Finding Comfort

 

In the beginning of recovery, I felt like my mind was going in a thousand different directions and none of them was helping! 

I don't know what event will start your recovery, but I do know that whatever it is, it will come with it's own set of challenges ... changes that you will have to make ... Maybe, you have to leave the place you have been?  Maybe, that means finding a new home and a new job and starting over or maybe it means making the best of what is left?

I looked for peace in a lot of ways ... Maybe, some of these have or will work for you?



Self-Soothing Techniques 
            by Mark Dombeck, Ph.D. and Jolyn Wells-Moran, Ph.D.

Use self-soothing techniques to calm yourself down when upset. Self-soothing techniques are methods for calming and relaxing the body and the mind and soothing jangled nerves:

Venting and Journaling

People are social creatures. Most find comfort in talking about problems with others when they become upset. First, because the experience of being listened to and hopefully understood helps people to feel less alone in their pain. Second, because talking about a problem, taking the time to put it into words, helps people to get a grip on that problem and to see possibilities that weren't obvious before.

Venting generally requires an audience. You may be able to vent to trusted confidants (e.g., trusted friends, family, mentors, therapists, or clergy), but when you do this, keep in mind that your confidant is giving a gift to you of their time and attention each time they listen to you rant. If you continually vent to others without finding ways to give them back "gifts" of similar value (for instance, your taking time to listen to them vent and rant), you will likely burn out your friendship.

Journaling can provide a good outlet for times when you need to vent but don't have anyone to vent to. Journaling couldn't be simpler. You simply write about your experience and emotion. Whatever you might say to a confidant, you can simply write down in a journal entry. In effect, the journal itself becomes your confidant.

Though not offering the comforts of a human listener, journaling has some advantages of its own. Journaling can occur any time of day or night, and can go on for a long as you have pen and paper to spare. Unlike spoken venting which is lost forever once it leaves your mouth, you can look at your journal as a sort of self-monitoring tool. A review of your old journal entries reveals what problems you have succeeded in solving and what problems remain to work on.

The availability of online internet communities makes possible a new journaling format ( We are already here!  AOL is perfect for this! ). You can join an online community, and vent your emotions to the small audience of members. You can do this any time of day or night, and, although other people get to read what you write, they are also able to comment on what you have written and provide valuable support or criticism.

Relaxation Methods

Several relaxation techniques have been developed which people can use to actively create a state of muscular and mental relaxation, even when they are wound up and tense. Many of these techniques work to create their relaxing effect by interrupting existing muscular tension states. Practice of these various relaxation strategies can help break down tension and promote a relaxed feeling state.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

PMR is based on two observations: 1) that muscles can be actively tensed, but not actively relaxed (relaxation depends on a "letting go" process, not a tension-producing one), and 2) that it is easier to relax and "let go" a muscle after it has just been tensed up, than it is to relax a muscle which has not been tensed up. A person practicing PMR first tenses and then lets go differentmuscle groups in sequence until they have tensed and then relaxed every muscle group in the body. By the end of the tension-relaxation cycle the body has entered into a deeper state of relaxation than would otherwise have been possible.

Autogenic Training

Autogenic Training is a method for promoting a profoundly relaxed state of consciousness.

Basically, the practitioner sits or lies down quietly and focused on inner experiences to the exclusion of outer ones. Practice starts with a breathing exercise probably adapted from yogic pranayama practice; while breathing deeply, breaths are exhaled slowly so that it takes twice as long to exhale as it does to breath in. This breathing exercise provides a centering feeling of peace and calm.


Yoga and Pranayama

To someone living in the developed world, yoga seems like a relatively new sort of exercise program that has a lot to do with stretching. The various exercises and practices making up yoga were designed to tame the various forces inside the mind and body that want to walk in different directions and bring them together with a single purpose of becoming more holy. Yoga provides its students with a wealth of benefits, among them opportunities for profound relaxation, improved mental and emotional control, and freedom from the aches and pains of aging.

Meditation

Most people have very little control over their minds. Though they can certainly take control when they need to, in order to concentrate on a project or problem, for instance, when they are not concentrating, their minds wander, daydream, and chatter incessantly. They want things, even things that are very impractical to want, or very dangerous. They worry about things, even things that are very unreasonable to worry about. These desires and worries greatly influence people's moods, especially the negative ones that people become motivated to change.

The mind's desires and worries wouldn't matter so much - wouldn't have so much power over people's moods - if they didn't take them seriously. Most people do take them seriously, however. They are identified with their thoughts and feelings - embedded in them - lacking in a certain kind of perspective necessary to understand that just because something feels urgent doesn't actually make it urgent.

Meditation techniques are designed to help people grow a larger perspective on the contents of their mind. With this perspective, people can move from being their moment to moment worries and desires, to having their moment to moment worries and desires. Instead of being worried, people can start to understand that they are experiencing a worrying feeling. The same old worries and desires are still there after growing the new perspective, but now they are things you can manipulate and choose whether to take seriously or not, rather than things that define you as a person. Because the new perspective allows you to view your mental landscape in a new and powerfully freeing way, it is sometimes referred to as the "witness consciousness".

Self-soothing methods help to sooth calm and relax you when you are upset. However, they are not the only reasonable approach to helping alter your unwanted moods. Sometimes, as the saying goes, a change is as good as a rest ... 

