DEVELOPING GOOD COPING SKILLS

How are your coping skills? Coping skills are the ways you deal with life stressors. Coping skills can be healthy and a helpful part of your good mental health toolbox. Or perhaps you’ve developed coping skills which are not useful or healthy or helpful.

Unhealthy coping skills include isolating, denying feelings, ignoring problems, and neglecting self-care. These skills may have seemed a bit useful at first and a way to just get through life. But bad coping skills develop into bad habits. You may find yourself now feeling stuck with no idea of different ways to handle stress.

Healthy coping skills develop into good habits and provide a way to handle stressors. Healthy coping skills include recognizing problems, labeling thoughts, taking five, and deep breathing just to name a few. These skills help you to relax and give your brain time to think instead of just reacting to problems.

What coping skills are you using? If you need ideas for good healthy coping and how to use them well, let’s talk about that.