Inner peace doesn’t just happen. It takes skills to self-soothe, one of the most essential life skills.
Keep reading to learn science-backed strategies to increase your ability to self-soothe and feel the calm of inner peace!
Self-soothing is the effort or capacity to calm yourself in emotional distress.
Three factors determine how long the emotional stress lasts depending on
- how emotionally reactive a person is
- the level or amount of difficulty they have with regulating their emotions
- how quickly they recover from emotional distress.
Self-soothing usually focuses on child development. Childhood is when we learn many self-soothing patterns, which start when we’re just babies. Child development researchers find that when caregivers soothe people, they internalize the soothing experience and learn how to recreate the emotional experience for themselves.
What happens when your caregiver doesn’t know how to self-soothe or if there are other barriers to learning to self-soothe?
The good news is that you can learn to self-soothe no matter your age and how uncomfortable it is to learn something new. Improving your self-soothing skills as an adult requires insight into what you need, learning about self-soothing skills, and the ability to focus effectively on self-soothing to return to an emotional baseline. It might sound like a vague skillset, but as you practice, it becomes clear, and you know how to help yourself. Here are some quick and easy self-soothing techniques that have a lot of impact and that many of my clients find helpful:
1. Listen to Relaxing Music
Listening to relaxing music often reduces cortisol. Cortisol is an important stress hormone that decreases when we shift out of a stressful state and into a relaxed state (Khalfa et al., 2003). If you’re feeling anxious or have excess energy and can’t settle down, calming music can help. Music supports your brain by changing your mood, helping you to breathe more deeply, focus on positive emotions and decrease negative emotions.
2. Take a Few Deep Breaths
A crucial part of self-soothing is decreasing activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Using your car as an example, the accelerator speeds up the car and makes the engine work harder. We slow and calm our stress response by activating the parasympathetic nervous system or in the car example it’s the braking system. The parasympathetic nervous system slows down the acceleration and stops the fight, flight, or freeze response so that you can return to a baseline calm state.
Take a few long, deep breaths to activate the parasympathetic nervous system or the breaks. One easy breathing strategy to remember is box breathing. Box breathing involves breathing in for a count of four, holding for a count of four, breathing out for a count of four, and then holding for a count of four. Repeat this box breathing method for a few rounds until you feel calmer.
3. Do Pleasant Activities
Engaging in pleasant and enjoyable activities is another easy way to self-soothe. Participating in an activity you enjoy often helps you feel more contented. When you’re stressed doing something you like supports your well-being when you experience a positive state of being. Some low-key pleasant activities are gardening, spending time with friends, and doing arts and crafts. It doesn’t need to be fancy – a word search, doodling or reading are great options.
4. Identify Your Stress Triggers
Many clients have told me that unpredictability is one of the most frustrating parts of experiencing intense negative emotions. It’s as if they are blinded by emotion from nowhere or even bubbling up after an uncomfortable event. Sometimes this happens hours or even days later. You can self-soothe and prevent stress by gaining more awareness about what leads to stress. This leads to better control of your emotions overall.
One easy way to practice this is to decide when it’s worth the challenge and when it’s not. For example, you can avoid the gossipy neighbor who leaves you feeling like you’ve been slimed. You can stop yourself from saying something you’ll regret and prevent the same argument with your mother- again.
5. Explore When and What Upsets You
What are the common themes when you get upset, especially the time of day and the topic? Ask yourself: do I feel out of control or overwhelmed when I’m tired or hungry? It’s important because the solution is simple and feeling better sooner is almost inevitable. Changing your schedule so you’re aligned with when you need to eat and can sleep longer hours is helpful.
Another critical point is to ask yourself –
- Are there specific thoughts or energy that leave you feeling stressed?
- Are you overthinking it—playing out the situation over in your mind again and again?
- Or are you catastrophizing—imagining the worst possible outcomes?
It could even be your hostile inner critic—that little voice that tells you you’re not _____ (fill in the blank) enough.
When thoughts stick, it’s good to know what they are so you can take action and prevent them from spinning out of control.
In Sum – Benefits of Self-soothing
It is challenging to self-soothe when you feel upset and your nervous system is in fight, flight or freeze mode. When you have options that help you feel better you have choices. By using self-soothing techniques, you have more control over how you think and feel than you realize. Being calm, clear and connected is possible when you know how to reduce stress and manage your emotional well-being.