9 stupid-simple self regulation tools for parents (that don’t include deep breaths)

Laura Petix 0:00 The best way to then reclaim our brain’s resources and redirect them is to employ regulation strategies that directly addresses and alleviates those physical signs. So can we slow down the heart rate? Can we lower our body temperature or slow down our breath? Welcome to the sensory wise solutions podcast for parents, where parents can get real actionable strategies to support kids with sensory processing disorder. I’m Laura OT and mom to Liliana, a sensory sensitive kid who inherited my anxiety and my love for all things Disney. Consider me your new ot mom, bestie, I know my stuff, but I also know what it’s really like in the trenches of parenting a child with sensory processing disorder. Okay, mom, enough about me, let’s start the podcast. Hey. Hey everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. This episode is gonna be just a little different, because instead of focusing on regulation strategies for kids, I want to talk directly to you, grownups, parents, teachers, caregivers, our regulation matters too, and I would arguably say it matters More than the regulation of our kids, because their regulation would be non existent if we just dumped all of our internal stress out into the universe. I know you’ve probably heard it over and over again, put on your own oxygen mask before you put on your child’s but if you’re like me, sometimes you just need to hear something a million times and then on the millionth and one time is when you finally go, Oh, I get it. Trust me, I do this all the time with my therapist’s suggestions, like she has shared something with me from 2020 and has said it, like, subtly suggested it each time, and then, like, four years later, I was like, guess what? I tried. And she’s like, I’ve been telling you this forever. The problem is sometimes I don’t realize when to put on my oxygen mask until it’s too late. Then I’m usually focusing on my child’s regulation before myself, and it’s like fighting with fire. So today, I really want to give you some validation from a neuroscience perspective about why your body reacts this way. I promise there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not a monster. And then I want to share some really simple strategies to help yourself stay regulated throughout the day. And when I say really simple, I mean really simple, so simple that it almost feels too silly for me to point them out and even call them sensory strategies like they’re that obvious, but that’s the point. These are strategies that are not elaborate, but if you can redefine these as sensory and nervous system regulation strategies, maybe you’ll be more likely to utilize them proactively and remind yourself that you deserve and need to be doing some of these strategies more often. And guess what? None of the strategies I’m going to list today include deep breathing. I know, I know what a shock. I believe in the power of deep breathing, and I utilize that all the time, but I realize that some parents are not there yet, and when they hear take a deep breath, their eyes roll. So today’s episode does not include deep breathing, but I’m going to put in another plug for deep breathing, because it’s very helpful. Let’s start with understanding what dysregulation looks like for you. Maybe you feel more irritable, or your muscles are tense. Maybe it’s really hard for your brain to focus on words or a task with multiple steps for more than a couple of seconds. For me, I’m going to get very specific here, just so you can visualize what Laura the OT butterfly looks like when I am in dysregulated mode. It’s usually when I’m trying to multitask or when I’m trying to get something done to get back to what I want to do or what I need to do. For example, this happened a lot over summer, when I have to give Liliana a snack or make her lunch or make her breakfast, but my brain is already rushing to getting back to work or doing the thing that I need to do. So it’s like, feels inconvenient to have to do this task, right? So as I’m becoming dysregulated, my brain is thinking like, I need to be doing this. I need to be doing that. While I’m trying to make her a snack or cook something, my dysregulation starts to show. And it usually starts with, like, really. Loud or aggressive size that I don’t even realize I’m doing, but it’s usually like that, like, as I’m like doing, like, every everything in the kitchen, it’s or I will do this, like head scratching thing, where I like scratch my head, like it’s irritating, even though I’m not really itchy, but I’ll just scratch my head out of frustration or grunting, like as I’m opening something, it really sounds dramatic and it sounds like a cartoon character, but this is for real. This is what I look like when I’m dysregulated. I can also start, like, stumbling over my words or not really remembering what I was trying to say. I definitely start sweating or get hot flashes, especially when I’m really on edge. And so if you see me, if you happen to be in my house, in the kitchen, and you see me zipping back and forth between cabinets and the water is running and you see me with my