Healthy Coping Mechanisms: Dealing With Stress & Difficult Emotions

Adaptive & Maladaptive Coping Mechanisms

There are two types of coping mechanisms: Adaptive (healthy) and maladaptive (unhealthy). Finding ways to cope can be stressful in itself, as the stress can often cloud one’s judgment on the best way to handle these stressors and challenging emotions. This may lead to adopting maladaptive patterns of coping, but with the right tools in place before a stressor hits, utilizing adaptive strategies is the best path forward.

Adaptive Coping Mechanisms

Adaptive coping mechanisms are positive and life-enhancing ways of dealing with stressors. These are healthier coping mechanisms that support your life and the direction you want to go when dealing with stress. They bring joy and comfort to one’s life while also reducing the stressful emotions, leaving individuals feeling more balanced and overall more situated with the challenging circumstances causing stress. Examples of adaptive coping mechanisms are using humor and laughter as much as possible, practicing yoga and exercising, using art or creating something new and baking for loved ones.

Those who choose adaptive coping mechanisms tend to have a positive outlook and can strengthen their mental health, even if they have a history of mental health issues. By dealing with these challenges head-on, it builds self-confidence and self-esteem that an individual is able to handle these life stressors in a healthy way.

Now, this does not mean ignoring negative feelings or trying to avoid thinking about them, rather it means acknowledging they exist, sitting with the feelings to process them and then moving forward with a goal in mind. In fact, individuals can experience stress-related growth, meaning that the stressors in their life were helpful in their growth journey of emotional-regulation and mitigating negative-self talk.¹

Maladaptive Coping Mechanisms

Maladaptive coping mechanisms, such as avoidance coping, are harmful and generally can cause more stress and difficult emotions as a result. Maladaptive coping means participating in activities that are counterproductive and can worsen existing feelings of stress. The immediate effects of maladaptive coping can appear to be helpful, which is why many people engage in this way of coping, however, in the long-term, individuals are left feeling worse. Examples of maladaptive coping mechanisms are heavy drinking and drug use, gambling, impulsivity and other risky or self-harm behaviors.

When individuals choose maladaptive coping mechanisms, they tend to have a more grim outlook as their choice of coping includes something that can further worsen their feelings long-term. This way of coping highlights how individuals who choose maladaptive coping mechanisms may be trying to avoid and numb the stressful issues they are facing. By not taking a head-on approach, the patterns of processing feelings and moving past them become delayed or avoided, and over time, those emotions multiply—creating even more challenging experiences related to existing stressors.

Those who do have a history of anxiety, depression and other mental health concerns can have a higher risk of using maladaptive coping. Both anxiety and depression can cloud an individual’s way of thinking, feeling and decision-making, making this population a higher risk of maladaptive coping, especially if they are not currently receiving any kind of treatment for their mental health issues. In addition, choosing maladaptive coping mechanisms can also drive feelings of anxiety and depression in those without a history of mental health concerns. This is due to a lack of emotional-self regulation skills that are central to healthy coping and understanding how to manage problems in life.²

Emotion-Based Coping Strategies

Emotion-based coping strategies involve reducing the reactive emotions to the stressors as opposed to reducing the stressor itself. It helps individuals manage their negative reactions first and foremost before tackling the problem they are facing. By being able to first control their emotions, the long term likelihood of using adaptive coping mechanisms is very high, as emotion-based coping allows individuals to have space to process their emotions. This can be done through a multitude of techniques including talk therapy, narrative therapy or art therapy.

For example, an individual may go to their doctor for a routine physical and the doctor may find something abnormal forming on their body. The doctor recommends following up with an oncologist, a cancer doctor, to test what that lump may be. The individual is able to schedule a phone call with their therapist for the same day, and calls the oncologist after her session. In this scenario, emotion-based coping allows individuals to process and handle their fears and feelings of anxiety and depression in a safe space before any next step. It doesn’t mean that there is no next step, it just allows individuals to come to grips with the reality of the situation by processing their emotions first. 

There are a multitude of emotion-focused coping mechanisms that can be helpful. Since emotion-focused work requires looking inward, people can become very creative in the ways they choose to cope.

Here are two examples of emotion-focused coping strategies, and why they are helpful:

Journaling

Journaling allows individuals to write how and what they are feeling about the stressors in their life without any judgment. They can pour their emotions onto a blank page and unload their fear, anxiety or depression from their mind and heart. Journaling allows individuals to keep a record of their reactions and over time reflect and find opportunities for emotional growth.

Yoga

Yoga allows individuals to express emotions through their body. There are a lot of benefits to moving your body and exercising, however yoga takes that one step further as the goal tends to be finding balance. When finding balance and an emotional equilibrium is at the center of one’s mind, it becomes that much easier to process stressful emotions to get to a balanced state. There are many guided yoga meditations and yoga assist classes that can help restore this missing balance.

Problem-Based Coping Strategies

Problem-based coping strategies involve reducing the stressor itself by directly facing and addressing it. It is a much more direct way of handling stress, as it can feel very empowering to take the problem on and solve it. It helps individuals feel in control when there may be less control, and that feeling can be very productive. This kind of coping strategy doesn’t necessarily require a facilitator, however talk therapy can help uncover problem-solving options if an individual is struggling to find problem-solving options on their own.

