Taking Care of Your Mental Health

Coping Skills

Whether you’ve been dumped by your date or you’ve had a rough day at the office, having healthy coping skills can be key to getting through tough times. Coping skills help you tolerate, minimize, and deal with stressful situations in life. Managing your stress well can help you feel better physically and psychologically and it can impact your ability to perform your best. (Source: https://www.verywellmind.com/forty-healthy-coping-skills-4586742)

Problem-Based vs. Emotion-Based

When you’re feeling distressed, ask yourself, “Do I need to change my situation or do I need to find a way to better cope with the situation?” Then, you can decide which type of coping strategy will help you best proceed.

Problem-based coping is helpful when you need to change your situation, perhaps by removing a stressful thing from your life. For example, if you’re in an unhealthy relationship, your anxiety and sadness might be best resolved by ending the relationship (as opposed to soothing your emotions).

Emotion-based coping is helpful when you need to take care of your feelings when you either don’t want to change your situation or when circumstances are out of your control. For example, if you are grieving the loss of a loved one, it’d be important to take care of your feelings in a healthy way (since you can’t change the circumstance).

Healthy Emotion-Focused Coping Skills

Whether you’re feeling lonely, nervous, sad, or angry, emotion-focused coping skills can help you deal with your feelings in a healthy way. Healthy coping strategies may soothe you, temporarily distract you, or help you tolerate your distress.

Sometimes it’s helpful to face your emotions head-on. For example, feeling sad after the death of a loved one can help you honor your loss.

Other times, coping skills may help you change your mood. If you’ve had a bad day at work, playing with your kids or watching a funny movie might cheer you up. Or, if you’re angry about something someone said, a healthy coping strategy might help you calm down before you say something you might regret. Here are some examples of healthy emotion-focused coping skills:

• Clean the house (or a closet, drawer, or area)

• Color

• Cook a meal

• Do yoga

• Draw

• Drink tea

• Garden

• Give yourself a pep talk

• Go for a walk

• Engage in a hobby

• Exercise

• Listen to music

• List the things you feel grateful for

• Look at landscape photos that help you feel relaxed

• Look at pictures to remind you of the people, places, and things that bring joy

• Meditate

• Picture your “happy place”

• Play a game with your kids

• Play with a pet

• Practice breathing exercises

• Pray

• Put on lotion that smells good

• Read a book

• Reframe the way you are thinking about the problem

• Squeeze a stress ball

• Smile

• Spend time in nature

• Take a bath

• Take care of your body in a way that makes you feel good (paint your nails, do your hair, put on a face mask)

• Think of something funny

• Use a relaxation app

• Use aromatherapy

• Use progressive muscle relaxation

• Write in a journal

Healthy Problem-Focused Coping Skills

There are many ways you might decide to tackle a problem head-on and eliminate the source of your stress. In some cases, that may mean changing your behavior or creating a plan that helps you know what action you’re going to take.

In other situations, problem-focused coping may involve more drastic measures, like changing jobs or cutting someone out of your life. Here are some examples of healthy problem-focused coping skills:

• Ask for support from a friend or a professional.

• Create a to-do list.

• Engage in problem-solving.

• Establish healthy boundaries (tell your friend you aren’t going to spend time with her if she makes fun of you).

• Walk away (leave a situation that is causing you stress).

• Work on managing your time better (for example, turn off the alerts on your phone).

Unhealthy Coping Skills to Avoid

Just because a strategy helps you endure emotional pain, it doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Some coping skills could create bigger problems in your life. Here are some examples of unhealthy coping skills:

• Drinking alcohol or using drugs: Substances may temporarily numb your pain, but they won’t resolve your issues. Substances are likely to introduce new problems into your life. Alcohol, for example, is a depressant that can make you feel worse. Using substances also puts you at risk for developing a substance abuse problem and it may create legal issues, financial problems, and a variety of social issues.

• Overeating: Food is a common coping strategy. But, trying to “stuff your feelings” with food can lead to an unhealthy relationship with food—and weight issues. Sometimes people go to the other extreme and restrict their eating (because it makes them feel more in control) and clearly, that can be just as unhealthy.

• Sleeping too much: Whether you take a nap when you’re stressed out or you sleep late to avoid facing the day, sleeping offers a temporary escape from your problems. However, when you wake up, the problem will still be there.

• Venting to others: Talking about your problems so that you can gain support, develop a solution, or see a problem in a different way can be healthy. But studies show¹

•  repeatedly venting to people about how bad your situation is or how terrible you feel is more likely to keep you stuck in a place of pain.

• Overspending: While many people say they enjoy retail therapy as a way to feel better, shopping can become unhealthy. Owning too many possessions can add stress to your life. Also, spending more than you can afford will only backfire in the end and cause more stress.

• Avoiding things: Even “healthy” coping strategies can become unhealthy if you’re using them to avoid the problem. For example, if you are stressed about your financial situation, you might be tempted to spend time with friends or watch TV because that’s less anxiety-provoking than creating a budget. But if you never resolve your financial issues, your coping strategies are only masking the problem.

Proactive Coping

Coping skills are usually discussed as a reactive strategy—when you feel bad, you do something to cope. But, research shows that proactive coping strategies can be an effective way to manage the future obstacles you’re likely to face.

For example, if you have worked hard to lose weight, proactive coping strategies could help you maintain your weight after your weight loss program has ended. You might plan ahead for circumstances that might derail you—like the holiday season or dinner invitations from friends—to help you cope.

You also might plan ahead for how you’re going to cope with emotions that previously caused you to snack—like boredom or loneliness. And you might prepare a mantra that you’ll repeat to yourself when you’re tempted to give in to temptation.

Read more on coping skills here: https://www.verywellmind.com/forty-healthy-coping-skills-4586742#find-what-works-for-you