hair up and my headphones on, do not even think about asking me a question, or I’m going to breathe hot fire dragon breath onto you. Okay, so I want you to take some time right now to reflect what is some things that you notice in your body when you start to get dysregulated, what kinds of outward behaviors signal dysregulation to others in your environment, aka, what things tip off your partner or your kids that you’re not in the best mood to be having a conversation right now, for example, when my husband hears that big, loud sigh, he knows I need help, and usually the quote help I need is not necessarily with the task, but like Just please be quiet. Please stay out of the kitchen. Please entertain Liliana so she’s not asking me any questions. It’s like, get rid of all this extra stuff. So I could do this task quickly and efficiently, but maybe for you, your outward sign is a change in the tone of your voice or that infamous eye twitch that says that you’ve had enough right now, I want to talk to you about the science of sympathetic nervous system activation. Here’s the sciency part, and I’m going to try to keep it simple, when your nervous system is stressed, whether it’s from sensory overload or a cognitively exhausting task or something emotional that’s going on in your life, or being hangry, because we never eat enough in our day. Right as parents, we are constantly grazing over leftovers, or we’ll skip and wait till the next meal. Whatever it is, your body goes into what we call protective mode. Your heart rate goes up, you breathe faster, your body temperature rises. It’s your body’s way of saying, Hey, we really have to take care of something here. It does not feel right. And when it does this, our brain can’t multitask. It can’t focus on keeping us safe and being productive and doing all the things. Instead, it starts rerouting the resources. It thinks, Okay, words aren’t really important right now. Neither is being able to count or pay attention to the time or recall random information. All of those resources in our brain need to be redirected to something more important right now. So it focuses on protecting our body, and sometimes that means turning on Fight or Flight Behavior, which is when you’re yelling, when you’re grunting, when you’re snapping, maybe you cry, maybe you scream, and that leaves you unable to properly answer questions, even to things that you know the answer to, like when your child asks, Hey, Mom, where’s my Barbies blue boots. And even if you know exactly where you saw it. You cannot recall that information in that moment. You can’t even form the words. And you’re responding with things like, oh, yeah, it’s in the in, in the room, in that cabinet, no, the drawer, in the second drawer next to the thing, it’s, ah, I don’t know, right now, can you go find it yourself and you just snap this sounds so particular, because maybe I just recently had that exact thing happen. I don’t know, but hopefully you know where I’m coming from. The best way to then reclaim our brains resources and redirect them is to employ regulation strategies that directly addresses and alleviates those physical signs. So can we slow down the heart rate? Can we lower our body temperature, or slow down our breath, just like it’s hitting a reset button on our nervous system? What are some things that we can do to help I bet that you might already be doing a lot of things that are actually serving a regulation purpose. I’m going to list a few here, and if you already do these, that is great, but now you’re going to know next time you search for these tools or strategies, or you’re starting to reach out for them, you’re going to give yourself a pat on the back for using a regulation tool. It is actually a sense. Three and a nervous system regulation tool. Maybe you’re going to hear something in this list, and it seems so simple that you’ve never even thought of trying it, and this encourages you to try it. Great. Give it a shot, and I can’t wait to hear how successful this is for you. The first thing on my list is gum chewing or mint or anything that you can chew on when you’re chewing gum or a mint, it provides your nervous system with calming, regulating, proprioceptive input. You can try different flavors. You can try different textures. When you are chewing on a texture that’s really crunchy or has a very intense minty sensation or flavor, it might make you feel more alert, more focused. I find myself reaching for mints and Minty gum when I’m driving or when I’m sitting through a webinar or a meeting next a portable fan or any kind of fan that you could have, whether it’s a handheld fan or electric fan, or just grabbing a piece of paper and fanning your your face off right. Cooling your body down is a great way to combat dysregulation, because remember, I mentioned earlier, when your nervous system is in distress, it can increase your body temperature. So if we can decrease our body temperature, it could send cues of safety to our nervous system system so that we can access more of those higher level skills that we need. A portable fan is honestly going to be your best friend in stressful moments or transitions. Sometimes I will