distract, self soothe, and calming activities

first up we have the dbt skill distract, aka, wise mind ACCEPTS.
here is a page about the skill
and here are a few ways to use it:

• activities: take up a hobby, do something you enjoy, do something you need to do if you have the spoons, such as cleaning
• contributing: make your own coping skill blog, volunteer at a soup kitchen, etc
• compare: comparing to others may make you feel worse. "other people have it worse, so why am i complaining?" so compare to a time when you dealt with "worse" and survived
• emotions: create opposite emotions. if you're anxious, create a calming emotion by using calming strategies/activities (more on calming activities further on in this post) if you're sad, listen to happy music, if youre angry, watch a funny movie.
• push away: while you can't push away the feelings forever, promise yourself you'll deal with it when you have more spoons. then take a nap or use other ACCEPTS strategies or another skill, such as self soothe
• thoughts: think about a time when you were happy. think about your significant other. think about a dog. anything that distracts your mind, such as counting from 50 by twos, or to 100 by threes, counting sheep (hey, it's not just for falling asleep!!)
• sensations: use self soothe

next we have the DBT skill self soothe. 

here is a page about this skill

and here are some ways to use it:P

• vision: draw a picture, look at pictures of cats or dogs or whatever animal you like, watch tv (take care not to watch anything triggering, i know certain shows trigger me)
• hearing: listen to music, watch tv, sing, hum to yourself, listen to sounds here or here
• smell: bake cookies, go to a restaurant just to smell the food, or if food is triggering to you, light a candle or incense, chew gum, etc.
• taste: chew gum, drink water, eat cookies, chew ice, etc
• touch: cuddle a pet, human, or stuffed animal. touch something soft, create something with your hands.

and finally we have some calming activities

listen to jasmine thompson

or ed sheeran

or my playlist here

listen to sounds here 

or here