Coping Skills
By: Heather
I am a mental health and substance abuse therapist. I spend all day teach coping skills and practicing them in my office. I get asked all the time for my favorite coping skills to use for anxiety and stress. Here are my favorites.
Color walk
Going for a walk is a great way to relieve stress because you are using big muscle groups and soaking up some vitamin D. Using large muscle groups has been proven to not only slow down thoughts but also relieve anxiety. A color walk just takes your basic walk to the next level. Before you leave for your walk, pick a color. It can be any color you want. After you pick your color start walking and when you see that color you will follow it. If you come to a crossroads in your path, you will take the direction in which you see that color. Keep turning when you see your color and continue to walk until you get tired of following your color trail. This is like a scavenger hunt and walk all mixed into one.
Going for a drive
Driving is a great way to venture out of your comfort zone and explore the world. Drive through neighborhoods and admire the houses, yards and landscapes. If it’s Christmas time, try it at night and drive around and look at all the Christmas lights. Driving can be stress relieving because you are getting out of your routine and away from the things at home that keep you stressed. Driving activates your sense of adventure and helps you discover new things.
Music
Music has a wonderful way of affecting our moods. We know which songs bring up memories, remind us of feelings long forgotten and change our moods. Music is one of the fastest stress relievers available. If you need a good cry, I bet you know which song to pick. If you need to take off your shoes and dance, I bet you know which song to pick and if you need to feel calm you probably have a song in mind to help you feel at peace. Music has been proven to bring our moods up and help us process through feelings. Make different playlists on your phone and label them so they are ready when you need to use them. I have ones named peace, dance, sadness and memories. You pick your play lists and have fun creating them.
5 senses cool down
No matter where you are or what you are doing you can do the five sense cool down. Look around the room right now. What can you see? What can you touch? What can you hear? What can you smell? What can you taste? Take your time as you explore each of these senses. Find things you’ve never noticed before. This is a great grounding exercise if you have panic attacks or disassociate from life often. This one can be done anywhere and no one even needs to know you are doing it. I use this one a lot with anger as well. It helps slow my thoughts and calm me down.
Prayer
I believe in the power of prayer. Sometimes our stress or our anxiety is bigger than we can handle. You know who can handle it? God. He wants you to ”cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7) He wants you to “not be anxious for anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds” (Philippians 4:6-7). Prayer is a direct line of communication to God and he wants us to use it. He understands our fears and our anxieties and he wants to help us. Prayer is under rated and under used. You may not have a therapist on call but you can have God on call.
Change your setting
If your thoughts, worries, feelings or anxieties are getting out of control, changing your setting (your physical location) is a great way to break the pattern of stress and anxiety and reduce it’s effects. Changing your location can include just walking to another room or going outside. Walks, runs, driving or heading on a local nature walk are options. Changing your physical location helps break the cycle of thoughts and calm anxiety and worry.
Journaling
Writing is so therapeutic. Jounaling can be done in many different ways. When most people think about journaling they think about date journaling or memory journaling. Date journaling means you journal about your day and memory journaling is journaling about an important memory. These are the most common ways to journal but there are many more. Some of my favorite ways to journal are:
- Date Journaling
- Prayers/Scripture Journaling
- Timed Journaling
- Subject Journaling
- Photo Journaling
- Fact Journaling
- Relationship Journaling
- Dream Journaling
- Memory Journaling
- Scrapbook Journaling
Ambiance Rooms
Ambiance rooms are something I learned about in the last year. If you go to Youtube you can explore the many “ambiance room” they have. Ambiance rooms transport you to a different location and help you imagine you are somewhere else. It’s like a vacation for your mind. You can visit a coffee house, snowy cabin in the mountains, sunny beach, Paris, city streets, rain storm, hiking trails, really anything you can think of. These are my two favorites.
Meditation
Technology has sped up our world so much that we rarely take time to relax and just sit with our thoughts. I love meditations because they force us to sit still and breathe. We use focused time to push away distractions and practice mindfulness. Meditation can look different for different people. Some people like to sit still and pray, others like to sit quietly and breathe, and my favorite is listening to guided meditations. Youtube has some of the best. You can find short 5-10 minutes ones or much much longer. Totally up to you and your schedule. There are also apps that are great for guided meditations. My favorite apps are Headspace, Sense and Calm.
