Self-soothing

What It Means

Self-soothing is calming yourself down when you're upset by deliberately giving one of your senses something gentle: a sight, a sound, a smell, a taste or a touch. In dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), "self-soothe" is one of the distress tolerance skills, which help people get through a hard moment without making it worse. Parents also use the word for a baby learning to settle on their own, which is a sleep topic with its own guidance; this page is about adults.

How People Say It

• "I put on my comfy sweater and made tea, and it helped."
• "When I'm spiraling, I take a hot shower."
• "My go-to is one song with my eyes closed."

The Breakdown

Signs it's a self-soothe moment

• Your feelings are running high and you can't think straight.
• There's nothing you can fix right now, like waiting on news.
• You want to snap at someone or reach for something you'll regret.

A short self-check. When you're calm, write one thing for each sense that settles you. If you can fill only one or two, that's fine; start there. The PubMed Central study of a DBT skills group found that teens who learned self-soothe skills found them especially useful when their emotions were high.

Ideas by sense (Buhata's examples)

Starting the conversation. "When I go quiet and make tea, I'm calming myself down. Give me ten minutes and I'll come back to this."

Good to Know

Self-soothing is for getting through the moment; it doesn't fix whatever caused the distress, so come back to the problem once you're calm. DBT is a structured therapy taught by trained clinicians, and a therapist can teach the full set of distress tolerance skills if hard moments come often. Children learn to calm down with a calm adult's help first, as the emotional regulationEmotional regulationThe growing ability to notice a feeling and manage how strongly it shows and how long it lasts, so a child can calm down and carry on. See more and co-regulationCo-regulationThe way a calm, caring adult helps a child manage feelings and behavior, through a warm relationship, a steady setting and coaching, until the child can do more alone. See more pages explain. If you're coping by hurting yourself or are thinking about suicide, call or text 988 (the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline). Call 911 in an emergency.

Related Terms and Categories

• Emotional regulation

  The growing ability to notice a feeling and manage how strongly it shows and how long it lasts, so a child can calm down and carry on.

• Co-regulation

  The way a calm, caring adult helps a child manage feelings and behavior, through a warm relationship, a steady setting and coaching, until the child can do more alone.

• 5-4-3-2-1 grounding

  A grounding exercise that brings your attention back to the present by naming 5 things you see, 4 you can touch, 3 you hear, 2 you smell and 1 you taste.

• Box breathing

  A slow breathing pattern of four equal counts: breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four and hold for four, then repeat.

• Self-compassion

  Treating yourself with the kindness you'd offer a friend when you struggle; researcher Kristin Neff describes three parts: self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness.

• Overstimulation

  The overwhelmed, keyed-up feeling when noise, light, crowds, smells or touch add up to more than your senses can comfortably take in.

Wellbeing and habits