When upsetting thoughts and feelings pop up, you might find yourself plummeting into a deep well of dread and overwhelm. During such stressful moments, you might start to believe there’s not much you can do about those emotions.

But that’s not actually the case. In fact, practicing self-soothing activities can help you climb out of that dark well and work toward feeling better.

How? According to psychologist Rebecca Leslie, PsyD, self-soothing activities can:

• calm your mind and body
• reduce anxiety
• help you think clearly
• improve your sleep

So, the next time you start to feel distressed, consider trying these 15 lesser-known self-soothing strategies.

Fill up the balloon

Diaphragmatic (deep) breathing “helps calm you down and tells your mind and body you are safe,” says Leslie.

Research suggests that deep breathing can bring increased comfort and relaxation while helping decrease symptoms of anxiety, anger, confusion, and depression.

Leslie suggests imagining you have a balloon behind your belly button that fills up with your breath as you breathe in.

• Inhale slowly through your nose until the balloon feels “full.” This might take about 4 to 5 seconds.
• Purse your lips and slowly exhale for the same amount of time until you feel the balloon “empty.” 
• Repeat until you start to feel calmer.

Practice square breathing

Square breathing, also called box breathing, offers another powerful technique. 

To try this type of breathing:

• Breathe in for 4 seconds.
• Hold your breath for 4 seconds.
• Breathe out for 4 seconds.
• Relax for 4 seconds.

In short, each step forms one side of the “square.” 

Try this for 4 rounds or more, recommends Selma Bacevac, LMHC, a psychotherapist specializing in childhood trauma and attachment.

Focus on a color

Scan your surroundings for the color blue or for your favorite color, suggests Bacevac. 

“Gently rest your eyes in the hues of the color as you bring awareness to your breath, and slowly breathe in for 7 seconds,” she says.

Follow the inhale with a long, slow exhale.

It’s worth noting, too, that challenging yourself to find different objects in the same color could offer a distraction from the source of your distress.

Give yourself a hug

A hug or any kind of compassionate touch causes your brain to release oxytocin. This hormone can make you feel safe, connected, and loved, explains Joree Rose, LMFT, a therapist and mindfulness and meditation teacher.

Bonus: Your brain can’t tell the difference between a hug someone gives you and one you give yourself. Wrapping your arms around your chest can instantly soothe your tense body.

Paint with watercolors

“Art is an active tool we can use to move stress out of our body, express distress, and distract ourselves from what is bothering us by externalizing it,” says Jackie Tassiello, a board certified creative arts therapist and co-founder of Soulutions Therapy, based in Montclair, New Jersey.

One art technique to try? Watercolor painting. According to yoga teacher Namita Kulkarni, benefits reside in the “tactile pleasure of touching the paint to the paper, visual surprise and delight of watching the pigments swirl into the water and the ever-present unpredictability of water’s behavior.”

To start, simply buy a watercolor set at any craft or big box store.

Provide validation

When you’re upset, you might tell yourself stories like “This isn’t that bad,” “I’m overly sensitive,” or “I shouldn’t be feeling this way,” says Sera Lavelle, PhD, a clinical psychologist and hypnosis expert. 

But this kind of dismissive, invalidating self-talk often just leaves you feeling worse. 

Instead, validate your experience with self-compassion. According to Lavelle, this might involve:

• noticing your inner dialogue
• placing your hands over your heart
• using language that offers comfort, such as “I recognize I feel scared right now and that’s hard. In this moment, the things I fear aren’t happening, and I am safe.”

Try autogenic training

Considered a form of self-hypnosis, autogenic training promotes relaxation in the body and a state of emotional calm.

To start, you might repeat certain phrases three times, says Leslie. Examples of soothing phrases might include:

• My right arm is heavy.
• My left arm is heavy.
• My arms are heavy. 
• I am calm and relaxed.
• My left leg is heavy. 
• My right leg is heavy. 
• My legs are heavy.
• I am calm and relaxed.

Play with something you’re wearing

Kaylin Zabienski, LMFT, a therapist and yoga teacher, used to get overwhelmed when running groups at her treatment center. To self-soothe, she’d wear a long necklace with a pendant or charm that she’d move up and down the chain.

“It doesn’t look like anything special, but the subtle vibration and sound that it made was extremely calming to me,” says Zabienski.

She suggests doing the same with your own clothing and accessories. “Using mindfulness and curiosity, it can be soothing to explore the item with your hands, to move it around on your skin, to notice its texture or any sounds it makes.”

Surround yourself with love

Sending messages of love to yourself can go a long way toward helping ease emotional distress.

Liz FitzGerald, a yoga instructor and co-founder of Daygold, suggests doing this loving practice for at least 5 minutes:

• Sit comfortably with your eyes open or closed.
• Starting with both hands at the top of your head, gently move your hands over your head while saying “I am with me.”
• Move your hands across your face and say, “I see me.”
• Move your hands across your ears and the front and back of the throat and say, “I hear me.”
• Move your hands over your chest and say, “I trust me.”
• Move your hands over your belly and say, “I am safe.”
• Move your hands over your legs and feet and say, “I am loved.”

Practice Legs Up the Wall

According to Kulkarni, this restorative yoga pose activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest and relaxation.

To try this pose, simply lie down with your legs up a wall. Hold the pose for up to 20 minutes.

Tip: If putting your legs up against a wall feels uncomfortable, you can put your legs on a couch, chair, or bed, says yoga and meditation teacher Catherine Tingey.

Perform repetitive tasks

“Anything that we have to do over and over creates a rhythm, which can ease tension and create an outlet for our anxiety or stress,” says Tassiello.

