 Hello and welcome back. Today I am going to talk to you about self-soothe boxes. What are they? Who are they for? And how do you make your own? Okay, so what is a self-soothe box? A self-soothe box is a box full of things that you can use or someone you're supporting can use when you are feeling distressed in some way. So you might be feeling angry, anxious, some sort of difficult feeling and you need to kind of try and find a place of relative calm. Now your self-soothe box is full of things to help you try and self-soothe. It's really what it says on the tin. In terms of who they're for, absolutely anyone can benefit from having a self-soothe box. They work with all different ages, all different kinds of people. They can work with people who are experiencing significant emotional distress, perhaps as part of a underlying mental health condition. It can also be used with children with special needs who again might find that they're more distressed at certain times and need to find calm. But also they can just be something that you keep in the cupboard, ready for a time of distress, just to calm you, even if you're not facing significant issues. It can just be a nice thing to put together and a nice way to find calm. Self-soothe boxes can also be great for people who are trying to overcome self-harm. So people who are trying to break that cycle of self-harm can find a self-soothe box to be a really, really useful thing. Now, what you can do in those instances, if you're trying to stop self-harming, is to create a self-soothe box and to try and make that your go-to, rather than whatever your usual method of self-harm is. And then you're able to make a choice. So some people would even choose to keep whatever it is that they normally harm themselves with in the self-soothe box, so that at a time of distress, you would need to go to your self-soothe box in order to retrieve your implement to harm yourself. And at that time, then maybe you will be able to choose a healthier way of coping instead. It won't work every time, but it can be a really helpful kind of stepping stone as you're trying to work towards stopping self-harming. The other thing is that the time it takes to kind of locate your self-soothe box and get it out can also help your sort of distress just to taper slightly and again might put you into a slightly better frame of mind for making healthy choices. It's really difficult to make those healthy choices when we're at the peak of our emotional distress. So making however we normally harm ourselves slightly less accessible and alongside other choices can be really helpful. So how do you make one? Well, this is completely up to you. You can go out and buy a box that you find to be appealing and attractive or you can decorate your own. So an example is this one that my friend Alice made for me when I was going through a difficult time and she filled it full of things to help me self-soothe. And in terms of what you should put in the box, again, it's totally up to you. But I would start by thinking about times in the last week, in the last month, when you have felt relatively calm and have a think about what you were doing in those times and then think about whether you can either put those kinds of things in the box or whether you can put something to prompt you to do those kinds of things. So a great starting point can be your five senses. So you might think of a time when you tasted, smelled, or heard something that helped you to feel calmer. Now, I've put a few things in my box today to give you some ideas, but it's absolutely up to you. And the other thing with this is that you should keep revisiting it. So think about what you found helpful in your box and maybe what hasn't proved to helpful and try and update the contents to reflect that. So what have I got in my box? Okay, start with a box of tissues or a packet of tissues. That's because sometimes we're feeling distressed and actually what we need is to sit with that feeling for a little while. So this is to remind me that it's okay to cry. I need reminding of that sometimes. Next thing I have is something which stimulates my sense of taste. So I sometimes find that tasting something that's quite a strong flavor can give me something to focus on. And sometimes if I'm feeling distressed, then I find something like a boiled sweet to be really helpful because I can try and sit with my feelings for the length of time it takes for that sweet to dissolve in my mouth. And often I find that the time that that takes will mean that that distress has tapered off significantly. Remember, when you're feeling highly anxious or highly angry or any of those other difficult emotions that actually it's really hard for your body to maintain that physically for a long period. And if you can find a way to distract yourself, then you'll find that that feeling will taper off. The next thing I have in here is some headphones. This is to remind me to listen to music because again, I find music can be really, really good at changing my mood. So on my phone, I've got playlists set up to help me feel calm when I'm feeling anxious. And so this prompts me to listen to my music. Next, a good book. So I love poetry and I can find poetry can really kind of get me thinking. So I have that in here, but you might find a book that you find comforting, something you might get lost in or maybe a book that you enjoyed from childhood can be helpful here too. Again, going with stimulating the senses, I quite often will put hand cream in. I find something that smells really nice and feels really soft on my skin can really help to kind of distract me and help me to calm. So for me, hand cream works really well. I've got quite a lot of different flavours and yeah, that might be something that you'd find helpful too. Whilst we're nearly getting to the bottom. Colouring. So for me, colouring is something that I find incredibly helpful and it's true for others too, but something to prompt you to colour or to draw or to write might be helpful. And again, these can be great distraction activities. And then finally, I also keep in my box some letters and notes, some of which I've written to myself when I'm feeling happier and calmer, to remind myself that I can feel differently to how I feel right now. And others have been written to me by other people and they remind me that I'm not alone. As for what goes into your box, it's completely up to you. Absolutely anything can go in there. So you might want to put nail varnish in there, something to paint your nails with. You might want to put something in there to prompt you to take a shower or a bath. And again, using something that is quite a strong flavour can be really helpful here. So I love mint, but you might have other favourite flavours that you would put in there. Absolutely anything can go in there. But think about it at a time of relative calm. Have a good old brainstorm, fill your box, and then remember to try and go there first at a time of crisis. Now, if you're supporting someone who's struggling with difficult feelings and you want to help them, you could help them to put together a box or you can just give them the idea of doing it. And think about somewhere useful that you can keep it. So again, it might be that you're working in a school setting, for example, and you might keep that box somewhere where they can access it. So it might be that they keep it in a locker or something like that or it might be that there's a place that they're able to go to that's calm and safe and supervised and that in that place they can access their self-soothe box if they wish to. Hopefully that gives you some ideas. I'd love to hear what you keep in your box. So leave a comment down below if you've got any ideas to add. And good luck. Happy self-soothe box making and happy self-soothing. Okay, see you again next time. Bye.