Growing Healthy Coping Skills
What’s Up with Coping?
When I was in school, I always thought it was such a bore for a professor to lecture from the textbook. I’d think, “I *have* the textbook. I can read. Teach me something I can’t learn on my own. Make it worth my coming to class.”
That mindset bled over to my therapy practice in some ways. I’m likely to suggest books to clients or tell them specifically what to Google so they can research and learn on their own.
It took me a number of years to realize that while this approach works great for some people, others will never read or research outside of session. (Shocker…not everyone is like me!)
Coping skills is one such topic where my bias to “not teach you anything in therapy that you can Google on your own” has shown up.
I admit that I have spent too much of my sixteen years as a therapist dismissing the importance of coping skills. “Oh, you want to work on coping skills? Cool. Google it.” -Me. (I’m sorry for being such a questionable human at times. I roll my eyes at myself sometimes, too.)
You know what’s awesome?
Having a bank of healthy coping skills to draw from when life gets tough. (Or on a random Tuesday.)
You know what I should have been helping people with for all these years as we tackled the hardest topics in their lives?
Having awesome coping skills to process outside of session what’s coming up inside of session.
Effective therapy depends on two things: the quality of the connection between client and therapist, and the client's ability to emotionally regulate his/her nervous system both inside and outside of session.
Therapy is HARD WORK. You’re likely to be overwhelmed from time to time due to the nature of the work.
Also, we’re all likely to get overwhelmed just by general life stuff from time to time! So having a good bank of coping skills is essential to gaining and maintaining excellent mental, emotional and relational health.
If you don’t intentionally cultivate healthy coping skills, you’re bound to use some unhealthy ones. They may feel “harmless” to you, but everyone in your house is affected by everyone else’s ability to cope well with life, whether you recognize it or not.
So let’s finally talk about it.
What are coping skills? Why are they important? What’s the difference between coping, escaping and numbing? I’ll give you a list of my favorite coping skills. And we’ll talk about how to put them into practice.
What are coping skills?
Coping skills are activities you can engage in that help reduce your stress load and help you feel more grounded and present.
Why are they important?
Healthy coping skills keep you from doing something dysfunctional like engaging in numbing or escaping behaviors. Coping skills keep you from denying the stressor, shoving down overwhelming emotions, or otherwise engaging in defense mechanisms.
What’s the difference between healthy coping skills vs. unhealthy ones?
Healthy coping skills are a means of decompressing in a healthy way.
Unhealthy coping skills often fall into one of two categories: escaping or numbing.
Escaping involves leaving your negative experience either psychologically, emotionally, or physically.
Numbing is a means of turning down the volume of your discomfort through a means that suppresses your physiological response.
Escaping or numbing can look like leaving when you’re in a conflict with someone, staying out late, disassociating, avoiding, shutting down.
Sometimes, the only difference between coping and escaping/numbing is the motive behind the behavior.
You already are engaging in behavior to cope with your life. It’s just a matter of if you’re engaging in healthy behaviors or unhealthy ones.
Important note: It’s not always the behavior, it’s the motive that makes it an unhealthy coping behavior.
Examples of unhealthy coping behaviors people engage in can look like:
Mindlessly scrolling on social media
Overdrinking
Drug use
Pornography
Excessive gaming
Sexually acting out (affairs, cyber sex, massage parlors, etc.)
Binging TV shows
Codependency/Emotional addiction
Overeating
Gambling
Overspending
Excessive sleeping
Overworking
Chronic business
Anything that helps you numb, escape, avoid, or be otherwise mindless
Here is a list of my favorite coping skills:
Healthy sleep
Exercise
Prayer/Bible reading
Going on a walk
Connecting with healthy people in a meaningful way
Spending time in nature
Other meditation video, just because it’s funny who leads it.
Music
Believe it or not, some people connect best with themselves through loud screamo music. (If this is you…I get it. Haha.)
Calming music is most people’s go-to for coping help.
Awesome, connected sex
Journaling
When to use healthy coping skills
When you’re stressed or anxious
When you are transitioning from one environment to another (i.e. work from home)
When you feel emotionally activated/dysregulated
After an argument
When you feel a panic attack coming on
When you notice physiological signs: muscle tension, clenched jaw, increased heart rate, headache, splotchy chest, shallow breathing, etc.
When you notice yourself (wanting to) numb or escape
When you want to be more present
Important conversations
Exciting life events
When you’re totally calm. This is very important.
If you don’t build the habit of using healthy coping skills when you are calm, they won’t work for you when you’re stressed out. You have to practice when you’re relatively calm.
Picture it like this: A number line from -10 to +10. If you invest time into healthy coping skills when you’re not particularly activated, you lower your stress level even more.
Example: if you engage in healthy coping skills and that puts you at -2 stress, and you start to feel stress at 4, you’ve just increased your stress tolerance by 2 points.
Whatever. I’m a therapist, not a mathematician. It just works.
How to use healthy coping skills
Pick one and try it.
If you like it, do more of it.
If you don’t like how it makes you feel, pick a different one.
If none of my suggestions work for you…GOOGLE IT. ;)
In closing…don’t be like me. Don’t discount healthy coping skills. Everybody needs them. I need them. You need them. Your kids need them. (Bonus: trying out a list of healthy coping skills is a great family activity!)
So pick a few and start today to come up with your list that works best!