Coping Skills: Tools for Living a Healthy Life

I believe that coping skills are tools for living a healthy life. When I worked in my clinical practice this topic was discussed frequently. We developed a variety of healthy coping skills to reduce stress, but we learned that coping skills are not a “one-size fits most” kind of thing. Each person is unique and each person copes differently. That’s why it’s helpful to find coping strategies that are right for you.

Over the years, I began to look at these various coping skills as tools that could fit into a toolbelt. I imagined each person filling their toolbelt with coping skills that best suited them, and were the best tools to manage their stress.

Having a bad day at work? No problem! Pull out some deep breathing techniques. Feeling financial pressure as your son prepares to enter college? It’s OK. You’ve got a plan in place for that already! Angry over an argument with your neighbor? Take a moment to calm down, then re-visit the situation when you are able to discuss and compromise. Having a toolbelt filled with a variety of coping skills can come in handy when working with tough problems!

What is coping?

According to Wikipedia, “coping means to invest one’s own conscious effort, to solve personal and interpersonal problems, in order to try to master, minimize, or tolerate stress and conflict.” The Wikipedia article linked above contains detailed information about psychological research pertinent to this topic. For those of you who wish to take a deeper dive into this subject, I suggest taking a look at this article.

Types of coping skills

There are a multitude of coping skills that can be helpful to people. Researchers are working to identify the various types. Let’s focus on a few areas that were discussed in the Wikipedia article:

Positive and negative coping skills

We can use either adaptive (positive) or maladaptive (negative) coping skills. Positive coping skills reduce stress and lead to healthier behaviors and outcomes. Negative coping skills may ease the perception of the stress for a short while, but in the end stress increases. An example of a negative coping skill is overeating. Eating that half gallon of ice cream may feel comforting at the time, easing the stress of a major problem. This negative response (if used repeatedly) is unhealthy and can lead to more problems down the road.

Reactive and Proactive coping skills

When we respond to someone or some situation we are reacting. A bad thing happens. Something stressful occurs. How should we respond? How do we cope with this? Our response is our reaction, hence it is our reactive coping strategy.

Proactive coping skills are developed and utilized in an effort to decrease or neutralize the impact of a future stressor. If you know that you are going to experience a chronic stress, such as living with argumentative family members, you may develop strategies to use at home on a regular basis, such as listening to music or taking walks in nature. By using proactive skills you may not perceive the stress in the family quite so keenly. Practicing breathing techniques, such as 4:8 Breathing, and listening to Guided Imagery routinely can reduce our overall response to stress.

Problem-focused coping skills

According to Stress, Health and Well-Being: Thriving in the 21st Century, by Rick Harrington, “People using problem-focused strategies try to deal with the cause of their problem. They do this by finding out information on the problem and learning new skills to manage the problem. Problem-focused coping is aimed at changing or eliminating the source of the stress. The three problem-focused coping strategies identified by Folkman and Lazarus are: taking control, information seeking, and evaluating the pros and cons. However, problem-focused coping may not be necessarily adaptive [positive,] especially in the uncontrollable case that one cannot make the problem go away.”

Emotion-focused coping skills

C.S. Carver, contributor of “Coping” in R.J. Contrada, Ph.D. & A. Baum, Ph.D. (Eds.), The Handbook of Stress Science: Biology, Psychology, and Health writes, “Emotion-focused coping is a mechanism to alleviate distress by minimizing, reducing, or preventing, the emotional components of a stressor.” There are many practices that fit into this category. Certainly not an exhaustive list, but some examples include:

• Meditation
• Mindfulness practices
• Breathing techniques (such as 4:8 Breathing)
• Reappraising the stressor in a positive light (Reframing – to frame (something) again and often in a different way – Merriam-Webster)
• Yoga
• Music Therapy (such as listening to a Stress-LESS Music Therapy playlist – Use the Spotify app to listen to the full playlist!)
• Art Therapy
• Aromatherapy
• Grounding practices (Grounding – a coping strategy that is designed to “ground” you in, or immediately connect you with, the present moment – verywellmind)

Social coping skills

Social coping skills focus on seeking support from others. It’s helpful to be around people who are supportive and understanding; to find “your” people. Examples of this would be taking a class, joining a book club, or participating in a Facebook Group that includes people with similar interests as yours, i.e. Photography, Boating, Knitting, etc.

Humor

R.A. Martin, Humor, laughter, and physical health: Methodological issues and research findings writes: “Humor used as a positive coping strategy may have useful benefits in relation to mental health and well-being. By having a humorous outlook on life, stressful experiences can be and are often minimized. This coping method corresponds with positive emotional states and is known to be an indicator of mental health.”

Putting it all together

Coping skills are tools for living a healthy life. We must be wise to use positive coping skills and avoid the negative ones. Your choice of skills will be unique to you, and that’s OK. I urge you to use your coping skills when needed. They’ll help!

And, if your stress is long-term or chronic, I encourage you to practice your skills on a regular basis…in anticipation of the next stressor around the corner! You may be interested in a few related blog posts I’ve written: Feeling Overwhelmed? and Stress and The Silent To-Do List.

Also, I’ve made a printable to share with you, as a reminder that there are tools out there to help you decrease your stress. Just click here to download your copy for printing: Tools for Living a Healthy Life: 20 Coping Skills. Here’s to having less stress!

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