useful to have practical tools to deal with urges when they become intense.

At the BFRB Club we’ve discussed other ways and we even had a webinar on self-soothing. We posted instructions on making a self-soothing kit. For those who haven’t found their preferred way or simply want to try out different techniques, here are five more ways to consider and try out!

1.      24 breaths

-        Sit down with your back straight.

-        Put one hand on your belly, sit on the other hand (to make sure you can’t pick or pull).

-        The hand on your belly is meant to be a guide, to make sure you’re breathing properly.

-        You will take 9 deep breaths, in the following way: you will breathe in through your nose and into your belly; you should be feeling your hand being pushed forward as you inhale.

-        When your lungs are full, hold your breath for as long as it feels comfortable and then breathe out slowly.

-        Do a series of 9, rest a minute or two and then repeat. In total, 3 series ought to be enough. Even if the urge stops, complete the three series, nonetheless.

The key to doing this self-soothing exercise is to do it slowly. Breathing in is meant to be done slowly, breathing out too. Pushing yourself or rushing will undo the self-soothing effect. When you hold your breath, don’t hold too long – try to extend the holding phase each time around by just a second. The idea is to self-soothe not to torture yourself.

Whatever you do, do it with compassion.

2.      Where do I need to be right now?

For this exercise, you will need to sit on your hands once again and close your eyes. The point of sitting on your hands is to give you a bit of extra security and make sure that you don’t pick or pull. If you have gloves, this would be a good time to put them on.

-        Take a few deep breaths into your belly. As in the previous exercise, I emphasize diaphragmatic breathing because this allows the lungs to fill up with more air.  Take 4 or 5 slow and deep breaths with your eyes closed.

-        Keeping your eyes closed, ask yourself: where do I want to be right now? This question is in the context of calmness, where do I go to be calm? Is it a place in time or a physical location, it’s quite irrelevant. The question is only, where do you need to be right in that moment to be calm.

-        Visualize that place, and as your thoughts move to picking/pulling, gently return to the image.

-        As you hold the image in your mind’s eye, don’t stick with the visuals too, recall what it felt like to be there. Recall the smells, the tastes, etc.

-        You may notice that your attention keeps getting pulled back to the urge, but be kind and persistent at the same time and go back to the image and the wealth of sensory experiences it carries with it: sounds, smells, tastes, etc.

This technique can be surprisingly effective, although one precondition for it is to know what it feels like to be still and calm, so it requires a bit of preparation. We so easily notice when we’re feeling agitated, uncomfortable or anxious, but we rarely pause enough to fully enjoy the pleasant side of our experience. Spend some time observing your day-to-day experience and find those moments of calm that you can use to recall when needed.

3.      Compassionate breathing

Compassionate breathing is a rather simple and efficient way. There are no steps to memorize and not much that you need to do, yet the technique works well. The only thing that you need is to find a place where you will be alone for just a few minutes. You can do it sitting or lying down or standing up.

The only technique that you need to know is how diaphragmatic breathing, which is truly nothing more than a fancy name for breathing into your belly.

Put your right hand on the skin of your chest over your heart, and your left hand on your belly, just above the belly button. Palms of your hands touching the skin of your chest and abdomen  will generate warmth similar to what we feel when we’re touched by someone we trust and like, that is a soothing sensation in itself. Focus on the warmth and the way it fluctuates and spreads over your body while breathing into your belly, gently, slowing trying to deepen and slow down your breathing.

4.      Mindful Walking

By mindful walking, I don’t mean walking neurotically around the room, pacing from one end to another, although that can be quite helpful too even though I called it “neurotic”. We’ve all done that and we all know that a bit of nervous pacing helps get that energy out.

Mindful walking is, however, a different thing. It’s meant to ground you, slow you down and make you mindful of your body sensations – mindful meaning aware but non-reactive. Establishing such mindfulness by walking instead of sitting still helps you channel the energy of the urge into movement, so that you reduce that sense of overwhelm.

Take your shoes off and your socks off, and start walking slowly around the room. Slowing down your movements is the key. Observe your body as it moves through the air, focus on the sensations of your feet touching the ground.

An alternative to this involves dancing with or without music playing, allowing your body to dictate the movements to express and expel the urge.

5.      Stress-relieving massage

No, I’ not going to advise you to schedule a massage session in the middle of a strong urge, although, come to think of it, this might help distract you, as establishing structure and a list of tasks sometimes helps. This is a technique that can best be described as “soothing self-massage”.

-        Sit with your spine straight.

-        Rub your palms together until they become warm, but make sure that the whole hand is warm!

-        Close your eyes.

-        Place your left hand at the back of the right side of your neck.

-        Place your right hand at the back of the left side of your neck. That way your hands will cross just in front of your chest.

-        Gently massage the back side of your neck with both hands at the same time. You can place the whole palm and press and release or make circular motions. Try both and see what feels better.

-        Slowly expand the field you’re massaging but moving your hands lower toward your shoulders and then continue down your arms.

-        As you get down to your writs, massage every finger individually, still with your eyes closes, gently and slowly.