Somatic exercise is great for someone who’s body has forgotten how to actually relax the muscles to remind the body how to relax but I’m wondering what the equivalent technique is for the mind to remind the mind itself not to feel a certain way?
psych nurse here: somatic exercises are also for your mind. your mind is part of your body. the idea that they’re separate things or that the brain is “in charge of” the body as opposed to a neat accessory that can do helpful things for it is silly. That concept in and of itself causes a lot of psychological dysfunction that somatic therapies exist to rectify by reunifying the two.
I’m not sure if they’re what you’re looking for, but their are various little mental exercises you can do depending on what your trying to achieve.
Relaxing visualisations - if I’m trying to sleep and I’m too worked up about something to relax, I close my eyes and visualise a peaceful scene, e.g. being on a warm tropical beach, the heat of the sun lulling me to sleep, the gentle lapping of the ocean… It doesn’t always put me immediately to sleep, but it helps get my brain out of the problem-solving stress mode.
Sensory engagement - if I’m feeling anxious and getting stuck in a panicky loop, I try to engage my senses. Notice four things around you that you can see, three you can hear, two that you can smell, and a texture you can touch (a stone wall, your jacket’s fabric). This works well because when I’m stressed my brain doesn’t want to be told to “calm down”, it’s trying to warn me of danger. So instead of forcing some relaxation, I engage my senses, checking my surroundings, and generally there is no danger, just the hubub of normal life. This reminds my lizard brain that although being worried about missing a deadline is stressful, I’m not in immediate physical danger and should calm tf down.
Sense of perspective - when we are in an emergency our sense of time shrinks so we only focus on the immediate problem. As we relax, we become better able to consider the larger future. This is great in a crisis, but also leads to dumb overreactions. So, if something goes wrong, and in the grand scheme of things it’s actually not a big deal, but to me right now it feels like the worst, I use this technique. I visualise my surroundings and then begin zooming out, viewing my self from above, seing the room and then the building, the pulling out like a map tool, seeing the area, the country, the globe. I sometimes continue, visualising the solar system and the milky way. After that, it feels a lot easier to shrug and accept that whatever embaressment or frustration felt like it was going to ruin my day is, in fact, just not that important.
That sounds like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Also, meditation trains some of this.
I can second these and add
- yoga
- guided meditation videos
- breathing exercises
- long walks with a heavy pack
I’ll add to your last point, significant time in nature (hikes, sitting in a park, hell staring out a window at greenspace). I find many city folks don’t know how therapeutic this can be
That just seems like doing anything to improve the present state since the more you work your ability to improve the present state the less effort it should be later and so relaxing should be more easily done.
MDMA works that way for certain conditions like PTSD. It’s a bit like your brain has forgotten what „happy“ (or just „not depressed“) feels like. A substance induces that state and therapy helps to stabilise it.
Reminding yourself not to feel a certain way sounds wrong to me. You’re just masking something at that point. Your feelings are telling you something. That needs to be addressed, not suppressed.
