What 2 avoid: negative coping strategies

Most people, either knowingly or unknowingly, use negative coping strategies to cope with stress. These are strategies that may temporarily provide stress relief, but in the long term may increase the amount of stress we experience. A few examples of these are:

Avoidance
Distractions
Violence
Chemicals

Negative coping strategies are our natural reactions to stress and feelings of being overwhelmed. Everyone uses these sometimes, and (except for violence) that's ok. However, if you only use negative coping strategies, you can actually end up causing yourself more stress in the long run.

That's why it's important to include long-term stress coping strategies to help find solutions to current stresses, and to help decrease your level of stress in the future.

Negative coping strategies:

Avoidance

• Procrastination
• Skipping out
• Withdrawal
• Illness
• Sleep

Distractions

• TV
• Socializing
• Video games
• Shopping

Violence

• Hurting others or yourself
• Throwing objects
• Yelling
• Hitting

Chemicals

• Smoking
• Sugar & caffeine
• Drugs & alcohol
• Medication

TOP

You can reduce the emotional suffering you are experiencing. The first thing you might want to do to help yourself do this is to work on your coping strategies.