Psychological Health and Coping Skills

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”

Williams James

This essay explores how psychological health and intentional coping strategies empower us to navigate stress and build resilience. Chronic stress can cause long-term physical and mental health issues. There is good stress as well; it helps us to stay motivated to reach our goals. Today, we focus on the harmful effects of stress on our lives.

It is vital to deal with stress directly by developing coping skills for managing our emotional balance. We need to learn strategies to accept that change will happen and determine how we will cope and adapt to our changing environments.

Minor and major issues can cause us stress. It is all about how we manage the situation. Stress can include grief, stress on the job, or stress from taking care of your family. Or it could be a general uncertainty about our environment, politics, and the economy. The stress could be a general uneasiness that you cannot define.

What is psychological health?

What exactly are coping skills, and why are they important in supporting our psychological health? First, our psychological health involves how we manage our emotions. It also includes self-awareness, which refers to how well we understand our thoughts, feelings, and social well-being. How we manage stress, the choices we make, and our relationships with others influence our psychological health.

If you are psychologically healthy, it does not mean you are immune to challenges or setbacks. However, if you are mentally healthy, you are better equipped to manage the causes of stress. We all feel stressed. It is normal and a vital part of our survival instinct. Managing stress depends on how well we bounce back from setbacks and our mindset; we are optimistic and maintain hope. It is about building resilience, learning new strategies to navigate the curveballs life throws at us.

Our social lives are also vital to our psychological health. We need a strong support system to live well, to understand us, and to help us through the rough times. We also need a sense of purpose or direction. Do you feel there is meaning in your life?

Self-awareness is the cornerstone of psychological health. It allows you to identify your triggers, understand your emotional patterns, and choose coping strategies that work for you.

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What are coping skills?

Coping skills are the strategies we develop to manage our stress, emotions, and difficult or uncomfortable situations. The skills we create can be conscious or unconscious, healthy or unhealthy. Our goal is to reduce stress by finding healthy coping strategies we can incorporate into our daily lives. You cannot visit the psychiatrist every day, so what can you do to manage your stress?

Here are some examples of the types of coping skills you can embrace.

• Face the issue directly. Make a plan. Seek solutions.
• Managing your emotional responses could include journaling, meditation, prayer, or swimming. Physical activity is a good release. It gives us a mental boost that can help to reframe the issue causing stress.
• Practice self-reflection to understand what is causing stress.
• Seeking support from others, having a chat with your friends, or joining a support group. Or seeking professional help.
• Creative expression is an excellent strategy for managing stress. Whether it is music, art, or building something, these activities can release tension.
• Distraction is useful. Don’t sit and think about the problems; get your mind active with something else. Anything else.

Examples of unhealthy coping skills

Not all the coping strategies we use are beneficial. Although they may offer temporary relief, in the long run, they can be harmful.

• If you avoid the issues causing stress or deny that they are stressful, you may be doing more harm than good.
• Often, people seek to escape their problems by abusing substances, whether drugs or alcohol. This will only cause more stress.
• Isolating yourself, which could look like staying home from work, avoiding friends, or staying in bed all day with the covers over your head.
• Emotional eating. Seeking comfort in food will not solve the problems. Typically, it will only make you unhealthy.

Healthy Coping: 24 Mechanisms & Skills For Positive Coping, Tiffany Sauber Millacci, Ph.D.

Building Resilience and Coping Strategies: Turning Awareness into Strength, by Routledge

14 healthy coping strategies and skills to cope with real life, by Calm

How to Actually Use the Coping Skills You Learn, by Kiki Fehling, Ph.D.

My go-to coping skills

I have shared that throughout my life, I have had bouts of severe physical health issues. In a two-year period, I had 14 major surgeries, so life kind of sucked. Yet, no matter how difficult it is, we have to figure out a way to get through the tough times.

I found that by mentally visiting activities I loved, I could release some of the tension and stress. Visualization is a great tool. If you have physically experienced something, you have a reservoir of memories associated with those feelings. Using visualization as a tool, you can recreate a mental simulation that feels almost real. Think of experiences you have had that were good, happy times, satisfying experiences. Tap into experiences such as love, hope, faith, and peace. Here are some of my visualizations.

• Diving into the chilly water of a swimming pool. The first plunge brings an adrenaline rush. Then, I feel the physical motion of swimming, remembering how my muscles felt in motion.
• I lived by the ocean for about half of my life and was a true water baby. Another mental exercise was to remember and put myself into that day or event. I especially love floating on the water, as the waves push my body around. To float, you have to relax all your muscles and give in to the wave. The imagined feeling of cool water and waves rocking my body, combined with the remembered scent of salt, created a total sense of relaxation throughout my entire body and mind. Our minds are influential. Find a place in your life that brought you joy so that you can tap into that memory and use it to cope with the current situation.
• I also developed my own relaxation technique that I can use anywhere at any time. The process is a combination of progressive muscle relaxation, self-hypnosis, and visualization. It is more complicated than imagining or remembering a place we have been, as you are creating a virtual space in your mind. It involves creating a place where you can retreat, find solitude, and feel at ease. Click here for a worksheet explaining this technique.

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Psychological health in the digital age

In today’s digital landscape, technology is both a gift and a challenge to our mental health. If you participate in social media, it can influence your emotions. There is a tendency to compare ourselves to others, which could make us feel small. Remember that what you see on social media is often a carefully crafted story presented to sell something or gain followers. It does not represent the real world. There is a lot of misinformation. On the positive side, it connects us to groups, resources, and communities that can help us with coping. It may help you feel less alone in the world.

Digital coping strategies

• Use mental health apps for meditation, journaling, or mood tracking.
• Follow accounts that promote positivity and growth.
• Limit screen time and manage your digital environment.
• Be mindful of information overload and algorithmic bias.

Concluding thoughts: Coping is necessary for growth

By being more self-aware, ask and answer questions regarding stress in your life. You gain a deeper understanding of what is causing your stress. You begin to build a personalized map of your emotional landscape. Coping is not about eliminating discomfort. It is about how you react to it. Life is filled with complications and challenges. Interactions with others, work, and family obligations can take a toll on our emotional health, leaving us feeling like we are on a roller coaster ride.

Developing effective coping strategies is essential for personal growth and flourishing. It is a cornerstone of our psychological well-being, encompassing both mental and emotional health.

Evaluate what is causing your stress. What situations cause the most stress? How do you usually respond in such situations? What types of coping skills have helped you in the past? It helps to stop and pay attention to what is causing stress and how you react.

There is no shame in asking for help. You might need professional support if you are having difficulty with daily functioning. If you have withdrawn from friends and family or are having trouble controlling your emotions, such as intense mood swings. If you feel you’re at a dead end, stuck, or hopeless, you should talk to someone. Don’t suffer alone. There is so much to life; you might just need a push to get you over the hump.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution; you need to find strategies for coping with uncertainty, setbacks, and challenges that work for your lifestyle.

Recommended Reading

Stress Less, Live More: Effective Stress Management and Self Care Strategies for Enhanced Emotional Wellbeing and a Balanced Life, by Maxwell Mason

Easy Coping Strategies for Stress: Discover Ways and Mechanisms to Reduce Stress for the Anxious Mind, by Nicholas Weber

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, by Angela Duckworth

Citations

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