Distraction

Distraction is a surprisingly effective technique for changing your mood. When you realize that you have become upset, choose to interrupt your negative mood by engaging in something that distracts you from what has upset you. For best results, the thing you engage yourself in as a means of distraction should be both absorbing and interestingtoyou. Doing this thing should either require your full attention, or be so absorbing of your attention that you will forget yourself. Watching a movie or TV show, surfing the net, reading a book, listening to (energizing) music, calling a friend, and exercising are good examples of the latter, while engaging in detail-oriented tasks like writing, programming, cleaning your house, weeding your garden, playing music or singing or otherwise being artistic, or organizing your files are examples of the former. You should do something you like doing if at all possible. Work can be a fine distraction if you like working or find it absorbing, but it won't work out well if you don't.

Distraction works because it interrupts your mood and forces you to "shift gears". Many negative moods contain an element of rumination to them. When you ruminate, you go over your problem or worry again and again in your mind. Each time you go over your problem or worry, you reinforce its grip on you. Distraction breaks this grip by forcing you to think about other things. If the thing you distract yourself with is sufficiently compelling or demanding of your attention, you will temporarily stop ruminating and start to feel better. Maybe not good, but better.

Distraction is not anything more than a temporary respite or reprieve from negative moods. It is not a permanent cure or fix and should not be thought of as one. 

Organization

A very good way to distract yourself productively is to do something to better organize your life. By organize your life we mean clean and order your living or working spaces, your personal calendar, the way you handle your finances, your computer, or the way you dress, exercise and generally carry yourself. Cleaning your house can be an incredibly empowering thing to do, especially when you are feeling bad. Typically, when you are feeling badly, you are also feeling out of control. Your internal state is often a reflection of your external state. When your environment is messy, you feel messy inside. When this is the case, any time you spend organizing your environment (your home or work environment, etc.) is also time you spend building up your own personal sense of control and accomplishment. Your efforts to organize your life are thus both distracting from your mood, and separately empowering and confidence building. It's a simple thing, but it works.

Comedy and Humor

Another good way to distract yourself is to immerse yourself in comedy and humor. Watch a funny movie or TV show. Listen to a favorite comedian's routine. Read a funny book or magazine. Find something that will make you forget yourself and laugh out loud for a while.

When you're feeling anxious or down, you tend to have a rather grim face, and your thoughts, which are keyed to your emotions, are similarly grim. By laughing, you engage facial and body muscles associated with positive emotions. As these emotions are enacted, however temporarily, it will become slightly easier for you to remember positive thoughts and positive memories. It's a temporary effect, to be sure, but it can be a relief. Laughing also has a relaxing effect, and will help to reduce body tension.

Physical Exercise

Physical exercise is an incredibly powerful and compact means of altering your mood. Regular physical exercise offers many of the benefits of the other techniques we've described for controlling moods. It distracts you by causing you to attend to your body sensations rather than to your agitated thoughts. It relaxes and physically exhausts you (after a workout is complete), helping you sleep soundly. It removes the kinks from your muscles and helps you to stay limber and strong. It elevates your mood directly (during and just after a workout) by increasing circulation of naturally occurring body chemicals known as endorphins. Finally, it increases your overall general health and stamina and strongly prevents the development of numerous disabling diseases that otherwise would make life difficult in later years. There is a certain amount of physical pain involved in exercise, but if you can get past that, the benefits are enormous.

An isolated exercise session will be useful for altering mood, mostly because it will bedistracting and physically exhausting. However, for maximum benefit, including some prophylactic (preventative) protection from negative moods, exercise should be fairly vigorous and repeated multiple times per week.

Most all aerobic exercise, regularly practiced, will provide benefits.

• Calisthenics (jumping jacks, push-ups, sit ups, etc
• Exercise classes (Aerobics, Spinning, Jazzercize, Yoga, Pilates, etc.)
• Team sports (baseball, softball, rowing, golf, etc.)
• Solo sports (jogging, swimming, hiking, climbing, etc.)
• Working out with weights or "Nautilus" style machines.
• Martial arts

Yoga offers a particularly well balanced and designed exercise program for those who like it (provided that you pursue it regularly and progress through to intermediate classes where the poses begin to require strength to master).

To read any of the complete articles:   Mental Help Net - Psychological Self-Tools - Online Self-Help Book - Self-Soothing Techniques: Venting and Journaling,  Mental Help Net - Psychological Self-Tools - Online Self-Help Book - Self-Soothing Techniques: Relaxation Methods, Progressiv.. , Mental Help Net - Psychological Self-Tools - Online Self-Help Book - Self-Soothing Techniques: Autogenic Training and Yoga , Mental Help Net - Psychological Self-Tools - Online Self-Help Book - Self-Soothing Techniques: Meditation , Mental Help Net - Psychological Self-Tools - Online Self-Help Book - Self-Soothing Techniques: Distraction , Mental Help Net - Psychological Self-Tools - Online Self-Help Book - Self-Soothing Techniques: Physical Exercise

There were other little things that worked for me too like ...

Taking walks

Having a cup of tea on the back porch
Long hot baths
Listening to music
Watching Birds

Reading poetry or quotes ... didn't take much concentration but it changed the things I was thinking about

Photography
Painting (pictures, not walls - but painting walls is good too if it relaxes you)
Gardening
Going for drives in the mountains

There were more ... but one of the ways that helped me was blogging here with all of you.  It wasn't just a chance to write down my feelings, but often, I'd learn from you, reading about your challenges and the way you worked things out.  It gave me comfort that things would work out for me too (and they did!) ...

What are some of the ways you comfort yourself?

 

Tags: Finding Comfort, Self-Soothing Techniques