For the curious! We’re exploring the inner-workings of the human brain to understand behavior change, habit formation, mental health, and being human. It’s Brain Science applied — not just “how does the brain work,” but how do we apply what we know about the brain to transform our lives?
Coping skills and strategies
Mireille and Adam discuss coping skills and strategies to use when managing the emotions and struggles of everyday life. We talk through some common ways people manage their emotions, strategies for emotional coping, as well as problem solving coping.
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Featuring
Notes and Links
We discussed the concept of SMART goals — they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and based on a specific time frame.
We discussed the concept of HALT. Are you hungry, angry, lonely or tired? If so, coping will invariably be different, regardless of your age.
We also discussed several examples of emotional coping strategies:
- Name it to tame it
- Grounding - Our senses are real-time, so orienting yourself to what you can see, smell, taste, touch, or hear will give you a realistic view of your circumstances and environment.
- Deep breathing
- Meditation - Check out Rick Hanson, Ph.D.
- Visualization
- Ice — Allow a small ice cube to melt in your hand. It’s a distraction and a file for tolerating the “wave” of emotion.
- Music — Listening to music or singing (various parts of the brain are involved).
- Front-loading — Doing things in a certain way to conserve energy to allocate to other things.
- Graduated exposure vs. Flooding