Coping Skills for Stress and Uncomfortable Reaction

Healthy Coping Skills for Uncomfortable Emotions.

Emotion-Focused and Problem-Focused Strategies

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.

Coping skills are the tactics that people use to deal with stressful situations. Managing your stress well can help you feel better physically and psychologically and impact your ability to perform your best,Whether you realize it or not, you are using coping mechanisms regularly. These behaviors can help you cope with stress in a positive way or can sometimes be harmful.

Why Do We Use Coping Mechanisms?

Coping mechanisms help decrease the side effects of stress. The stress response is triggered by the "flight or fight" role of your sympathetic nervous system. This causes changes in your body to help you prepare to run away from or face potential danger head-on.

Stress management techniques can fall into two main categories: Problem-focused coping and Emotion-focused coping. Basically speaking, problem-focused (or solution-focused) coping strategies aim to eliminate sources of stress or work with the stressors themselves.

Problem-Based vs. Emotion-Based

Coping is generally categorized into four major categories which are

Problem-focused, which addresses the problem causing the distress: Examples of this style include active coping, planning, restraint coping, and suppression of competing activities.
Emotion-focused, which aims to reduce the negative emotions associated with the problem: Examples of this style include positive reframing, acceptance, turning to religion, and humor.
Meaning-focused, in which an individual uses cognitive strategies to derive and manage the meaning of the situation
Social coping (support-seeking) in which an individual reduces stress by seeking emotional or instrumental support from their community.

Two of the main types of coping skills are problem-based coping and emotion-based coping. Understanding how they differ can help you determine the best coping strategy for you.

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).
Many of the coping mechanisms prove useful in certain situations. Some studies suggest that a problem-focused approach can be the most beneficial; other studies have consistent data that some coping mechanisms are associated with worse outcomes.

There isn’t always one best way to proceed. Instead, it’s up to you to decide which type of coping skill is likely to work best for you in your particular circumstance. The following are examples of stressful situations and how each approach could be used.

Examples of problem-focused strategies for specific situations could include:

Getting a Teenager to Clean

You have told your teenager he needs to clean his bedroom. But it’s been a week and clothes and trash seem to be piling up. Before heading out the door in the morning, you told him he has to clean his room after school "or else." You arrive home from work to find him playing videos in his messy room.

Problem-focused coping: You sit your teenager down and tell him that he’s going to be grounded until his room is clean. You take away his electronics and put him on restriction. In the meantime, you shut the door to his room so you don’t have to look at the mess.

Giving a Presentation

You’ve been invited to give a presentation in front of a large group. You were so flattered and surprised by the invitation that you agreed to do it. But as the event approaches, your anxiety skyrockets because you hate public speaking.

Problem-focused coping: You decide to hire a public speaking coach to help you learn how to write a good speech and how to deliver it confidently. You practice giving your speech in front of a few friends and family members so you will feel better prepared to step on stage.

Examples of Emotion-focused strategies for specific situations could include:

You are attending a party, but being around a group of people makes you anxious.

Possible responses:

Practice deep breathing.
Arrive with a friend for social support.
Plan topics of conversation.

Reading Your Performance Review

You open your email to find your annual performance review. The review states that you are below average in several areas and you’re surprised by this because you thought you were performing well. You feel anxious and frustrated.

Emotion-focused coping: You spend your lunch break reading a book to distract yourself from catastrophic predictions that you’re going to be fired. After work, you exercise and clean the house as a way to help you feel better so you can think about the situation more clearly.

Types of Coping Mechanisms/Skills

Not all coping skills are helpful. In fact, some can even be harmful. Healthy coping mechanisms are positive coping skills, while Unheathy coping mechanisms are negative coping skills.

Healthy Coping Skills

Healthy coping skills empower you to change a stressful situation or adjust your emotional response to stress.

Healthy Emotion-Focused Coping Skills

Unfortunately, it's impossible to avoid stress completely, particularly in situations in which you have no control over the source of your stress. Emotion-focused coping strategies can help you change the way you respond to your stress, healthy coping strategies may soothe you, temporarily distract you, or help you tolerate your distress.

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

Care for yourself: Put on lotion that smells good, spend time in nature, take a bath, drink tea, or take care of your body in a way that makes you feel good such as painting your nails, doing your hair, putting on a face mask.
Engage in a hobby: Do something you enjoy such as coloring, drawing, or listening to music
Practice mindfulness: List the things you feel grateful for, meditate, picture your "happy place," or look at pictures to remind you of the people, places, and things that bring joy.

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 ending a relationship. Here are some examples of positive problem-focused coping skills:

Ask for support from a friend or a professional.
Create a to-do list.
Walk away and leave a situation that is causing you stress.
Work on managing your time better.

Unhealthy Coping Skills

Maladaptive/Unhealthy coping skills are negative ways of dealing with stress. Maladaptive coping commonly occurs in people who have experienced childhood trauma or abuse. Though these behaviors might temporarily distract you from your stress, they can eventually lead to physical and emotional harm.

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 Maladaptive 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 to cope also puts you at risk for developing a substance use disorder and it may create health, legal, financial problems, and social problems.
Overeating: Food is a common coping strategy. But, trying to "stuff your feelings" with food can lead to an unhealthy relationship with food and health 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.
Avoiding: 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

How to Improve Your Coping Skills

Identify your stressors: Positive coping mechanisms are most effective when you can identify the cause of your stress.
Take note of current coping skills: Notice how you respond to your stressors and determine whether you are currently using positive or negative coping skills
Get some help: If you find it particularly difficult to build positive coping skills or get rid of negative ones, consider talking to a therapist

Find What Works for You

The coping strategies that work for someone else might not work for you. Going for a walk might help your partner calm down. But you might find going for a walk when you’re angry causes you to think more about why you’re mad—and it fuels your angry feelings. So you might decide watching a funny video for a few minutes helps you relax.

When it comes to coping skills, there’s always room for improvement. So, assess what other tools and resources you can use and consider how you might continue to sharpen your skills in the future.