Self Harm Alternatives: 5 therapist-approved coping skills for teenagers

⚠️ Content Warning: This video contains content related to Self Harm. Please take the appropriate steps to protect your mental health + expectations.

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this is what you need to know about these 5 therapist-approved coping skills for teenagers as self harm alternatives:

1. Let's Get Physical! 🏋️‍♀️

Getting physical is really awesome because oftentimes when we are struggling with an urge to self harm, or we've already engaged in a self harm behavior, it's because our physical responses to our emotional or perceptive experiences are kind of going a little haywirey and out of control.

We've got to discharge all those physical responses and energy in a healthier way.

🤸‍♀️ You can get physical by moving your body through exercise, dancing, stretching, or walking around.

🧘‍♀️ You can also engage your physical sensations using self-soothing strategies (focusing on one or more of your five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, or physical touch).

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2. Change Your Environment 🏚

Our environment gives us behavioral or reminder cues of what's to come next. It's one of the reasons why they say that if you want to get into working out when you first wake up to put your gym bag and gym clothes right next to your bed.

It's right there, it's easy to use. And then you can remember like, "Oh yeah, I wanted to do that."

Planning out your environment in a way that will limit or eliminate your access to any of the tools that you usually use for self-harm, or reminders that could trigger self-harm urges or behaviors will make a huge, huge difference.

One of the easiest ways that you can do that is to actually hand them over to a trusted person, like a family member.

I know that feels a little unsettling because if you don't have your tools, what will you do when you get that urge? I hope you use one of these coping skills instead.

So just changing your environment or your access to some of these reminders or tools is not going to necessarily make the urge go away but it could help limit or eliminate your acting on that urge.

When you can sit and move through the discomfort, and not have to do anything, this can reinforce the idea that the intensity of your response will change on its own over time. It's really cool.

Another way that you can change up your environment is you can also incorporate different coping skills or strategies around your room. That way if you need any strategies or tools for healthier coping strategies, you'll have them handy nearby.

3. Buddy Up 👯‍♂️

Having a friend, whether they are an accountability partner or just somebody who is there to vent to for additional support and encouragement can be really useful and helpful.

It's one of the reasons why I love running my Teen Growth Therapy Groups because when you know that you are not alone and other people are in the struggle with you, it can be really motivating and encouraging.

When I was just graduated from grad school, I did a program called "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction". Prior to that, I had a really difficult time trying to meditate. I just couldn't sit still, my mind would go bonkers, I totally thought that I was doing it wrong.

Being in that group setting, with other people who were going through learning about this and using it for themselves totally changed and shifted my experience and perspective with this.

Engaging in some sort of group therapy or another social group can be really encouraging and helpful for you, too.

4. Keep Talking 🗣

It's really, really easy to feel really discouraged and demotivated, (and maybe even ashamed) when we are trying healthier alternatives to self-harm if we slip up along the way.

This isn't meant to be an excuse or a reason to self-harm, but if you happen to have a slip-up, I want you to keep talking to others for that additional support.

The more that you can talk about it and get helpful support and feedback, the better your journey will be because you'll start to realize that you have it in you already.

You may just need some habit building, and maybe some encouragement and support from others.

And you're not going to get that without talking about it with other people.

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5. Time Out ⏱

And if all else fails, one of the best things that you can do is to actually just take a time out.

So remember when you were like a young child and you'd get in trouble, or you were having kind of like an emotional outburst or something? It's really common for a parent, a caregiver, a teacher, somebody like that to put that kid into a time out.

Time-outs can help the emotion or the outburst move through the person in a safe environment where they're not going to inflict more harm or danger on themselves or others.

And then once they are settled, they can come back and either problem-solve or resume whatever activity they were doing and just keep it moving.

So taking a time out like that for yourself whenever you're experiencing an urge to self-harm, can help you hang in there while that feeling decreases on its own.

You can literally set a timer and say, "Okay, I'm having this urge. I really want to act on it right now, but I'm going to set this timer and I'm going to do this other activity." Or, "I'm going to sit here. Maybe I'll take a nap."

After that timer goes off, if you still want to self-harm then maybe it's time to consider another coping strategy, or just see if it shifted or changed a little bit.

When you can get into the habit of delaying acting on the urge, you're going to build up those other coping skills and healthy alternatives that can work just as useful as self-harm can for that relief.

It does take a little more effort to retrain your brain to structure it that way. But once you do it should get easier the more and more that you do this.

If you're looking for even more helpful self harm alternatives, that aren't necessarily a distraction you can check out the videos in this playlist Guided Self Help for Self-Harming Teens:

→ Click here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiLAumV7icFGTOtTc5eCM8QfPr17rN5S-

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