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Coping Skills
Coping skills or strategies are the thoughts and behaviours that people use to deal with stressful or challenging situations. They can help reduce psychological distress, enhance wellbeing, and improve performance. Coping strategies can be classified into different types, depending on how they address the source or the impact of the stressor.
Coping is how we deal with life’s challenges, whether it’s stress at school, college, work, social activities, friendship dramas, tough family situations, or big changes in our lives. Everyone copes in their own way, and not all coping looks the same. Some strategies involve what we do (behaviours), what we think (thoughts), or skills we learn on purpose to handle tough times better. Learning about coping gives you more choices and helps you build confidence, flexibility, and resilience.
What Are Coping Methods?
Coping methods are the different ways we respond to stress, strong emotions, or problems. Some people talk things out, others distract themselves, and some get creative. Coping isn’t about always “fixing” a problem right away, it’s also about managing how you feel and keeping yourself safe and steady.
Behavioural Coping
Behaviours are the actions you take when things get tough. This can include:
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Going for a walk or getting exercise
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Listening to music or drawing
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Spending time with friends or pets
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Problem-solving; making lists or asking for help
Healthy behavioural strategies help you stay grounded and move forward. Unhelpful ones (like avoidance or risky behaviour) may offer quick relief but can cause issues over time. frontiersin
Cognitive (Thinking) Coping
Your thoughts play a big part in coping. Sometimes, changing how you see a situation makes a huge difference. This might look like:
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Reminding yourself that tough moments won’t last forever
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Reframing negative thoughts (“I failed” becomes “I learned something”)
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Using positive self-talk and realistic optimism, but tempered by a healthy scepticism that help you avoid errors in judgement through overoptimism.
- Making sure you ask the right questions, and check your assumptions, especially those other might want you to take as fact.
Building flexible thinking skills takes practice and helps you bounce back when things don’t go your way. frontiersin
Coping Skills to Learn
Coping skills are techniques you can practice and get better at, like:
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Mindfulness (paying attention to the present moment)
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Assertive communication (saying how you feel respectfully, clearly, and coherently, as well as listening openly, intently, and making sure you understand, before trying to respond.)
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Time management and goal setting, including regular breaks, and having hobbies you enjoy, and can immerse yourself in.
A wide toolkit means you can handle different challenges with more choices. mdpi
Vigilance Coping
Vigilance coping means being extra alert or “on guard” for danger, stress, or things that could go wrong. Sometimes, it’s helpful, such as noticing a toxic situation or acting quickly in an emergency. But if you’re always super-vigilant, it can wear you down and make you feel anxious, tired, or disconnected.
The goal is to learn when vigilance helps, but also, to know when it’s safe, to relax and trust yourself or others again. frontiersin
Why Learn About Coping?
Understanding your own coping methods helps you notice what works, what doesn’t, and when you might want to try something new. Everybody faces hard times, but good coping can make the journey not only easier, but more meaningful and empowering too.
Problem-focused coping
One type of coping skill is problem-focused coping, which involves changing or eliminating the stressor itself. For example, if someone is stressed about a deadline at work, they might use problem-focused coping skills such as making a to-do list, prioritizing tasks, delegating work, or asking for an extension. Problem-focused coping skills are helpful when the stressor is controllable and when the person has the resources and motivation to act.
Emotion-focused coping
Another type of coping strategy is emotion-focused coping, which involves managing or reducing the negative emotions associated with the stressor. For example, if someone is grieving the loss of a loved one, they might use emotion-focused coping skills such as expressing their feelings, seeking social support, practising relaxation techniques, or engaging in hobbies. Emotion-focused coping strategies are helpful when the stressor is uncontrollable or when the person needs to cope with their emotional reaction before acting.
Religious coping
Religious -focussed coping is a way of dealing with stress by using religious beliefs, practices, or resources. It can have different purposes and methods, such as finding meaning, comfort, hope, or connection with God and others. Religious -focussed coping can also be positive or negative, depending on how it helps or harms the person’s mental health. For example, positive religious -focussed coping may involve trusting God, seeking spiritual support, or accepting God’s will. Negative religious -focussed coping may involve feeling angry at God, doubting one’s faith, or feeling punished by God. Religious -focussed coping is influenced by individual, situational, and cultural factors, and it can have various effects on health and well-being.
Meaning-making coping
Meaning-making coping is a psychological process that involves finding or creating meaning in a stressful or traumatic situation. It can help people cope with negative emotions, reduce distress, and enhance well-being. Meaning-making coping can take different forms, such as finding positive aspects of the situation, changing one’s perspective or beliefs, seeking social support, engaging in spiritual practices, or acting to improve the situation. Meaning-making coping can help people make sense of their experiences and find purpose and hope in their lives.