Examples of repetitive tasks that may help soothe stress include: 

• knitting
• dicing vegetables
• folding laundry
• washing dishes
• doodling patterns

Observe the tornado

During periods of intense distress and overwhelm, it can feel like you’re in the center of a tornado, at the whims of “wherever it’ll take you, making you feel helpless and more stuck,” says Rose.

Instead, try to shift your vantage point and imagine yourself as the meteorologist commenting on the tornado, she says, not someone trapped in the center.

In a nutshell, picturing yourself on the sidelines of an emotional storm can help reduce its power over you.

Savor your senses

Immerse yourself in a sensory experience, recommends Neha Chaudhary, MD, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and chief medical officer at BeMe Health. 

Chaudhary notes that this could mean:

• putting on headphones and playing your favorite songs
• using aromatherapy oil
• dipping your hands in a bowl of cold water

Practice heart breathing

Heart breathing, based on work from the HeartMath Institute, helps us “gain a deeper awareness and sense of calm, and return to center,” says Bara Sapir, an integrative life coach, MBSR-Trained provider, and founder of City Test Prep.

To practice, perform these three steps:

• Heart focus. Place one hand over your heart and the other over your belly. Focus your attention on the area around your heart.
• Heart breathing. As you inhale, feel as if your breath is flowing in through your heart. As you exhale, feel it leaving through this area. Continue breathing with ease until you find a natural rhythm that feels good to you.
• Heart feeling. As you maintain your heart focus and heart breathing, recall a time you felt good. Take a moment to re-experience this positive feeling.

Set up a preventive plan

Using self-soothing tools in the moment can help a lot, but it’s equally as important to work on creating calm in your day-to-day routine. 

According to Tassiello, you could:

• Make your bedroom into a sanctuary.
• Limit screen time.
• Create a relaxing bedtime routine.
• Process stress daily before it reaches a breaking point.

The bottom line

When you experience a difficult emotion, a self-soothing technique can reduce distressing thoughts and help relax a frazzled body.

It can help to try these activities before you’re upset to see which ones resonate with you. You can even keep a list of your top five soothers in your phone.

Remember that learning to soothe yourself can take time, says Lavelle. Try to be patient with yourself while “reminding yourself that you deserve to feel peaceful and taken care of.”

Margarita Tartakovsky, MS, has been writing for Psych Central and other websites for more than a decade on a wide range of topics. She’s the author of the mental health journal “Vibe Check: Be Your Best You” (Sterling Teen). She’s especially passionate about helping readers feel less alone and overwhelmed and more empowered. You can connect with Margarita on LinkedIn, or check out her writing at her website.

Melinda

Reference:

https://www.healthline.com/health/self-soothe?utm_term=roundup&utm_source=Sailthru%20Email&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=alzheimers_carejourney&utm_content=2026-02-03&apid=36735751&rvid=7f053d6ecf820dccd09e4914833cbd49bdfe95bb517404ee9b41601767d1bace

Leaning on the hard-earned wisdom of others helps shift your perspective and uplift your spirits, serving as a reminder that resilience is possible even on the toughest days. 

May these words serve as a gentle source of inspiration and comfort. If you have a specific quote that helps you through the hard times, we invite you to share it in the comments.

Love’s Power to Ease Life’s Sorrows

“Love has, at its best, made the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest.” ~ Kay Redfield Jamison (An Unquiet Mind, 1995)

Seeing Stars Beyond the Tears

“If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore

Finding Safety in the Present

“In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me.”
~ Nicholas Sparks

Courage Is Something Quiet

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”
~ Mary Anne Radmacher

Perseverance Is the Foundation 

“Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.”
~ Lao Tzu

The Power of Hope

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul — and sings the tune without the words — and never stops at all.”
~ Emily Dickinson

Imagination, Love, and Laughter 

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge; myth is more potent than history; dreams are more powerful than facts; hope always triumphs over experience; laughter is the cure for grief; love is stronger than death.”
~ Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things, 1986)

Life is Music — Both Joyful and Sad

“Life is like a piano; the white keys represent happiness and the black show sadness. But as you go through life’s journey, remember that the black keys also create music.”
~ Ehssan

How Our Loved Ones See Us

“Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.”
~ Alan Cohen (Wisdom of the Heart, 2002)

Embrace Nature’s Reality

“It isn’t the language of painters one ought to listen to but the language of nature…. Feeling things themselves, reality, is more important than feeling paintings, at least more productive and life-giving.”
~ Vincent van Gogh (letter to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, on or about Friday, July 21, 1882)

Welcoming the Day With Joy

“Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who made the morning and spread it over the fields… Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.” 
~ Mary Oliver (poem, “Why I Wake Early,” 2004)

The Art of Living Well

“Living well is an art that can be developed: a love of life and ability to take great pleasure from small offerings and assurance that the world owes you nothing and that every gift is exactly that, a gift.”
~ Maya Angelou (Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now)

Happiness is What Drives Life

“Happiness is what greases the wheels of life, what opens the floodgates, raises the sun, aligns the stars, beats your heart, finds true love.”
~ Mike Dooley

Courage Through Facing Fear

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt (You Learn by Living, 1960)

Accepting Life’s Unexpected Path

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”
~ Joseph Campbell (to Diane K. Osbon, as recorded in Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion)

Stronger After Life’s Storms

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
~ Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

Keep Moving Forward

“If you can’t fly, then run; if you can’t run, then walk; if you can’t walk, then crawl; but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (“Keep Moving from This Mountain,” speech at Spelman College, April 10, 1960)

It’s Never Too Late to Be You

“For what it’s worth: It’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. You can change or stay the same; there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it.… I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.”
~ Eric Roth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, film, 2008)

Melinda

Reference:

https://www.bphope.com/bipolar-buzz/20-inspirational-quotes-to-help-cope-with-bipolar-disorder/?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bphope&utm_content=BUZZ+-+Jan4+-+Quotes