Simple Coping Skills

Finding some ways to calm the fuck down can be hard. Let’s talk about some easy coping skills that you can access pretty readily.

To really understand what to do for coping, it’s important to know why these work.

Any time we are in need of a coping skill, we are likely being activated in the trauma response part of our brain. We are struggling with telling the difference between here right now, and back then. So we use coping skills to pull us back to the present, and essentially distract us from the feeling for just a few minutes so we can reorient.

Cue to that moment in mean girls when Cady Herring realizes that she’s not actually in the animal kingdom, she’s just in the lunch room. 

So we reach for things that utilizes our senses - touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing.

If you ask my super smart OT and PT friends, they’ll tell you there’s more but for now we’ll stick with the 5. 

One of my favorite skills is drinking hot beverages.I loooove a good coffee, tea, or apple cider. It’s generally a good idea to stay away from caffeine when we’re triggered, so maybe enjoy some decaf coffee.Here’s a short list of things that always pull me back to the present:

• music

• hot beverages

• dancing - any movement really

• stretching 

• putting my hands together in a prayer pose and pushing my hands together till I get a small amount of tension in my palms (this goes to bilateral stimulation, check out this site for more info from Janina Fischer, a genius Working with Neurobiological Feedback)

• putting a sweater on or taking an article of clothing off

• BREATHING DEEPLY

• using a worry stone or something I can rub my fingers against

• eating some sour candy

• taking my shoes off and walking in the grass

• putting a strong essential oil on my skin with a strong scent - peppermint, ecalyptus, bergamot, citrus

hope these help! let me know what your favorites are and I’ll add it to the list!