A support group and structured set of resources for people who are struggling to afford or otherwise access professional mental health therapies.
This whole thing is a work in progress, appreciate your patience!
Wiki Pages for: TIPP | Sensory Self-Soothe
Pictured is actually me with my self-soothing cup of herbal tea. It's specifically this one if you're curious.
Why does tea have a calming effect. I have rediscovered it in my 30s as a tradesman and it’s great, I have cold brewed tea in summer and tea at night and I like it a lot. Don’t ask me why.
So one of the things that's super relevant to the self-soothe skill is pavlovian / classical conditioning. Basically your body gets used to drinking tea when you're calm, so if you occasionally drink it when you're not calm your body will be like "wait we're doing the thing we do when we're calm though? I'm probably supposed to be calm then."
It could also have an ingredient that's mildly sedating or if you have ADHD it's caffeinated sometimes it can help you focus, which can reduce agitation. Some people will even say caffeine helps them sleep and while it can help you focus on falling asleep it will still reduce overall sleep quality (there's other, better ADHD meds that can be used around bedtime for that reason).
So there are other reasons it might be helping you, but classical pavlovian conditioning is a common mechanism and a lot of behavioral therapies include teaching on how to exploit for your own benefit. I'm super excited to talk about this because spreading info on these specific sort of topics is exactly why I made this community!
Absolutely thanks for getting the ball rolling, I thought I was adhd for a long time but couldn’t get diagnosed, Pavlovian makes the most sense. I had it as a kid cause that’s all we had to drink kinda. Definitly helps me fall asleep though. Strange.
Is your brain wired in such a way that it appreciates stimulants?
Most likely, but I usually have a herbal tea too to avoid the caffeine in black tea. But I suppose all tea could be considered a stimulant. I had one psychiatrist believe adhd isn’t overly present but ocpd is.
And waitaminit arnt all brains wired that way? Lol
Oh and here's my weeks' mood log:
🟨🟩🟨🟥🟥⬜🟨
Those last couple worknights suuucked and I'm really trying to double down on my PLEASE and self-soothe this week (good timing!)