Coping Strategies

Below is a collection of fairly straightforward coping strategies that might be useful when you’re feeling anxious, sad, or stressed. Every strategy doesn’t automatically work for everyone, so don’t give up if it seems like they aren’t working, and keep trying other options. But also remember that it takes some time to teach your brain and body that any of these strategies are something that helps, so it won’t immediately be useful. Our best suggestion is to start using these strategies when you aren’t stressed, so that your brain and body know how to use these skills when you are stressed. Using these skills is just like perfecting any other skills (e.g. driving, baking, math) – it takes practice! 

If you have more questions about when or how to use these skills, or if you have other topics you'd like to discuss, please make an appointment to speak with us in the WHS Student Services office!

Deep Breathing

Breathe in deeply for 5 seconds, hold it for 5 seconds, then slowly breathe out for 5 seconds, and pause 5 seconds - then repeat! If you aren’t comfortable holding your breath for 5 seconds, you can also breathe in for 2, hold it for 2, breathe out for 2, and then pause for 2 - whatever works best for you. With this and most of these strategies you usually want to be sitting up straight with your feet on the ground and with your hands relaxed and in your lap or on your knees. 

Visualization

Picture a place that is relaxing or tied to a positive memory. It's important to pick a place that is safe to you. Sometimes people also imagine a place they would like to visit - this place can be real or fictional. When you’re visualizing this place it can be useful to go through the grounding strategy (below) to make it more concrete – going through what your senses would notice in this place is very helpful in doing that! 

Positive Self Talk

Use internal statements like, “Although this is hard for me, I will try my best,” “I can use my [deep breathing, grounding, etc.] if I feel stressed, I have skills to help” or “I’ve gotten through [something challenging you experienced] before and I’m still here, I’m going to get through this.” Make sure the statement is truthful – you need to believe it if it’s going to work! 

Counting Backwards

Sometimes we just need something to focus on other than the stressful or negative thoughts in our head. This lets us get some distance from that distress. Counting backwards can be a structured way to do this. For example, start at 300 and count backwards by 4's. You can use whatever numbers you want and go from there!

Finding Colors

To distract your brain from what is concerning you, look around the room and count/identify all the things that are a certain color. This works best if you do it when you’re deep breathing. If you’ve found everything that is blue but still feel nervous, then you move onto the next color, and keep going from there. 

Listing Favorites

You can write down a list of your favorite things. This allows you to focus on thinking about something other than what you are stressed or anxious about. 

Here are some options: songs, movies, books, animals, colors, people, places, activities, etc. 

Grounding

This is where you walk through your senses to center yourself. 

The more vivid your descriptions the better! It's best to do this skill when you are deep breathing. 

Being Creative

It can be useful to tap into our creative mind and allow ourselves to explore colors, textures, words, music, dancing, and drawing. These are different ways to express how we are feeling and thinking. There isn’t as much structure or rigidity to this strategy, but it encourages you to explore different ways to express yourself. Creativity is also a good way to simply distract yourself by pursuing an activity that you may like. 

Journaling

Set aside a fixed amount of time in a day (5-10 minutes is a good range) where you write down everything you’re worried or sad about and let yourself really focus on that. Then close it, use one of other skills on this page, and move on – try your best to let the worries and sad thoughts stay in the journal and focus on what you need and/or want to do instead.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Here you breathe and tense and relax your muscle groups one at a time (e.g., hands, wrists and forearms, biceps, shoulders, face, etc.). Breathe in, and tense the first muscle group (hard but not to the point of pain) for 4 to 10 seconds. Breathe out, and suddenly and completely relax the muscle group – do not relax it gradually. Relax for 10 to 20 seconds before you work on the next muscle group. Notice the difference between how the muscles feel when they are tense and how they feel when they are relaxed. When you are finished with all of the muscle groups, count backward from 5 to 1 to bring your focus back to the present.

Temperature

***use this when you are in a crisis - but don't use it if you have a serious heart condition, because it slows down your heart rate***

 Sit down, put an ice pack or cold washcloth on your face, bend over at the waist, and hold your breath for 10 seconds at a time. Make sure the ice pack is at least touching the cheekbones under your eyes. Do this for 30 seconds or more. This causes us to experience the "dive reflex" which is a survival response that causes our brain to naturally calm us down.

You can also do something as simple as hold onto something cold like an icepack or ice cubes wrapped in paper towel and focus on what it feels like - this can be a useful distraction.

Drinking Water

Drinking water allows our minds to focus on something other than the things that we are stressed out about and are hyper focused on. This also provides another sensation that grounds us in the present moment. Really focus on the temperature of the water and how it feels as you drink it. 

Movement

***use this when you are in a crisis - but don't use it if you have a serious heart condition, because it speeds up your heart rate***

If you’re really struggling, one of the best things to do is get up and move (if you can – this is not always an option in class, of course). Walking, going up and down some stairs, sit-ups, jumping jacks, push-ups – basically anything to get your heart rate up can be useful!