Self Soothing: Tending to the Nervous System when Emotions Run High
My journey with this work really started with me passionately seeking tools to help me feel better within, as I navigated the internal effects of complex trauma and the challenges of living in a sensitive body. Amongst many other supportive concepts, I learned about “Self Soothing”.
In simple terms, Self Soothing is the process of noticing your emotional or physiological state—and intentionally doing something to support, comfort, or stabilize yourself. It’s about being attuned to your own needs, especially in moments of stress, overwhelm, fear, or sadness—and responding to those needs with care.
We tend to need self-soothing most when our nervous system is activated—when we're feeling anxious, overwhelmed, afraid, shut down, or emotionally tender. And sometimes, we also need it in the quieter, subtler moments of stress—such as navigating the day-to-day micro-triggers: a hard conversation, traffic, too many tasks, or just feeling emotionally off-center.
When we don’t have tools for self-soothing, we often fall into coping patterns that numb us or disconnect us from ourselves—like scrolling, overeating, lashing out, or shutting down.
But when we build this capacity to tend to the self—when we know how to meet our own needs—it becomes a radical act of self-trust. We begin to affirm that we can support ourselves in real-time, allowing us to move through life with more ease, more resilience, and more self compassion.
In somatic work, we sometimes call this self-regulation or nervous system regulation—but I prefer the term attunement because it feels softer, more relational. It’s the idea of tuning in, like you would with a child or a friend, asking: "What do you need right now?", and giving that to yourself.