Coping Skills

Coping skills (also called coping mechanisms or coping strategies) are different types of techniques and tools you can use to help handle difficult emotions/feelings, decrease stress, and establish or maintain a sense of internal order within yourself. These techniques and tools can be helpful to use when you’re feeling angry, anxious, sad, stressed, overwhelmed, or even when you're feeling well or calm, to help you stay stable.

Why are coping skills important?

Increases resilience
Help you learn how to properly handle your difficult emotions, decreases your stress levels, and other difficult situations.
When you effectively deal with a negative emotion/feeling or situation, you also are able to move on and let go of the negative/difficult emotions/feelings that are associated with the experience at hand.

Coping skills can be simple tactics you can use in the moment if you feel your emotions are too difficult. For example if you get really angry, if you’ve received bad news, or if you’re having an especially difficult day. Some tactics that can help might be:

Taking a walk
Counting to 10
Deep breathing
Mindfulness exercises
Grounding techniques
Making a to-do list of everything you are thinking about

Coping skills can also be more habitual practices that you build into your daily life to help keep you sane during life’s stressors. These might be things like:

Eating healthy
Getting exercise
Guided Meditations
Visualization exercises
Connecting with friends or family
Going to bed at a decent hour
Having regular down time to decompress
Limiting or avoiding caffeine

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