Some Suggestions for What to Do If Distressed
- If you feel yourself “leaving” mentally, try quietly getting up and moving. Go outside and breathe deeply. This will help you feel in control of your body.
- Touching soft fabrics or holding smooth stones or coins can help calm, soothe and decrease anxiety.
- Hot showers or even better, hot to cold showers can activate your parasympathetic nervous system (the part of the nervous system that calms us down).
- Wrapping up in blankets or changing body temperature to either warmer or colder is effective as well. Ice water on your hands or face will also kick in the parasympathetic nervous system. Leave on for several minutes.
- Sometimes verbally expressing how you’re feeling can really defuse the intensity of the emotion, i.e. “I feel afraid,” or “Boy am I triggered!!!” Just communicating your distress to another person is extremely calming.
- Reconnecting with your body by focusing on your legs touching the seat or your feet touching the floor can help.
- Moving hands and wriggling toes is also helpful. Massaging your hands and fingers can be very relaxing.
- Drinking something warm or cold and focusing on the sensation is another possibility.
- Eating even when you don’t want to is very anxiety-decreasing and grounding. Try to focus on the taste and eat mindfully.
- Strong smells like clove and cinnamon can be very useful in helping us stay present. Other possibilities are using scented body lotion and perfumes.
- Standing and stretching can help to decrease tension and put us back in our bodies, with a minimum of effort.
- Stuffed animals are a great way to soothe the inner you.
- Diaphragmatic breathing, with a hand on the belly feeling it rise and fall can lower anxiety. This can be done sitting up or lying down.
- Visualization is a very powerful tool. Focus on a beautiful scene in nature, a favorite animal, a pet or a loved one. This can be very helpful at bedtime and can help avert flashbacks by refocusing the mind.
- Painful memories (or anniversary dates) can be permanently altered by activating the pleasure center of the brain simultaneously. Possibilities include eating something pleasant, having a massage, and going shopping or talking to a therapist or friend. If the memory returns again, it will be associated with pleasant feelings as well as painful ones.