101 Coping Skills PDF

All of us at some time or other will experience uncomfortable negative feelings such as anger, sadness, guilt or anxiety. Whilst some of us will respond in a healthy way others will use unhealthy coping mechanisms as a way of coping with the negative emotions. Our 101 coping skills PDF printable is a simple list of actionable things you can do to help you react in a better way to problematic situations or thoughts.

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Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms

A large percentage of our therapy clients see us not just because of their presenting problem but because of their unhealthy ways of coping with that issue.

Unhelpful coping strategies might include eating too much to cope with stress or drinking as a way of dealing with bad relationships. Whilst we all have different ways of managing emotions if we get in the habit of using unhealthy ones to manage then we are likely to damage our physical and our mental health.

This is why finding better coping skills are important as they can help diffuse unhelpful emotions without causing harm.

Coping Skills to Deal With the Underlying Problem

Our 101 coping skills PDF primarily deals with helping you to diffuse the unhelpful emotion by giving you something healthier to do rather than using your old methods. We should however mention that solving the underlying problem may be a better long term strategy for success.

As an example, if you have an addiction to food that gets worse when you are stressed then clearly reducing your stress is going to be a good method of reducing your problem. If you have a hugely stressful job and aren’t happy in it that will push up your stress levels. Moving to a different job with less pressure lowers your stress which in turn can make you eat less and make you less likely to relapse and binge.

This logic works in lots of different scenarios. It means removing yourself from bad relationships, learning to say no so that you have more free time and so on. When you deal with the underlying issues you are going to then resolve the emotional symptoms.

Emotion Based Coping Skills

Our 101 coping skills PDF list however is designed to give you something that you can use in the shorter term. Our coping skills printable is filled with positive activities that can place in your personal toolbox to help you diffuse problematic emotions.

Our activities involve things you can do to distract yourself, activities that help you be more mindful and ways that you can focus on self-soothing. All of our suggestions are positive ways of taking action that can help you to feel calmer and enable you to take back control.

Using a combination of problem and emotional based coping skills is ideal and should get you good results.

The Key to Using Self-Regulation Activity

The key to using self-regulation activity is to find something from our coping skills pdf that you use to take action as soon as you feel uncomfortable feelings. All of our methods can be effective but finding a general solution to your problems means you have to choose something from the list that firstly interests you and secondly is an activity that you can do.

Our coping strategies cover a wide base which means there is something there for everyone it is just a matter of finding an activity that suits your needs. So if you can sew don’t worry go for a walk instead. If it’s raining can cold and a walk is out of the question then maybe take a warm bath.

Try and be proactive as well when it comes to resolving your negative emotions. That means thinking about how you are going to act even before any uncomfortable feelings arise. That way you have a plan of action to follow when you feel upset or anxious.

Planning and organising coping skills ahead of time is going to help you more than leaving them until the last minute. Remember that uncomfortable feelings often mean that we are unable to think straight when the problem does arise meaning it is less likely you would do something positive to help. Being ready with a coping skill you can use makes it more likely that you will use it.

Printable Coping Skills PDF for Adults

Want to know what the simplest and easiest coping strategies are? Use our 101 coping skills PDF to help you find better ways of regulating your emotions and diffusing any problematic feelings.

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