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Coping skills refer to the strategies people use when facing trauma and different stressors while they help manage difficult or painful emotions. According to research, coping skills allow individuals to deal with stressful situations and problems caused by mental health issues.
Coping skills
According to different studies, there are two main types of coping skills for mental health problems that will enable them to maintain overall mental well-being.
Emotion focussed skills help people process painful and unwanted emotions and focus on things in their control rather than things outside their control. This skill is helpful to those incapable of changing their situation and useful in circumstances outside of one's control.
1) Therapy
We are bombarded with different stressors in our daily lives, which can take a massive toll on our well-being. One way we can deal with these stressors is by going to a therapist and discussing the issues that we are facing with them.
Therapists help us identify the stressors in our lives, the impact it has, and coping strategies to deal with various stressors. They use multiple techniques and approaches to help change our thought process and give us the skills to deal with stressors.
2) Journaling
Journaling is a great coping strategy as it allows us to sort through and come to terms with challenging emotions. When we encounter stressors, we experience complicated, conflicted feelings that cause mental anguish and affect our mental well-being.
Journaling helps us express and process our thoughts, feelings, and emotions in a healthy, positive manner. It allows us to express our complex thoughts and feelings concretely and facilitates an emotional catharsis.
3) Meditation
Meditation has proven to have many different mental health benefits, and it is a great coping strategy that improves our physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Meditation facilitates mindfulness, allowing us to recognize thoughts as they come up and process them without judgment. There are many different ways to practice mindfulness, and meditation is one of the best ways.
Problem-based coping strategies help individuals change their circumstances by altering their life or dealing with a stressor directly. Problem-based strategies help individuals target the causes of their stressors to reduce the issues that come with them.
Healthy problem-focussed strategies include creating a to-do list, establishing healthy boundaries, seeking social support, and time management.
4) Time management
Many of the problems and issues we face are based on our inability to manage our time effectively. Due to poor time management, we often struggle to accomplish our goals and tasks.
As we learn to effectively budget our time and learn how to prioritize certain tasks before others, we reduce the impact of stressors on our lives and improve our mental well-being.
5) Social Support
According to research, one of the ways we can effectively deal with stressors in our lives is through social support. When we rely on our social circles, which include our friends, family, neighbors, and the society we belong to, we see many improvements in our well-being.
We seek advice and support from those around us, reassuring us that there are those around us who we can count on.
6) Changing the scenario
The best way to deal with stressors and improve our well-being, which has been affected by stressful situations, is to change the scenario. While this approach is not applicable in every case, there are times when we can directly remove or alter the stressor that is affecting our lives.
Unhealthy coping strategies
While there are plenty of healthy coping strategies that are not only capable of helping us deal with stressors in our lives on a long-term basis, other strategies allow us to cope with stressors but in an unhealthy manner.
While these strategies help us take our minds off the stressors in our lives, they will eventually cause other physical, mental, and emotional problems in the long term.
Unhealthy coping strategies include substance abuse, unhealthy eating habits, partaking in risky activities, emotional dumping, unhealthy self-soothing, self-harm, and poor sleeping habits. These strategies offer temporary relief, yet they will eventually catch up with you, worsening your situation.
Many healthy strategies are available to those looking to deal with stressors and minimize the adverse effects on our mental health and well-being.
Steve George Verghese is a trained psychologist with an MSc in Counseling Psychology from the Indian Institute of Psychology and Research.
