Self-Care in Difficult Times
By: Polina Eidelman, Ph.D.
Lately, I have been particularly interested in how we respond to distress and the role our physical experiences of emotion play in difficult moments. I feel very lucky to get to work with patients who are very thoughtful, analytical, and intelligent. They tend to enjoy thinking deeply about many different things, including their experience of the world and their experience of distress. As you might imagine, this ability to engage intellectually with difficult experience can be a tremendous strength. At the same time, a person who tends to lean on analysis and cognitive strength in times of stress might actually miss a big part of the picture. They might put a lot of attention toward their thoughts, talk back to themselves, and try to fix/problem-solve the situation. Each of these strategies might be helpful or unhelpful, depending on the particulars of the situation, but in any case, the emotional and physical distress the person is experiencing goes ignored and unaddressed.
Isn’t it interesting how we do this? Because we have access to high level cognitive functions, we can disconnect from our bodies in a very deep way. Many scientists, including Dr. Marsha Linehan (who developed Dialectical Behavior Therapy) and Dr. Kristen Neff (a pioneer in self-compassion research), among others, have done a great deal of research, thinking, and treatment development around this topic. I have found their work to be very helpful in guiding some of my clinical thinking. This means I often work with patients to help them learn to pay attention to how they are caring for their physical selves – Are they drinking enough water? Exercising? Making space in their day to wind down? These might seem like very simple questions, but their simplicity is one of the big reasons they often don’t get asked. We move quickly to analysis mode and we skip over attending to our basic physical needs.
I also often work with patients to find a way that is individual to them for physically self-soothing and comforting themselves in times of distress. For some, this means engaging in a high energy activity like a run; for others, this means finding a gesture that they can use as a signal of comfort to themselves, such as putting their hands on their heart or rubbing their upper arms with the opposite hands; and for others, this means looking for pleasurable sensations they can access in times of distress, like a nice scented candle or a particular tea they can drink while noticing the effect tapping into these senses has on their emotional and physical experience.
In each case, the ability and willingness to pay attention to our physical experience and ask the question “what do I need to help soothe myself?” can be a very useful skill. As I continue to think and learn about the mind-body connection, I hope to build up a menu of intervention options that might help even the most intellectually inclined of us feel able and willing to connect to how our bodies feel and what we need in times of struggle.