Dr. Kristin Neff teaches two practices for anxiety: supportive touch like hands on your heart, and kind language that acknowledges difficulty, normalizes struggle, and offers comfort. Twenty seconds daily of touch plus kind words significantly boosts self-compassion by calming your nervous system.
Questions this video answers
About 20 seconds per day (supportive touch plus a few words of kindness).
No — the speaker states research shows the body reacts the same whether someone else touches you or you touch yourself.
Chapters
So I'm going to give you two little things which are intertwined. One, just to say that physical touch should not be underestimated as a vehicle for self compassion because it works with the physiology. So one study found that just 20 seconds per day of some supportive physical touch plus a few words of kindness can actually significantly increase your self compassion physical touch actually, because you're activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Again, research shows it doesn't really matter if someone puts their hand on your shoulder or you put your hand on your own body, the body reacts the same way. Finding some sort of touch that feels soothing and supportive. Some people, it's hands on heart. For some people it's cradling their face. Maybe a self hug, maybe just holding your own hand. Some people, they may need to feel a little more empowered. So maybe like a fist of strength with the hand over, over it like this, there's some sort of physical touch is a really good way to, it actually helps stabilize you in terms of your, your, your nervous system reactivity. And especially if you envision the touch as an act of care, like you can imagine that care and warmth is streaming through your hands to your body. So you're literally holding yourself in the midst of your distress. So you're literally holding yourself in the midst of your distress. So that's the physical touch. And then we also, you know, and that can be enough in and of itself. But it also helps to bring in some language and I recommend language that evokes the three components of self compassion. So mindful language, for instance, you know, just acknowledging, wow, this is really hard. The moment you say this is really hard. A, you aren't ignoring it, but you aren't identified with it either. Instead it's, it's almost like you, from one moment you're like, oh my God, the world's on fire. And then when you say this is really hard, it's like, oh, wow, you think the world's on fire. There's a little bit of perspective. So kind of acknowledging it, I'm seeing clearly. Okay, this is hard. I'm feeling fear, I'm feeling anxiety. Remember normalizing it. This is part of life, it's part of being human. You know, I'm not the only one who has anxiety. You know, millions, billions of people have anxiety. All human beings, even an amoeba, will move away from a toxin in a petri dish. It's like, it's part of being a living organism. Anxiety and fear and the desire to move away from toxins or, you know, things that we think are potentially threatening. Completely natural. So I'm not alone. It's part of being human or part of being a living organism, if that works better for you, you know, so you. It's just, you know, our minds tend to feel as if everyone else in the world is living a normal, perfect, problem free life and it's just me who's wrapped with anxiety. And that's. It's not an accurate perception. So just honoring that common humanity in whatever way works for you. And then there's the words of kindness. And if you don't know what, what words you need to hear, you can imagine, well, what if I had a good friend? What would I say to a good friend who was feeling a lot of anxiety and fear right now? You know, you probably aren't going to say, just shut up, stop complaining. You know, hopefully not. If you have a good friend, it's on a good day. Right? But you might, you might hold your friend's hand. I'm here for you. You know, let's just take this one day at a time. I mean, you know, it's going to be okay. By the way, when I say it's going to be okay, it doesn't mean like going to be able to control what's happening. It's going to be okay in the sense of. Because our al. What happens is ultimately what makes it okay is, is less what's happening and more. The safety of okay is found in our ability to be present with ourselves with an open heart. The okay is the open heart itself, you know, so we find our okay. Even the midst. Even in the midst of the not okay. Right. You know, I'm not okay, you're not okay. And that's okay. That's where the okay is. Right. So some, some words of. Yeah, just validation, warmth, support, what, whatever. And again, people are so different. Really. Finding the language that feels authentic for you is going to be key.