Social support coping
Social support coping is a strategy that involves seeking help from others to deal with stress. It can come in different forms, such as emotional, informational, or practical support. Emotional support refers to expressions of care, empathy, and concern from friends, family, or other people who care about us. Informational support refers to advice, guidance, or feedback that can help us solve problems or cope with challenges. Practical support refers to tangible assistance, such as money, time, or resources, that can help us meet our needs or goals.
Social support coping can have many benefits for our mental and physical health. Research shows that social support can reduce the perception and impact of stress, increase happiness and well-being, improve immune system functioning and cardiovascular health, prevent cognitive decline and dementia, and ease the pain and loneliness of grief. Social support can also help us develop resilience and coping skills in the face of adversity.
To use social support coping effectively, it is important to have a strong and reliable social network that we can turn to in times of need. We can also strengthen our social connections by being supportive of others, expressing gratitude and appreciation, communicating openly and honestly, and respecting boundaries and differences. Social support coping is not a sign of weakness or dependence; rather,
These types of coping strategies can be used with problem-focused or emotion-focused coping skills, depending on the situation and the person’s preferences.
Grounding techniques
Grounding techniques are essential for self-transcendence because they help us stay connected to our present reality while exploring higher levels of consciousness. These techniques can include breathing exercises, mindfulness practices, physical sensations, or affirmations. They prevent us from losing touch with our senses, emotions, and body when we transcend our ego and experience a sense of oneness with the universe.
Maladaptive Coping
Maladaptive coping refers to strategies or thoughts that may reduce distress in the short-term but ultimately cause more harm than good, either by failing to address the underlying issue or by creating additional psychological or social problems.
Examples include avoidance, denial, substance abuse, self-harm, compulsive checking, or persistent rumination, any coping style that interferes with long-term adaptation, growth, or functioning.
Key Feature: The outcome is harmful or counterproductive, even if the strategy was congruent (logically consistent) or initially adaptive in a specific context (e.g., dissociation as protection during trauma).
Incongruent Coping
Incongruent coping occurs when the coping thoughts or behaviours are not aligned with a person’s true feelings, values, observable reality, or a given context, they are “out of sync,” inconsistent, or self-contradictory.
Examples include claiming to be happy while secretly suffering, telling oneself “I’m safe” in a clearly unsafe or toxic environment, or following rules set by an abuser that conflict with one’s own safety or integrity.
Key Feature: The logic or narrative does not fit the internal or external truth, often requiring continual mental “work” to maintain the incongruence and leaving little room for healthy resolution or automation.
Comparison Table
| Aspect | Maladaptive Coping | Incongruent Coping |
|---|---|---|
| Main Focus | The effect or outcome is harmful | The fit or alignment between belief, feeling, context |
| Example | Self-harm, denial, substance misuse | Secret suffering while presenting as happy |
| May Overlap? | Yes, many incongruent strategies are maladaptive | Yes, some maladaptive coping is also incongruent |
| Always Maladaptive? | Yes, by definition | Not necessarily, but often becomes maladaptive |
| Always Incongruent? | No, can be congruent but persistently ineffective | No, can be protective briefly before becoming problematic |
Incongruent coping is about mismatch, these are strategies or beliefs at odds with actual feelings or circumstances, which often becomes maladaptive due to the mental strain and lack of resolution.
Many incongruent coping strategies are also maladaptive, but not all maladaptive strategies are incongruent (some are entirely congruent but still unhelpful, like persistent and realistic pessimism). The distinction is clinically useful when designing interventions or inventories for research and treatment.
Masking
A collection of coping techniques and behaviours applied to any given environment is often called a mask, or persona. Whilst it is probably true that each of us need to adopt many coping strategies, and “wear” our masks. It is important to make sure you know your mask, and make you try to retain a firm connection to your authentic self.
Conclusion
Coping skills are not fixed or innate; they can be learned and improved over time. Different coping strategies may work better for different people or different situations. Therefore, it is important to have a variety of coping strategies and to evaluate their effectiveness regularly. Coping strategies can also have positive or negative consequences depending on how they are used. For example, some coping skills may be healthy in moderation but unhealthy if overused or misused. Therefore, it is important to use coping strategies wisely and responsibly.
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Further reading
Here are some links that can help you with coping skills and strategies:
Verywell Mind provides examples of healthy coping strategies such as establishing and maintaining boundaries, practising relaxation strategies such as deep breathing, meditation, and mindfulness, getting regular physical activity, making to-do lists and setting goals.
Good Therapy explains what coping strategies are and how to develop them for your daily life.
YouMeMindBody provides a list of coping strategies for anger, anxiety, and depression.
Thriveworks explains healthy coping mechanisms and strategies.
Mind provides exercises that might calm you down if you are feeling anxious or scared and how to cope with scary thoughts.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2019. The Coping Circumplex Model: An Integrative Model of the Structure of Coping With Stress.frontiersin
MDPI, 2021. Coping with Stress, Executive Functions, and Depressive Symptoms: Focusing on Flexible Responses to Stress. mdpi
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00694/pdf
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/10/14/3122/pdf
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