In the same example, the individual who went to their doctor and was recommended for follow up with an oncologist may be more inclined to schedule that next appointment without thinking much about how they are feeling. In this scenario, problem-based coping is helpful in ensuring that the individual is taking steps to keep up with their health care needs and take quick action. This allows an individual to feel some kind of control in a situation where there may be very little control. 

Problem-focused coping mechanisms can be very helpful when the goal is to address the root of the problem or the problem itself. Individuals tend to have a very realistic goal and enthusiasm to solve the specific problem, and their mission is to find a solution.

Two methods of problem-focused coping mechanisms are:

Researching the Topic

One way to cope is by researching the topic that is the root of the stressor. If it is health-related, researching medical information and gathering data can be educational and can feel very empowering to the individual. It gives structure to what the issue is and a kind of timeline to follow. Research gives all the information—including negative information—so there are no surprises later on.

Researching can look different depending on the type of stressor, but the goal is to find data and information about the topic to learn as much about it with goals of resolving the issue.

Creating a Structured To-Do List

Similar to researching, creating a to-do list can be very helpful and place additional foundation blocks an individual needs to resolve their problem. Creating to-do lists frees individuals from carrying the weight of anxiety in their mind and gets it out onto a list of what is possible to do. Items on the to-do list are generally very clear with no gray area of what the task at hand is. The structure again is very empowering when there is a loss of control.

Utilizing Both Emotion-Focused & Problem-Focused Coping

Individuals can use both emotion-based coping and problem-based coping together. In the first scenario, after processing emotions, that individual can use problem-based coping and may be much more clear and goal-driven now that they have had the time to process emotions first. This can be very encouraging and create a more optimistic view of next steps.

In the second scenario, after taking concrete steps, that individual may have their answers and next steps clear but can now use emotion-focused coping to support their needs to the process. At this time, if they are feeling fear, anxiety or depression, they can take time to focus on those issues, as they know they already have a plan in place for next medical steps.

Maladaptive Coping Mechanisms to Avoid

There are a lot of unhealthy, or maladaptive, coping mechanisms to avoid. It’s important to avoid these because individuals can get stuck in a negative pattern and develop additional stressors, including but not limited to their emotional, mental and physical health, financial strain, or problems with relationships.

Substance Abuse

The purpose of abusing many illicit substances is to numb a feeling or avoid certain emotions. This is very dangerous as it can be easy to abuse these substances when things become challenging. When using these substances in the context of avoiding a problem or situation, impulsive decisions can be made which may be very difficult to undo.

Generally, substance abuse is an indicator that there is an unhealthy coping pattern developing— it’s important to recognize the danger before one finds themselves in a dangerous situation.

Perseverating on the Problem

Fixating and perseverating on the problem is also an unhealthy coping mechanism as it doesn’t allow you to come up with solutions or move past the negative emotions. Oftentimes, this will become a pattern and one can find themselves feeling stuck. The longer one keeps their focus on the negative, the longer it will take to remember other skills they can use to cope. It’s important to think about what your goal is if you start to feel like they are getting stuck on the problem instead of moving through it.

3 Strategies for Developing Healthy Coping Mechanisms

It is important to ensure you’ve developed some strategies for coping that are healthy and positive. Think about your day-to-day routine and imagine what you would do if an unforeseen circumstance occurred.

These questions can help you tap into your emotion-focused and problem-focused coping mechanisms:

• How do I feel?
• Can I get past this feeling?
• Could this have been prevented?
• Is there something I can do to fix this now?

Here are three ways to ensure that you are equipped with healthy ways to cope when a stressful situation occurs.

1. Practice Healthy Coping Skills Before a Challenging Time Arises

Remember that there is a balance in life, and all of us go through messy seasons. Practicing those healthy coping mechanisms are just as important as practicing any other skill. It takes time to learn these skills if they are new, and even longer to apply to a stressful situation. To help ensure you are feeling confident about your coping skill set, it is important to put yourself in different situations and try new things to ensure your growth journey doesn’t end. Every obstacle is an opportunity to grow, and if one can look at all these opportunities as a pathway to a newer version of themselves, there is nothing stopping them from being able to handle all the stressors life throws out.

2. Discuss Healthy Options With Friends of Family Members

Discussing helpful coping mechanisms with trusted friends or family is another way to share and learn about healthy coping mechanisms. Everyone will cope differently even when everyone is using healthy coping mechanisms, so it can be helpful to learn about other’s experiences with healthy coping mechanisms and understand where their feelings come from. This practice can help oneself self-reflect on their own journey to healing and inspire one to continue this work.

3. Add New Ways to Cope to Your Arsenal

There is also no harm in trying new coping mechanisms even if you have something that works for you. The beauty with finding adaptive coping mechanisms is that it pushes individuals outside their comfort zone which only helps them develop their coping skill set. Since everyone is different and always growing, it’s common for some coping mechanisms to become more effective than others over time, or for another method to work better in a different scenario.

There is no guidebook or rule, but it’s important for people to trust their intuition and think about if they are feeling good about themselves when trying different coping mechanisms. You will always get at least one thing out of trying something new, even if that one thing is the knowledge that something is not right for you.