Having previously suffered from an addiction to self-harm, I thought it would be helpful to some of you that are still struggling from self-harm to make a list of alternatives to do besides harming yourself.
1. Draw
Draw on yourself, on paper, color, draw anything and everything even if it's scribbles. If it's some image in your head that you can't get away from, draw that. It's much more helpful than I ever thought it would be.
2. Put and ice cube on your arm/where you want to self-harm
This is one of the alternatives that I have found rather helpful during my own struggles with self-harm. I don't know specifically what it is about it that I found helpful, but it is what saved me from self-harming many different times. So this is a personal favorite of the alternatives I found helpful for myself.
3. Try tying a ribbon on your finger
A lot of times keeping yourself self-harm free means being distracted in some way when you are triggered. Sometimes the smallest challenges are the most helpful to you because you can just focus on something simple that's challenging. By the time you achieve it hopefully, your urge to self-harm will be gone.
4. Do puzzles
Puzzles are something I find helpful because even though your thoughts are still there, your hands and part of your mind is still occupied by something much healthier.
5. Read a book
Reading is an escape for me, to be able to get lost in a book is an amazing feeling. It's just some fantasy world, or not fantasy world depending on the type of book, but no matter what you can escape reality and go into a new world.
6. Exercise
Exercise is good for anger, if you are angry and that's why you want to hurt yourself, I found that exercise is a good way to cope. There were days where I literally got so tired that I would go until I was too tired to do anything else.
7. Take a shower/bath
Sometimes you just need to de-stress and relax, showers are helpful with self harm urges. I know some people who like really cold showers when they feel like this, and others who like hot showers. I personally prefer hot showers but whichever works for you, you should definitely try it sometime!
8. Stick glue on your hands and peel it off
This is something I did as a child, and I thought it was fun back then, but now I find it can be helpful if I need to occupy my mind and my hands, it's something similar to the puzzle for me. My hands are busy and my mind is focused on getting all the glue off my hands (or putting the puzzle together).
