Five Things

May is Mental Health Awareness Month

by Jodi DePaoli, LPC

One of my favorite questions to ask my clients is how they comfort themselves when they are experiencing difficult emotions like loneliness, feeling overwhelmed, anxiety or sadness. These answers are essentially a picture of an individual’s coping skills and can often show the unhealthy habits people fall into when struggling emotionally.

Unhealthy coping skills often involve using a substance to numb difficult feelings and subsequently get a hit of dopamine. Think of pouring a large glass of wine at the end of a long day or skipping the healthy dinner you had planned and pulling into the drive-through on the way home instead. Some people avoid emotions by turning on Netflix for hours and zoning out, going to sleep, or hitting Target to fill their cart with impulse purchases (another dopamine hit). Unfortunately, the majority of these unhealthy coping tools create more problems in the long run and increase negative feelings (regret from overspending, stomach aches from eating poorly, hangovers, etc.).

Over the years, I have heard a variety of responses from clients when asked about their healthy coping skills: things like going for a run, calling a friend, or putzing around in their garden. However, I find that people often struggle to name more than one or two positive things they do to self-soothe, so when their go-to doesn’t work, they feel stuck and frustrated. Also, answers often involve other people, and while leaning on a friend or loved one in a time of need can be beneficial, other people are not always reliable or available. You can’t always get in to see your therapist immediately, and your best friend might not have time right then to listen to your feelings and offer support and advice.

One of the things I encourage everyone to create is a list of five healthy activities they can do to self-soothe when experiencing difficult emotions. This list ideally would not depend on others, but would be things you can do entirely on your own. You should also have fairly immediate access to each of these items, so while a one-week vacation in Hawaii is certainly a chance to self-soothe, think more along the lines of using coconut scented hand lotion and taking a long walk in the sunshine on your lunch hour.

When you are thinking about your list, keep your five senses in mind. Our emotions are often a physical experience as well - especially anxiety, stress, and depression. Using our senses to help soothe our emotions and our physical body simultaneously is even more beneficial to calming the nervous system.

Once you have your top five list done, write it down to refer to or better yet, memorize it!

Here are my top five in no particular order: Take a walk. Make a hot cup of tea. Journal. Do a guided meditation. Take a hot bath.

Some people struggle to come up with five, so your list might inspire others!  Hop on over to Facebook or Instagram to share your ideas in the comments.