*disclaimer: I am not a medically licensed psychologist or medical practitioner. These blog posts are not meant to replace getting real help and guidance from a trained medical professional. If you are in crisis and need immediate support, contact 911 or call the suicide prevention hotline at 988.*

In recent posts, I have talked a lot about the Five F’s and their relationship to stress and stress management. In the post Breathing Techniques to Manage Stress Effectively, I discussed how breathing can be used to calm us down from the Five F’s and allow us to function better in times of stress. In today’s post, we are going to discuss coping strategies and their importance for stress management. 

When we think of coping strategies, we think of things like taking a breath in times of stress, using box breathing, or doing the 5-4-3-2-1 method (which will be discussed in my next podcast coming Wednesday, Feb. 4th), which engages the senses to help with grounding. While this can be considered a coping strategy, coping strategies are more than just breathing or other little tricks to redirect our minds from a crisis. Coping strategies, as defined by Earl Hipp in his book Fighting Invisible Tigers, are temporary ways to manage stress or step away from it. 

Our coping strategies are supposed to be temporary, used to help us redirect thinking, take a break from an issue until we are in a better place to deal with it, or to distract us momentarily so that we can then come back and look at the problems we are facing again through different lenses. They are important because sometimes we do just need a break. We need a moment to ourselves to recenter and breathe, or to do something we find joy in, before we go back into the difficulties life is throwing our way. Sometimes the break is short- a quick breath or the 5-4-3-2-1 method of sense engagement, where we can redirect thinking and approach an immediate issue with more focus. Other times, the break is a little longer, such as taking time to go for a walk, taking a bit of time to play video games, or reading a book for a little bit. But those breaks are important for stress management, and it’s good to know that taking a break is an option for us. 

The issue comes, however, when our coping skills go from being temporary breaks to being ways to avoid the problem altogether.

Coping Strategies

Distraction

Earl Hipp (2019) discusses in Fighting Invisible Tigers the fact that there are generally three types of coping strategies, each one being a decreasing level of what is often considered a healthy coping strategy. 

The first category is distraction. It is those breaks or little distractions we take from stress. As stated previously, distractions can be short, such as taking a quick breathing break, using some other short coping skill like the 5-4-3-2-1 sense method, or stepping away from a conversation for a brief time. It can also be longer but still reasonably timed, like reading a book for a little bit, playing a video game, going for a walk, playing with your dog or cat, or watching a TV show. For myself, I will often use video games, movies, or books as a distraction to step away from stress. My father has scheduled breaks into his days where he plays video games for a short period of time as his break from stress, and if his breaks are skipped for awhile he can become really cranky. My mother has projects that she does, like sewing and crocheting, as well as taking some video game days to play with my best friend and me on the Switch. Those are our distractions we choose to engage with. When I was in a classroom setting, oftentimes distractions I’d use for students would be going for a short walk in the hallways, playing with a toy that was moderately interesting, engaging in our breathing practices, or putting on a couple of short, quick movement videos where the kids would get engaged with big motor skills. All of these are considered healthy distractions when done in moderation. 

Avoidence

The next level is avoidance strategies. Avoidance in itself isn’t always bad. Some situations we do want to avoid if they are unsafe or can cause us legitimate mental, physical, or emotional harm. But in the world of stress management and dealing with the more typical and somewhat larger stresses life can throw at us, avoidance can become unhealthy. It is when our distractions turn from distractions into something we engage with to the detriment of ourselves and our overall health and well-being, to the point that stressors grow or are added on.  Where Earl Hipp (2019) describes distraction as “I will deal with it later”, he labels avoidance as “I might deal with it sometime”, showing that avoidance can be used as a way to get out of a situation that we don’t want to deal with by distracting with something else to a more extreme level. In distraction, we plan to come back to the task at hand. In avoidance, there isn’t a plan to come back because we don’t want to or are avoiding dealing with it. 

One form of avoidance that masks that there is an issue to the outside world, and that some would praise, is overachieving. People who throw themselves completely into many projects or put all their time and energy into one endeavour, usually academic or work-based, to avoid issues or stresses at home. While this is viewed by many as a sign of success or hard work, what people don’t notice is the harm it can cause to a person’s personal life, relationships, marriages, and mental and physical health. 

While overachieving can be a form of avoidance, the most common form of avoidance is procrastination. People will often procrastinate on doing unpleasant tasks like homework, house chores, or that project at work we don’t want to do. I’ve been procrastinating on applying for SNAP benefits because I am stressed about the paperwork, and I don’t want to face possible rejection when I am in desperate need of help. But procrastination can lead to larger problems down the line. Missed deadlines, hurried rushes to cram for an upcoming test, sloppy work, running out of time to complete the task, or, in my case, having to spend potentially longer without the help I need, adding more stress to my plate over time. Avoidance can also come in the form of not talking to someone you are having a conflict with to work to resolve the issue. I engaged in that avoidance behavior just two weeks ago with my future sister-in-law from Squishy’s side because I was having a lot of anxiety over that conversation and didn’t want to deal with it. But the longer I avoided, the worse my anxiety got, and the conversation didn’t end up being all that bad in the long run. In fact, the conversation I’d been avoiding strengthened our relationship more and gave us a better understanding of each other in the long run. 

