World Suicide Prevention Day: 12 Ways to Cope with Suicidal Thoughts

Ask for Support

Reach out to a friend, a family member, an acquaintance or a crisis line. It can be hard to remain objective when your brain is giving you the same message over and over and having someone to talk to can make a huge difference.

Jumpstart your Body with Cold Water

Grab an ice cube and hold it in your hand, splash cold water on your face, jump in a cold shower or stand in cold weather outside. Dramatically changing your temperature can sometimes jump-start your body into new thoughts and feelings.

Prioritize Safety

Get rid of things around you that can harm you. If there is anything near you or easily accessible to you that you’ve thought of harming yourself with, share this with someone and have them put these items somewhere safe.

Ground Yourself

Lie or sit on the floor and practice feeling the ground underneath you. You can try pressing your feet into the floor or getting in touch with your senses by noticing what you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste. If you have a weighted blanket, try crawling under it or asking a loved one for a big bear hug. When these thoughts are swirling around your head, it’s easy to lose track of the present moment. Taking some time to ground yourself can help you make clearer decisions.

Breathe

Similar to grounding, try making your breaths long and deep. Try using our digital tool, Breathe, which was co-created with other youth to help you practice a type of breathing strategy called box breathing.

You can practice any of the above strategies as many times as you need. We know that our coping mechanisms don’t make things immediately better, but making things a little better bit by bit can make a big difference.

Meditate

Meditation that feels comforting and supportive for you can not only make the time pass, but can also change your mood. This meditation on Spotify by author Sarah Blondin is one of my favourites for hard moments: Look and It Shall Lift. Sometimes a meditation that guides you through a body scan can ground you as well.

Move

Getting up to go for a walk or run, practicing jumping jacks, stretching on a yoga mat or engaging in other favourite forms of physical activity can push your energy in a new direction and bring about endorphins – our feel-good chemicals.

Challenge Your Thoughts

What would you say to a friend who was experiencing these thoughts and feelings? Practicing switching our thinking to be kinder to ourselves can challenge the suicidal thoughts that arise. Challenging our thinking can help to create more balanced thoughts that take into account facts and other perspectives to improve our decision-making.

Make a Plan

Writing down your plan for what you’ll do the rest of the day can help you have something to look forward to or reduce the decisions you have to make. Try to make the plan in whatever time increments you need – whether it’s every 5 minutes, 30 minutes or larger chunks of the day. You can use your Safety Plan on the Be Safe App to guide you through your emergency supports, strategies for staying safe, and more.

Why should you stay safe?

When we experience a powerful urge to harm ourselves, we’re often in crisis mode and relying on the part of our brain that acts impulsively. This part of our brain triggers our fight/flight/freeze response as a way to combat, escape, or end threats in front of us. When the threat is our own distressing thoughts and emotions, we act in ways that aren’t in our best interest or can feel there’s no other way out. However, if we can re-engage our brain and access the higher thinking areas, we’re more likely to make choices that prioritize our safety and well-being.

Suicide Prevention Resources

These suicide prevention tips are designed to help you develop a plan for staying safe but are not a complete guide or a replacement for professional mental health support. We encourage you to find support as you shouldn’t have to go through this alone.
This World Suicide Prevention Day, you can find a lot of resources to help you cope or learn more about suicide:

• 988.ca
• The Canada Association for Suicide Prevention
• The Centre for Suicide Prevention Website
• Wise Practices is a project focused specifically on life promotion for Indigenous Youth
• If you’d like to expand your knowledge even more, courses are offered that can give you tangible skills to support someone in a mental health crisis. One course to start with is called SafeTalk.

Download the Be Safe App

The Be Safe App is free to download, confidential to your own device and available to use without the internet. The app can help you find mental health crisis resources in your area, make a plan to stay safe and find information on your rights when reaching out for support.