How I use YouTube to take care of my mental health

YouTube has a bit of everything you could want to consume in video form.

So it is understandable that your algorithem likely looks very different than mine. Many of my clients are surprised at the volume of resources that they have access to, if only they knew the right search terms.

I will share with you my go to YouTube videos and search terms that I use regularly to maintain my nervous system regulation.

I will first break this down into categories: nervous system maintenance and crisis interventions.

Nervous System Maintenance:

Yoga and Meditation. These are my go to YouTube videos for what I consider maintenance for my nervous system. Both are great ways to trigger parasympathetic states in the body, which will help the body and nervous system reach a place of calm relaxation.

To start, I like to think about what areas of discomfort I want to address and how much time I have to dedicate to a practice, then I search for that. My search might go something like: “yoga lower back pain 10 minutes,” or “meditation anxiety 5 minutes.”

To get you started, here are my recommendations:
Yoga With Adriene
Yoga With Kassandra
Fuck That Mediation

Nervous System Crisis Interventions:

For this category, I’m going to break it down into sub-categories.

Heightened Anxiety:
EFT tapping
Butterfly Hug

Post-traumatic event: For instances when a traumatic event has just occurred and you have moved to a place of safety, shaking the body is a biological instinct to discharge pent up energy after a traumatic event has passed. Intentional shaking is a useful intervention when the body might get stuck in its freeze state following the event:
Guided shaking video

Moving out of a freeze state:
Guided somatic exercises to exit functional freeze

None of these videos will be able to replace therapy, but it should be able to offer relief between sessions. If you find that you have a more extreme response arise following any of these videos, it is could be a sign that you will need more tailored support and should be working closely with a somatic therapist.