also wet my hand and put some water on my arms and my the back of my neck, and then I put the fan directly on that and it really, really cools down my body. I also keep a fan like this in the kitchen with me, like not just an invite, not just like a ceiling fan or a tower fan, but like a handheld fan that could go really close up to my neck, and I can put anywhere on my body that I need. It sort of related to the portable fan, and it’s related to keeping your body cool, keeping your hair out of your face, can instantly reduce sensory overload. It’s one of those things that I honestly don’t even notice until I do it, and then I automatically feel so much better. I’m just not always thinking, Laura, put your hair up. Laura, put your hair up. The other day, I was so flustered trying to fix something happening on my computer, and I started huffing and puffing. And I was literally like, reaching into my scalp and like grabbing my hair, like trying to rip my hair out, and I just reached for this hair tie and put my hair up out of my face. And honestly, it felt like a huge difference. I was able to just reset and think about the situation that I was doing again, and then that reminded me that I needed to cool down and fan my face. So I took my cold water bottle, put it on my neck, and then put my fan on, while I started focusing again on the task that I was trying to fix. So keeping a claw clip or a headband or a hair tie near you at all times is very, very helpful. All right. The next one is hand wipes. This one may just be my personal sensory trigger, but I cannot stand sticky skin, sticky hands, sticky arms, sticky face, sticky neck. I need to get it off. I need it dry. I ironically, can deal with other kinds of tactile input, like I’m I’m more okay with the dirt or sand, like, if I’ll be digging in the sand, I stand up and kind of like dust my hands off, even though they’re a little dusty, I can deal with that for a longer time than I can tolerate wet, sticky textures. I can even do slimy or like fully wet textures better than I can do just sticky residue. So I’ve learned to keep wipes so that I can wipe down my arm or hands or neck, obviously, especially for the summer months. But you know, when you have kids and you’re holding their hand crossing the street, their hands are just always sticky. I don’t know why, but they’re just sticky, and I can’t stand that feeling, so I always have wipes, and then I will blow on my hands to keep to dry them down or shake them out for them to dry on their own. I honestly would rather profusely sweat than just have that like medium sticky sweat on your skin triggered. Okay, a few more suggestions here, drinking ice cold water through a straw. So not only is going to cool you down with the actual temperature decreasing, but it’s also giving you sensory input that activates your vagus nerve and provides proprioceptive input, which is very regulating. So use this as your sign, your justification to go by. Buy those really cute may be expensive, but those cute Stanley Cups, or whatever brand you’re into, with those cute straws, it’s in the name of sensory regulation. You can tell your partners, or whoever might be checking your your budget statements at the end of the month, you could say the OT butterfly told me to to buy this and that it’s for a sensory regulation tool. You have my permission, all right, sometimes keeping your hands busy with a subtle fidget like a bracelet or a scrunchie or even a keychain is just enough repetitive stimulation to keep you focusing on a task without it being distracting. So at my work desk, I have a lot of more of your typical fidgets that you would see, even in a classroom. I have like a squeeze fidget. I have like a pulley string fidget thing. I have like an open and closed kind of ball that I can, like my breathing ball, that I will sometimes fidget with when I’m thinking, you know, some people in their office, you’ve got that image of, like a corporate person throwing a tennis ball up against a wall as they’re trying to brainstorm for something in, like a project or something right? That’s fidgeting. It’s doing something repetitive with your hands that’s allowing you to stay stimulated enough to focus, but not quite distracting. But when I am, like in the car, or even if I’m at the store waiting or waiting for my daughter at pickup line, I will fidget with something that I just have on me that doesn’t necessarily look like a sensory tool. I’m fidgeting with my necklace or my bracelet or my hair tie on my wrist, or even my ring that I just flip over and over. Of course, you can buy whatever fidget you find appropriate. But I just wanted to call this out that fidgeting is completely within your self regulation toolbox, and there are so many ways to do it. Blocking bright lights is also one way to prevent sensory overload. So always carry sunglasses, of course. But I also started carrying a hat. I have one particular hat that fits my head perfectly where it doesn’t leave a dent if I wanted my hair to still look cute, and that can also fit nicely over a ponytail, because, you know, ever since I started learning about fluorescent lighting and how it has such an impact on