Self-soothe: overcoming obstacles and understanding why

The ability to soothe intense emotions is an important skill but one that people often experience a great deal of difficulty with. Our mind throws lots of reasons why we shouldn't prioritise activities that soothe our senses. Paul Gilbert (The Compassionate Mind, 2009) argues that effectively managing emotions requires the development and balance of 3 basic emotion systems: 

1. The drive system: this system motivates us towards the things we want and is associated with feelings such as wanting, pursuing, achieving and progressing.
2. The threat system: this system is our basic safety survival system and identifies threats with the aim of protecting ourselves. It is associated with feelings such as anxiety, anger and disgust.
3. The soothing system: this system calms distress and promotes connection and bonding. The soothing system is associated with feelings such as calm, safe, protected and trust. 

It is important that all of these systems are balanced and equally developed. Sometimes our early life experiences lead to the over-development of one system (e.g. threat) and the under-development of another system (e.g. soothing). In addition, Paul Gilbert (2009) suggests, as our brains have evolved, we have developed the ability to think and judge ourselves leading to yet more obstacles to the development of our soothing system. Society often teaches us that soothing ourselves is not a priority and instead, over-activates our drive system (we find ourselves striving towards the next goal, achievement or product we want to buy). 

However, an inability to soothe ourselves can lead to emotional intensity that feels out of control, on going mental health problems (depression, anxiety) and feelings of stress. It is vital that we attend to our 3 basic emotion regulation systems in order to keep our emotions balanced. You can learn to self soothe and below are a number of strategies of things to try.

The first step in self-soothing is mindfulness (we will blog about this in a separate post). In brief, mindfulness is the skill of noticing and being present in the moment without judgement. It can help to notice the obstacles our brain throws at us when we attempt to self-soothe. Notice these without judgement, our brains have well trodden neural pathways so these negative evaluations and criticisms will inevitably show up, but try to just notice them and let them pass, like a cloud in the sky. 

The best way to learn to self soothe is to think about the 5 senses and how you can soothe each sense. 

Hearing: Soothing music or sounds (nature)

Touch: Mindfully applying hand cream, taking a bath

Vision: Dim lighting, candles, soothing colours

Smell: Scented candles, clean clothes or bedsheets

Taste: Sweet tastes (chocolate)

Combining senses can help further develop your ability to self-soothe. It is important to practice this skill, even when you don't feel the need to be soothed.  Self-soothe can be particularly beneficial either when you notice your emotional intensity/stress rising or when you are coming down from an episode of intensity or stress. Often at the peak of distress, self-soothe can be very difficult to achieve. We will write other blog posts on what to do when you are at the peak of emotional intensity focusing on strategies to reduce the levels of distress in helpful ways.