It’s natural to want to avoid things that stress us out, and we do have the option to take breaks and walk away for a moment, but when our breaks become avoidance we should really take a moment to look at why we are avoiding the task at hand, and take steps to make the task more manageable and less stressful or scary for us. One way I deal with avoidance and procrastination with work is through the use of a timer system. I never go less than 10 minutes on the work I have to do, but then I will reward myself with a break to play a video game for a period of time, watch an episode of a TV show, or read a chapter of a book. Then I go back to work. It is a skill my mother, who has had chronic illnesses a lot of her adult life, has to do to get certain tasks that require a lot of energy done, and something I picked up for mental health when I am dealing with highly unpleasant tasks or now for my own chronic illness issues when I am fatuged or having a bad brain day but MUST get the work done. Some people have done well at fixing procrastination or avoidance behaviors with schedules and mini deadlines or smart goals they set for themselves, so a task isn’t so overwhelming. 

For social situations like the conversation I had to have that I was avoiding, sometimes phoning a friend can help make a situation less scary. I had my Future Father-In-Law come sit with me for the conversation, and that was beneficial because it was a friendly face, a neutral party, who could help broach the barriers and mediate. In the past, for professional settings, I’ve had trusted bosses or coworkers come with me to face a task I’d been avoiding out of fear of anxiety. For things like avoiding going to the gym or eating healthy, we could call on friends and family or paid professionals to be accountability buddies who help us and encourage us to do the things we are avoiding doing. I have gone to my fair share of professional personal trainers for fitness goals, as well as currently visiting a nutritionist once a month, paid for by insurance, to have accountability for my weight loss goals and nutrition goals, as well as to encourage me to give up a bad habit I’ve been avoiding giving up (Monster Energy Drinks are not my friend but I love them so much and giving them up has been so hard! But I am down to one a day now so that is progress from the 4 a day I was drinking).

Escape

Quick warning on this next section: it can be triggering. 

The final coping strategy and arguably the most detrimental is escape, or as Earl Hipp (2019) describes it, “I don’t want to deal with it… ever.”

Escape coping strategies are arguably the most harmful to ourselves and our loved ones. Escape strategies are often extreme and require outside intervention and support to get us back on track in the form of medical help, the suicide prevention hotline (988), or speaking to a close and trusted friend. Escape strategies are where we see risky behaviors of violence and anger,  drug and alcohol use, unsafe sexual encounters, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. People with anger troubles, histories of violence, drug and alcohol addiction, or people who end up in hospitals and institutions from failed suicide attempts often have underlying mental health concerns, stresses in their life they don’t know how to deal with, or histories of abuse and trauma they are trying to get away from and avoid. 

While many adults have these concerns and escape strategies are often thought of as being something only adults engage in, smaller children have their own escape strategies that are equally as harmful and are often a sign of the need for intervention for mental health or disability, or, if they come on out of the blue, as a sign something may be happening at home or in school where they may not feel safe. These can include physically running from the problem and disregarding the danger that can pose them such as running out into a parking lot, hurting themselves to avoid a task like banging their head on a desk, destroying spaces violently to avoid doing something they don’t want to do, screaming, holding their breathe, soiling themselves, throwing things, hurting people they care about who are trying to help them, and quietly shutting down or not talking to avoid being noticed.

If you are engaging in escape strategies, get help now. It is not a sign of weakness to need help. In fact, it is quite the opposite. If you need help and you ask for it, you are showing strength. Strength of will, strength or character, strength of mind. It is never a weakness to ask for help. 

I myself have had to ask for help on more than one occasion in my life, and while it was terrifying in the moment, I have never once regretted getting the necessary support I needed in a moment because that is what has allowed me to be here today to share my story with you all. Your story matters, your life matters, YOU matter. 

Conclusion

Coping strategies are important to helping us take care of our mental health and stress, so long as they are healthy. Taking a break from stress is fine; we have to sometimes. When our breaks become avoiding issues or escaping from them, we can create bigger problems for ourselves, and that is not good. Especially when it comes to escape strategies that might take us away from our loved ones and the people who care about us. 

I dare you to talk about how you are really feeling today.

-Dare. 

Citations: 

Hipp, E. (2019). Fighting invisible tigers: Stress management for teens. Free Spirit Publishing.