5 coping skills for anxiety

This blogspot will answer the question “what are the 5 coping skills for anxiety?”. It will be based on the healthy coping mechanisms used to effectively manage anxiety.  It will enlist the coping mechanisms and explain them in detail.

What are the 5 coping strategies for anxiety?

The 5 coping strategies for anxiety are:

• Healthy emotion focused coping skills 
• Healthy problem focused coping skills
• Proactive coping skills
• Coping through mindful strategies
• Coping through cognitive strategies

Healthy emotion focused coping skills 

The healthy emotion focused strategies to manage anxiety are based on changing the feelings and emotions related to the stressor. The healthy emotion focused coping is aimed at regulation of negative and unpleasant emotions related to a stressor like anxiety, fear, disgust and hopelessness. These are mostly used with stressors that seem difficult to control or manage.

Turning to a right emotion focused strategy at the right time for any stressor helps to prevent being overwhelmed from a situation. They provide relief from anxiety and promote subjective well-being. 

 Some healthy emotion focused strategies include:

• Talking to a friend or a relative to share your feelings about the stress or the source of anxiety.
• Shifting your focus from negative to positive about the source of anxiety. Thinking of ways that the whole scenario feels better for you. 
• Take a time out and do something that pleases you
• Adopt art and coloring as a way to vent out your feelings
• Get counseling to get rid off any passive feelings about the anxiety provoking event.

Healthy problem focused coping skills for anxiety

Healthy problem focused coping strategies are also known as solution based coping strategies. The healthy problem focused coping strategies are based on various mechanisms that are used to overcome the source of anxiety by working on various solutions possible.

Some of the healthy problem focused coping strategies for anxiety include:

• Actively trying to change the situation that provokes anxiety.
• Making a committed action plan to address the situation that provokes anxiety through focused actions.
• Doing a logical analysis of the scenario to analyze the areas that need to be changed for getting over the anxiety. After the analysis, consider various options to find the most suitable solution to curb the anxiety.
• Active behavioral changes to commit to the plan of action and follow the new strategies to overcome anxiety through motivation to change. 

Proactive coping skills for anxiety

Proactive coping strategies are based on future oriented assumptions related to anxiety feelings and acting in advance to limit the reaction to various  anxiety provoking events. The proactive coping strategies help to reduce the impact of situations that induce anxiety. 

The proactive coping skills for anxiety call for sustained efforts with a future oriented approach to curb down the anxiety in response to various life situations and work towards the wellbeing of individuals.

Some of the proactive coping skills for anxiety are:

• Developing a positive spiritual and philosophical approach to life to minimize reactions during uncertain and unpredictable events.
• Knowing your priorities and prioritising life can help reduce the anxiety associated with unplanned and untimely life events. Prioritising life helps to know clearly which things to opt for and which habits to drop off while deciding for any action in life.
• Plan proactively for life. Knowing your triggers and the reactions that the triggers provoke in you, try to seek other options that are less anxiety provoking.
• In order to curb anxiety, try to seek meaningful goals. Try to have meanings in life that promote subjective wellness and physical and psychological well-being in life.
• Anxiety is often produced by situations that occur due to strained finances. Proactive coping skills calls for various reserves in order to prevent financially induced anxiety provoking triggers.
• Another useful anxiety reducing coping strategy is to plan life proactively. As often anxiety is a result of uncertain and unpredictable situations that cause apprehensions and negative reactions. 

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Coping through mindful strategies for anxiety

Coping through mindfulness strategies is yet another coping mechanism to overcome anxiety. Mindfulness coping strategy calls for operating through a wise mind. It discourages using logical mind and emotional mind to resolve life phase anxieties. Some of the mindful strategies for anxiety reduction are as follows:

• Use radical acceptance to overcome anxiety.
• Use cue word relaxation to overcome anxiety.
• Try breathing exercises to overcome physiological exercises.
• Try meditation exercises to mindfully reduce anxiety.use your sense. Check the list of helpful meditation apps that have reduced anxiety in people.
• Use the senses to seek pleasure from various pleasure producing activities.
• Use your sense of hearing to seek pleasure from listening to songs or any pleasurable audio.
• Use your sense of smell to seek pleasure from pleasant smells .
• Use your sense of touch to seek pleasure from touching the things you feel like. For example touching a soft cushion, a baby’s skin, touching sand, touching shiny stones or touching cold surfaces.
• Many people also believe in the Crystal Healing Theory to treat anxiety which proved to be useful. Check the Best Crystals and Stones for groundind anxiety and panic attacks. They will look like precious jewelry.

Coping through cognitive strategies for anxiety

The coping strategies for anxiety also include cognitive strategies. The cognitive coping strategies to reduce anxiety work by reducing the negative thought patterns and replacing them with alternate positive thoughts. Such strategies help to change thinking about a particular event. 

An effective and efficient coping strategy to reduce anxiety is through reframing of anxiety provoking events in positive ways.

Often the coping through cognitive strategies for anxiety are based around the what if question. The what if question is related to the outcome of the event. In order to reframe the situation, the individual should think of other pleasant and positive outcomes.

Some of the effective cognitive coping strategies are:

• Understanding the underlying cognitive distorted patterns.
• Developing insight about the vicious cycle behind negative thinking and understanding the triggers that initiate the negative reaction.
• Challenging negative thoughts through evidence based exercises.
• Utilize decatastrophizing strategies to minimize the negative reactions to anxiety provoking events.

Conclusion

The present blogspot mentioned 5 coping strategies that are used to effectively reduce anxiety. It mentioned the emotion focused coping strategies to overcome anxiety, problem focused coping strategies to reduce anxiety, proactive coping strategies to reduce anxiety, mindfulness coping strategies to reduce anxiety and cognitive coping strategies to reduce anxiety.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS): 5 Coping Skills for Anxiety

Citations

https://copingskillsforkids.com/calming-anxiety

https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/anxiety-tips.html

https://www.verywellmind.com/emotion-focused-coping-for-stress-relief-3145107

https://positivepsychology.com/anxiety-coping-skills/