What’s your coping style?

Coping mechanisms are the strategies people often use in the face of stress and/or trauma to help manage painful or difficult emotions. Coping mechanisms can help people adjust to stressful events while helping them maintain their emotional well-being. Difficult events like divorce, loss of a job, loss of health, death of a loved one, etc can lead to a lot of stress people may utilize some combination of behavior, thought, and emotion, depending on the situation. People may use coping mechanisms for stress management or to cope with anger, loneliness, anxiety, or depression.

Some may confuse coping mechanisms with defense mechanisms – while they both share similar concepts, they are infact different. While Defense mechanisms occur at an unconscious level and people use them with unawareness, coping mechanisms are mor purposeful and conscious. While Coping mechanisms manage the external situations that cause stress, defense mechanisms are more at a psychological level.

Coping mechanisms are of two types – Active and Avoidant. The former, as the name suggests involves awareness of the stressor and making conscious efforts to reduce the stress. While the avoidant way is to ignore the problem altogether. Coping methods work from time to time and can be effective – however when they become counter-productive they become ‘maladaptive’ coping methods. These would include Escaping or isolating oneself in stressful sincerely, absorbing oneself in excessive TV watching, withdrawing from friends, unhealthy soothing techniques like resorting to alcohol or substance abuse, numbing oneself, stress binge-eating, risk-taking behaviours and even self-harm.

Adaptive Coping mechanisms include:

•       Talking to someone about the stress – like a mental health professional
•       Relaxing activities like meditation, being one with nature or listening to music
•       Actively problem-solving to resolve the stressful situation
•       Using humor to lighten the environment and prevent the situation from becoming too overwhelming
•       Physical activity serves as a natural and healthy way to release stress
•       Journaling is a good and safe way to vent too
•       Cultivate a hobby where you use your hands – like gardening or knitting

And......last of all.... Breathe.......

Given the rising numbers in Covid 19 cases around us, we are all under duress. Let’s take a moment and breathe. Be grateful for the one life you have and try to help others who need it. Make the most with being there with your family and hold each other close. 

P.S. Note to self – Good times don’t last and Bad times don’t stay forever. This too shall pass!