By How to Self Soothe (When You Don’t Know How)
May 05, 2021
It is essential to learn to calm yourself when the stress load has reached its maximum capacity.
Whether you’re dealing with constant anxiety or you are feeling overwhelmed by the day, you must have some tools in your arsenal that can help you achieve a place of calm and peace again.
It would be helpful if you realized that not all techniques work for everyone, so you will have to play around with them to find the ones that work best for you. While getting a luxurious hot stone massage and essential oils will suffice, not everyone can afford those luxuries, so there must be tools that don’t cost a penny. Another consideration is time, since most people don’t have much to spare.
Twelve Helpful Tricks to Help You Calm Down
If you’re having a bad day, here are twelve ways you can calm yourself down that don’t cost you a penny, and won’t take a lot of time, either. Anyone can use them to help them improve their mental state.
1. Use visualization
Where is the place that calms you the most? Do you find it peaceful to sit on a beach with the waves crashing around you, or do you love the smell of wildflowers growing in a meadow? Having the ability to transport yourself from your current situation to a better one is a powerful visualization technique.
Imagine yourself in your happy place surrounded by peace and quiet, and it will do wonders to improve your mood and calm your weary mind. Did you know that there have been many studies on the effectiveness of this technique?
According to an article in the Huffington Post, athletes use visualization techniques all the time, making them better at their game. Only, in these cases, they imagine themselves winning the game and celebrating.
2. Give yourself a lively talk
Have you ever attended a rally in high school? The goal of these sessions is to encourage the team to play. Why is this so effective?
You have a lot of power in your words. If you tell yourself that you will never get anywhere and that you don’t have what it takes to succeed, your comments will paralyze you. However, if you tell yourself that you can get through this day and you will succeed, your words will become the motivation you need.
Stop beating yourself up and start talking about life. Be your own cheerleader and learn to calm yourself using the power of positivity.
3. Stretch with yoga
Anxiety can make your mind, body, and soul feel tired, sore, and generally horrible. Each person will react to pressure differently. Some may have a headache, while another person may feel the tension in their shoulders. Stretching is one of the best ways to fix these problems.
Yoga is a great way to stretch all those stiff muscles. When your cortisol levels rise in the body, it can make you feel all kinds of uncomfortable sensations and pains, but when you stretch them in yoga sessions, it can definitely help.
4. Call your friends or loved ones
Sometimes you need to vent. You know the people in your corner who will listen to you, and they may even restore your common sense. It’s always a good idea to have a couple of people on speed dials that you can call when the world seems to be collapsing around you.
It doesn’t have to be a long conversation, especially if your time doesn’t allow it. However, you need someone you can call and vent from time to time. It is a self-calming technique that is immensely powerful.
5. Turn on The Tunes
How many times have you heard the old saying that music will calm any wild beast? If music can make a lion or other animal feel euphoric and calm, what can it do for you? What kind of music do you like?
There are so many different options that you can customize your music based on your mood. Why not bring a little Frank Sinatra and learn to do things your way, or you can sing an old classic rock n ‘roll tune that makes you feel good?
6. Move to get rid of anger
If things go wrong, you may feel the need to be destructive. Have you ever thrown something or crushed an object just because you let your anger get the best of you? Clearly, you need to resolve that anger in a positive way.
Exercising or playing a game can help ease some of your distress. It is becoming more and more popular to go to an arena and throw axes. Why do people enjoy swinging an ax with all their might toward a target?
The key to this Paul Bunyan-style activity is that you are breaking free. If you have all these repressed feelings who want to go out and bust, then grab an ax and swing it with all their might. The good news is that you can find a releasing activity that doesn’t require an ax and rank, and it’s a surefire way to get rid of your anger.
7. Daydream
Did your teachers always tell you when you were a kid that you had to go back to the classroom? Daydreaming is a powerful technique that comes in handy when you need to mentally escape. If life’s worries seem like too much to handle, then it’s okay to review for a few minutes.
To learn to calm yourself, you need to develop techniques that can be used anytime or anywhere. Daydreaming allows you to leave your current and less pleasant situation and transport your mind to another, calmer place.
According to a study referred to by the Taylor Research Magazine, children who daydream have higher levels of creativity and are better at drawing and telling stories.
8. Take a long, hot bath
There is something in the water that can ease those sore muscles and calm your mind. It can literally wash away the worries of life. When life has taken you too hard, you can feel better by soaking in a hot tub with water. Of course, bubbles are optional, but they are always a nice touch.
9. Practice mindfulness
Some people imagine that you are sitting like a pretzel on the floor when you practice mindfulness, trying to focus. Well, it may be that activity, but mindfulness is so much more. When you are trying to calm down, you need to pay close attention to all the things around you.
Ask yourself what you can see, hear, smell, and taste right now. The goal is to detach yourself from your thoughts and feelings and look like you’re in a movie. The goal is to get out of your head and bring things back to reality.
10. Use nasal breathing to calm yourself
A lots of breathing techniques it can help you calm down. Breathing through the nostrils is simply closing one side of the nose and inhaling and exhaling through the other. Try doing this for ten breaths on each side and see the difference it makes to your mood.
11. Learn that it’s okay not to be okay.
Why do humans think that the world should always be a rainbow and a sun? It’s okay to have those rainy days and experience some setbacks in life, as this is how you grow up. While it is good to calm yourself down, it is also mentally healthy to tell yourself that this too will pass and that it is okay to not be okay.
12. Connect to yourself
When someone talks about grounding, they are probably thinking of taking time out. While having time out as an adult is not a bad idea, the concept here is totally different. Have you ever had a picture hanging on the wall that is off-center?
This image is easy to see from a mile away because it is skewed and appears unbalanced. The image has lost its center and is causing it to skew. The same analogy can be used in your life. It’s easy to lose your balance and you need to find your focus or center again.
Grounding exercises They are powerful and can help you calm down when everything seems to be going wrong. One way to accomplish this task is to walk barefoot and feel your feet on the warm ground of the earth. Another way to feel this peaceful calm is to follow your breaths. Watch your chest rise and fall with each breath and realize that you are a living and breathing human being.
Final thoughts on how to learn to calm yourself
Did you learn some ways to calm yourself that you didn’t know about? What techniques do you think you can try at your workplace or at home? Remember, you may need to do several of them before you find the ones that work effectively for you.