nervous system regulation, especially if you happen to be already someone who’s hypersensitive to sensory input. I can’t unsee that, and now I notice how fluorescent lights are everywhere, obviously in the doctor’s office, but in target in the grocery stores, even in the library. So whenever I am in a place that has those obnoxious overhead bright fluorescent lighting, I find myself wanting to cover my eyes, and sometimes I don’t feel like being that person indoors with sunglasses, so I usually keep a baseball hat in my car to take with me whenever I need it, and then I just keep that in my purse or my backpack, especially if I’m working somewhere like I will work a lot at libraries or like coffee shops, but the bright lights can really take my focus away. Okay, a couple more earplugs or headphones. I mean, again, this is so simple, but just this is just giving you the explicit permission to use this. So reducing auditory input with noise reducing or noise canceling headphones or earplugs is great for noisy settings, or when the world is just feeling too loud for you. It’s not necessarily a noisy room, but something about that room is feeling just too much for you. Pop those headphones on or put those earplugs in. But one major mindset shift that I’ve made recently is fully accepting my use of these noise reducing tools, even when it doesn’t feel like I should need them, like there’s not necessarily a lot of volume, but I’ve just learned to be more compassionate and proactive about my use of These tools. So I use them a lot more often. And at first my husband started questioning it, and would just notice it and be like, oh, like you, you really need those right now, I I’ve never seen you use that, you know, at a party before or whatever. But now he realizes how much of a nicer human I am when I’m regulated and when I can control the sound as much as possible. Lastly, this one seems like a very simple one, but since I have noticed my use of this particular strategy, I recommend this a lot if it’s possible for you, wearing comfortable clothing and potentially bringing a change of clothes. So I don’t know if it’s just because that it’s summer, but I found myself changing my clothes at least once a day, if not twice, not because of a stain or because I’m excessively sweating. I mean, I work from home, and we. Have the air conditioner on, but typically towards the end of the day, I find myself noticing seams and garters that I didn’t notice earlier in the morning, right? If you wear a bra, you know what I’m talking about, you put them on in the morning and it’s fine. All of a sudden, it’s like, 5pm and you just can’t stand this thing on you for another second, and you, like, fling it off of your body across the room, right? It’s just like, it’s fine until it’s not. So I found myself changing just to get, like, a fresh shirt, even if the clothes I was wearing again wasn’t dirty, I wouldn’t necessarily put them in the hamper. I would just switch my outfit. And I immediately felt a sense of relief. So I started bringing my own change of clothes to Disneyland. Of course, with Disneyland, there’s more mess and sweat, so it makes more sense, but I would never bring myself a change of clothes to Disneyland before. I would only do that for my daughter, but I realized how much it really helps me just to have a fresh change of clothes or to change my bra. It’s it’s just a immediate regulation tool for me, at least, all right, so that was enough. I’m going to stop there. Of course, I could go on and on and on, but I hope that you heard something new to try or at least something that was validating for you, where you’re thinking like, Oh, I already do that. Didn’t know that my body knew what I needed this whole time. I just want you to know that your regulation is important. So here’s what I want you to do this week, identify your cues, spend a week observing and noting down moments of dysregulation and what strategies you are naturally gravitating toward. Then I want you to choose one or two new strategies from this list to try over the next week, or just at least try to proactively use them in your week and observe how they affect your mood and your focus. With all of that, then you’re going to assemble your own small kit with your favorite sensory items, like gum, hand wipes, earplugs, a portable fan to put in your car or at your desk or in the kitchen. And here is the last, but absolutely most important part of this whole thing to make it worth all of your effort. Aside from the regulation that you’re going to experience, you want to let your children see and hear you, utilizing these tools and strategies, you’re going to sportscast and narrate as you’re using them so that they can realize that everybody needs sensory regulation tools, even adults. All right. I hope this episode was helpful for you. Thank you everyone for being here. I will be back next week. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider rating it and leaving a review, which helps other parents find me as well. Want to learn more from me. I share tons more over on Instagram at the OT butterfly, see you next time you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai