The Importance of Self-Soothing

Hi there!

Welcome back to the MoodiNews. Every Thursday, we discuss a variety of matters related to mental health and self-improvement.

I’m so glad you’re here.

In today’s post, we will be discussing: SELF-SOOTHING! Yay!

To start, a bit of context:

Recently, I was listening to an interview where podcaster Lex Fridman interviewed Dr. Andrew Huberman. Dr. Huberman is a podcaster and a popular neuroscientist from California.

When Lex asked Huberman what the key is to maintaining a healthy relationship, I was initially surprised by Dr. Huberman’s answer. His first recommendation was that people should, “Learn how to self-soothe.”

Not going to lie—I didn’t expect that to be his answer (I’ve never heard someone answer that question that way before!)—but then I realized quickly… he is right.

Self-soothing is a cornerstone of mental health, and it is essential for emotional stability. As a therapist, I see all the time how self-soothing is one of the most underrated skills that a person can develop in service of their emotional well-being.

Today we are going to talk a bit more about self-soothing, what it is, and why it’s important.

To begin, let’s start with a definition:

In the clinical literature, self-soothing is defined as, “being comforting, nurturing, peacemaking, gentle, and mindfully kind to oneself” (Linehan, 2014). Put simply, self-soothing is having the capacity to calm oneself down during moments of intense arousal without the need for self-harm.

When done effectively, self-soothing allows people to tolerate pain or emotional distress without making a situation worse, which allows them to return to a state of emotional balance more efficiently.

If you’re wondering how an inability to self-soothe can present itself, here are a few common examples:

1) Eating, drinking, or spending too much when stressed

2) Coping with overwhelming feelings by cutting, burning, or scratching one’s body

3) Getting upset, and then staying angry/bitter about it for days or weeks afterward

4) Being self-critical or bullying oneself for making (often innocuous) mistakes

5) Having difficulty stopping sudden mood swings or impulsive urges

In opposition to the examples noted above, people who self-soothe know how to skillfully tolerate distress. When they feel themselves becoming mentally flooded (i.e., triggered or reactive), they are able to pump the breaks, keep things from escalating further, and then eventually can find a way to bring themselves back to baseline. (As Huberman eloquently puts it, to be a master of self-soothing is to have the capacity to voluntarily, “calm your mind, steady your actions, steady your voice.”)

When people develop the capacity to soothe themselves, they learn to how to manage distress and/or painful feelings in a way that is not harmful—to themselves or anyone else. As an added bonus, when people learn how to self-soothe on their own, they become much less dependent on others emotionally, and have an easier time feeling ‘okay on the inside,’ even when other people aren’t giving them what they want.

There are many ways to practice self-soothing. One such example is the skill of self-compassion, which is something that we have explored previously in this blog: here, here, and here.

Mastering emotional stability, however, goes far beyond the capacity to simply self-soothe—in addition to responding effectively to stress, we must also learn how to regulate our emotions proactively. So, starting in the New Year, we will dive more deeply into the topic of self-regulation. As a part of that conversation, we will explore what emotions are, why they exist, and how to build emotional intelligence—all in the service of becoming better self-regulators! (In the process, my hope is that you also will gain a deeper understanding of/appreciation for your own emotions—even the harder ones—as well!)

Next week will be an unrelated, surprise post—the last one of the year!

Then we will return together to our usual cadence of weekly posts come January.