What is Help Now and How to Practice It
Help Now Overview:
Help Now: is a skill you can use when you feel overwhelmed. When you are faced with a lot of challenges, it can be hard to stay in your resilient or “OK” zone.
Usually when you are bumped out of your zone you can use the other skills to get back into your zone. Sometimes you may get so overwhelmed that the other skills don’t work well enough and you get stuck outside of your zone.
When you get stuck outside of your zone, you can use Help Now! to move you back into your resilient or “OK” zone.
The Help Now! skill is made up of many different strategies. The skills in “Help Now!” focus on your body instead of your thoughts. As your body relaxes, you can keep using the skill or switch to one of the other resilience skills.
Help Now Strategies:
Pay attention to how your body feels before and after using them to see what might work best for you. You may need to try more than one.
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- DO SOMETHING PHYSICAL: Try stretching the muscles in your neck, shoulders, arms, back, chest, or legs. You can also go for a 5 minute walk, do 20 push-ups against a wall, or jump up and down 10 times.
- COOL DOWN: Try drinking a glass of ice cold water. Or you can run your hands under cold water for 20 seconds.
- USE YOUR SENSES: Find 6 different colored items in the room, find items around you that have different textures and pay attention to how they feel, or focus on sounds that are around you.
- COUNTDOWN: Slowly count backwards from the number 20.
Help Now Practice:
Help Now is a skill you can use when you feel overwhelmed and can’t get back into your resilient or “OK” zone.
This skill is made up of many different strategies. The skills in Help Now! focus on your body instead of your thoughts. As your body relaxes, you can keep using this skill or switch to one of the other resilience skills. Try out some of these Help Now! skills for yourself. Pay attention to how your body feels before, during, and after using each skills. Some of these may work better for you than others. Try them out at different times to see which you like best. Put a check mark beside the skills that work best for you.
Once you find the skills that work best for you, practice them throughout the day so you can use them more easily when you are bumped out of your resilient or “OK” zone.
Stretch Out Your Muscles:
Do each of these slowly and pay attention to how your muscles feel when you stretch them.
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- Stretch out your neck: Slowly bend your neck forward, then over toward one shoulder, and then over to the other.
- Stretch out your arms and shoulders: Take one arm straight across the front of you and hold it with the other arm. Repeat on the other side.
- Stretch out your chest: Clasp your hands together behind your back and push your chest forward.
- Stretch out your legs: Bend over and touch your toes.
Go for a 5-minute walk:
Pay attention to how your feet feel when they make contact with the ground.
Do 20 push-ups against a wall:
Pay attention to how the muscles in your arms feel when you push against the wall.
Jump up and down 10 times:
Notice how your heart rate and breathing changes. Pay attention to how your legs and feet feel.
Drink a cold cup of water:
Pay attention to how the cold water feels in your mouth. Is there a difference if you take small sips or long, big swallows?
Run your hand under cold water for 20 seconds:
Pay attention to the flow of the water over your hands and between your fingers. Pay attention to the temperature of the water.
Find 6 different colors in the room:
Go through the colors in the rainbow and find something that is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Pay attention to the details of each of the items.
Slowly count backwards from the number 20:
Take deep breaths and slowly count backwards from 20 to 1.
Other downloads
| Name | Description | Type | File |
|---|---|---|---|
| What is Help Now? | Help Now is a skill you can use when you feel overwhelmed. When you are faced with a lot of challenges, it can be hard to stay in your resilient or “OK” zone. | Download file: What is Help Now? | |
| Practicing Help Now | This skill is made up of many different strategies. The skills in Help Now! focus on your body instead of your thoughts. | Download file: Practicing Help Now |
This information was developed by the Autism Services, Education, Resources, and Training Collaborative (ASERT). For more information, please contact ASERT at 877-231-4244 or info@PAautism.org. ASERT is funded by the Bureau of Supports for Autism and Special Populations, PA Department of Human Services.