When you experience intense anxiety, anger, or sadness, you might need to calm yourself. Do you know how? It’s important that you find self-calming methods that work best for you. Give these methods a try!
When you’re experiencing intense emotions, your brain might need to quickly refocus, which may help calm you. The ABC game is a simple and engaging way for your brain to refocus. First, choose a topic that you find entertaining. This needs to be a topic that you know something about. A few examples of topics are names of cities, children’s movies, 80s rock bands, sports teams, and U.S. presidents. Once you’ve chosen a topic, identify one item in that topic for each letter of the alphabet, starting with A and ending with Z. For example, if you choose U.S. presidents, you could say, Adams, Biden, and Coolidge. See if you can make it all the way to the letter Z. If you get stuck, that’s ok. This will allow your brain to become absorbed in the game instead of focusing on what may have caused you to feel upset. When playing the ABC game, don’t choose a topic that is too easy or too difficult. Choose a topic that is entertaining to you, and try not to cheat by looking up answers on your phone.
Grounding is a mindfulness technique that can help calm you by quickly bringing your mind into the present. Use your five senses — sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste — to help you connect with the present. Here are a few ideas:
Sight
Sound
Touch
Smell
Taste
How would you calm a crying infant or toddler? You might instinctually pick up the child and rock, sway, or gently bounce them in your arms. This is because rhythmic movement is an ancient calming and attachment intervention. Your ancestors not only used rhythmic movement to soothe their children, but also to calm themselves. They danced, they drummed, and they moved together in circles around fires in celebration and ceremony. Some say that rhythmic movement is ingrained in our bones and that it’s our bodies’ natural way to self-soothe. You do not need to be a good dancer or have a sense of good rhythm. You just need to allow your body to lead you. Here are a few ideas of ways to practice rhythmic movement in order to self-calm:
Do you have something memorized, but it takes focus to recite it? If so, try reciting this when you need to calm yourself. This method can help your brain to refocus. Try to avoid things that are easy to recite, such as the Pledge of Allegiance or the ABCs. Instead, choose something that’s more difficult, such as a poem, a speech, song lyrics, or phrases in another language. Choose something you care about or something you find entertaining.
In order to calm down, your body needs to believe you are physically safe. If you are physically safe, the best way to let your body know that is to get into an open posture. Closed postures are designed to protect vulnerable parts of your body, such as your throat, chest, stomach, and genitals. A closed posture might look like you’re hunched over, head slightly down, shoulders pushed inward, legs/arms crossed, or hands crossed and placed in front of your body or on your lap. This posture communicates to your body that you need to protect yourself, and it might make it more difficult for you to calm down. On the other hand, open postures leave your throat, chest, stomach, and genitals unprotected. An open posture might look like your shoulders pulled back, head up, legs/arms uncrossed, hands unclasped and at your sides or engaged away from your body, and no large items are placed in front of you. Here are a few ideas to help you to adopt an open posture in order to self-calm:
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Gregory, A. (2022). How Can I Calm Myself Down? Physical Self-Calming Methods and How Can I Calm Myself Down? Cognitive Calming Methods. Symmetry Counseling blog posts retrieved from www.symmetrycounseling.com
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