Coping skills are necessary for recovery. They help address the urges and often release the same feel good chemicals, called endorphins, in your brain that are released during self-harming. One common self-soothing technique is called the five senses technique, which provides a way to a helpful state of mind to address the painful or extreme feelings leading to self-harm.  Start in a comfortable position, either sitting on the floor with your legs crossed or in a chair with your feet planted flat on the ground. Start focusing on your breathing. Next, start to bring awareness to each of your senses. Spend about one minute on each sense, focusing on only one at a time. Hearing: Focus on external sounds. Are they cars going by, people talking? Next, focus on internal sounds. Can you hear your breathing or digestion? As you focus on hearing, did you notice anything you did not before? Smelling: What do you smell? Is there food near you? Or maybe flowers outside? You might notice smells you did not before. Try closing your eyes to sharpen your other senses. Seeing: What do you see? Can you see out a window? Take notice of details such as colors, patterns, shapes, and textures. Tasting: What do you taste? Notice anything you can taste in your mouth, maybe from a morning coffee or your lunch. Move your tongue around to engage your taste buds, checking for any additional tastes you encounter. Touching: Feel the sensation of your skin being touched. This can be from the carpet under your feet or legs, the clothes on your skin, or the air moving across your face.  Feel the chair you are sitting in. Meditation or prayer might seem like a silly practice, but scientific studies have been done that shows meditation improves positive emotions, satisfaction, health, and happiness. It also decreases anxiety, stress, and depression. There are many different types of mediation, but the goal of all mediation is about calming the mind.  Start in a comfortable seated position. Have a single point to focus on. This can be visual, such a fixed point in the room, auditory, such as a repeated single word or prayer, or physical, such as counting beads on a rosary. While you are focusing on the repeated task or stationary object, your mind will wander. When you notice your thoughts wandering, let the thought go and bring your concentration back to your focus point. This might sound easy, but focusing the mind is challenging. Do not be disappointed if you can only focus for a few minutes at first. Keep trying until you can spend hours releasing your thoughts and clearing your mind. Breathing is a natural response that we can control. Research shows that practicing breathing control has a positive impact on your stress response. The same stress response can be triggered when you feel the need to self-harm. Learning new skills might help you take control of your triggers. Try even breathing. This is a simple technique where you count to five while inhaling, hold for five counts, and take five counts to exhale. Focus on each part of your breathing. There are multiple kinds of relaxation techniques that you can use. Try an imagery exercise, where you create an imaginary safe place where you don’t want to self-harm. Create a picture in your mind. The image should be peaceful or remind you of a happy memory. It might be easier to have a picture of a safe place printed out and to focus on it instead of one in your mind. Progressive Muscle Relaxation is a type of coping skill that focuses on tensing and relaxing different muscle groups. One benefit of PMR is that it helps you become more aware of physical sensations in your body.  Start in a comfortable position that allows you to focus on different muscle groups. Most people find sitting or lying down the easiest to start. Next, focus on one group of muscles that you can tense and then relax. Tense these muscles for five seconds, squeezing just the muscle group you are working on at that moment. After five seconds, relax all of the muscles in that area and stay relaxed for 15 seconds. Then move on to the next muscle group. Repeat this multiple times a day if needed. Isolation of particular muscle groups can be difficult, but it gets easier with practice. Common areas include your face, hands and arms, stomach or middle section, and legs and feet. Wear loose fitting clothing so you are comfortable. Walking is a relaxing and diverting exercise. A mindful walk is even better because it is mindfulness in movement. To have a mindful walk, take notice of each step while you are walking. How do your feet feel on ground? In your shoes? Focus on your breath. Take notice of the environment. Take time to enjoy the environment around you. Benefits to a mindfulness walk include learning awareness in daily life and focusing your consciousness. Traditional, stationary mediation might be hard for some people, so mindful walking is a more active form of meditation. There are also the added health benefits of walking. Start a journal that describes each time you want to harm yourself. When you feel the urge to harm, write it down. Document when it happens and what happened before the urge arose. Writing it down will help identify patterns or feelings that lead to cutting. Also, journaling provides an outlet to share your feelings and process your thoughts. A coping skill box or kit is a container that you fill with supplies to help stop the urge to self-harm. Get a shoe box or small cardboard box and fill it with anything that you think will help you not want to cut yourself. This can be pictures of friends, family, or pets, a journal to write in, art supplies so you can make something artistic instead, inspiring quotes or lyrics that will make you feel better, a favorite CD, or any sort of object that will lift you spirits and take your mind off of cutting. Some people cut themselves because of too much anger, hate, frustration, or pain. If this is why you cut, try to find another outlet for your emotions.  If you are angry or frustrated, find a pillow to punch, go outside and yell, rip up some paper, or squeeze a stress ball. You can even take up kickboxing classes or take a self-defense course. Any activity that will help you release the emotions you typically express through cutting will help you avoid cutting in the future. Finding the right outlet can take time. Try a few until you find one that fits your emotions. Keep in mind that it may change from situation to situation.
جرب أسلوب الخمس حواس. مارس التأمل أو الصلاة. مارس تمارين التنفس. استخدم أساليب الاسترخاء والتهدئة. جرب الاعتماد على تمارين استرخاء العضلات التدريجي. جرب التمشية الذهنية. سجل المواقف التي تدفعك إلى الرغبة في إيذاء نفسك. اصنع لنفسك صندوقًا سحريًا للتكيف والمواجهة. ابحث لنفسك عن منافذ لتصريف الطاقة الداخلية بأسلوب صحي.