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How to Calm Your Emotions as an Empath or Highly Sensitive Person

Writer's picture: Megan SherbackMegan Sherback

Updated: Aug 13, 2024

Are you feeling overwhelmed? Questioning if you know how to regulate your emotions? Are you constantly in a mode of keeping busy or being prepared? In this article, we will give you some ways to calm your emotions and get out of that constant state of preparedness.



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As babies and young children, we engage in self-soothing behaviours, rocking, thumb-sucking, and using pacifiers. Then as we age, we are often taught that we need to deal with our emotions on our own. What does that really mean anyway? It's common for us to not recognize what self-soothing is as an adult because I don’t think we really talk about it. Chances are you are already engaging in self-soothing but aren’t labelling it that way.


What is Self-Soothing? And how it can Help to Calm Your Emotions.


Self-soothing is what we do to make ourselves feel better and it calms our emotions by bringing down our overwhelm. It signals to your brain I am safe to relax.  I’ll talk about ways to engage in self-soothing and you may be able to identify some you're already using!


Self-Soothing With Senses


Connecting to your senses can be a great way for deep feelers to calm their nervous system as it also serves to ground you. I often find this can be the easiest and fastest way to self-soothe for empaths, highly sensitive, and deep feelers. You can use several of these a day or pick one or two that you gravitate towards. Sometimes as HSPs, too much can be overwhelming, and it can be helpful to limit to a couple.

Touch


Touch can be a great way to comfort yourself. You can hug yourself, use a weighted blanket, or ask for hugs from your friends and family. Soft fabrics can be soothing to wear such as your favorite sweater or blanket.

Smell

Use smells or senses you find calming. Lavender, eucalyptus, and chamomile are associated with calming sense. It could be any sense that you find calming. For me it's orange. Find what works for you.


You can buy sprays, lotions, or oils that you can have with you in your bag or car. At home candles or diffusers. Just be cautious of the intensity because that too can become overwhelming for sensitives.

Sound

Certain sounds can be relaxing. Create a playlist of soothing sounds or music that you can have on you. The calm app has calming music and you can also find YouTube videos of real nature.

Sight

Sight can be an easy way to engage in calming your emotions. You can create an image board of pictures that elicit positive memories or you can find images of places that look calming. Taking a walk outside and noticing the pleasant sights around you. Using visualization to imagine a calming place and paying attention to what this place would look like.

Taste

Grabbing a cup of tea or coffee can be very comforting. Practicing mindful eating can be a great way to notice how eating can feel. Lastly, we usually have favourite meals or certain food that connect to positive memories.  


Calming your Emotions with Deep Breathing


Deep breathing is often the fastest way to get you out of flight-fight or freeze response. It signals to your body you are safe, and your body enters into relaxation.

You don’t have to be in flight-fight or freeze response for breathing to help. It can also help to slow things down, bring about feelings of calmness, build a connection with your body, and serve as a prevention.

Deep Breathing Techniques

There are various ways to engage in deep breathing. A simple technique is to take a deep breath and hold it as long as you can then let it slowly out.


Some people find that their mind wanders when doing deep breathing. What can be helpful to  keep you on track is counting your breath or listening to meditations. Check out this video on deep breathing.


Calming your Emotions With movement


Movement can be a great way to connect to your body and naturally slow down your breath. Gentle or rhythmic movements can be calming such as sitting in a rocking chair. Yoga can also be a great way to engage movement in your body.

 

There are tons of different ways to calm your emotions. This list gives you a place to start exploring what may work for you as that first step in regulating your emotions. If you’re looking for more support for calming your emotions you can contact me.  




DISCLAIMER The content in this blog and all future blog posts is for educational purposes only and is not a replacement or substitute for mental health or medical care.

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