Mental health should be talked about more.
Often, when schools do “talk about it,” they don’t really talk about it in great depth. Foe example, schools frequently don’t talk about coping skills and why they are so important and helpful with your mental health.
Most people already use coping skills everyday but don’t know it. “What are coping skills?” Coping skills are activities that people use to help deal with, work, emotions and finally process. We use them to cope with stress, anxiety, anger, and other emotions.
Having a coping skill can help you deal with your emotions in a very healthy way. Using coping skills can help you gain a sense of control, increase confidence in ability to handle different situations, and increase self-esteem. They could be positive or negative depending on how they effect your well-being and functioning.
Positive coping skills are healthy activities that help you relax, distract you, empower you, etc.. Some positive coping skills consist of: fidgeting/fidget toys, journalism/writing, art video games/card games/exercise. You could also do things like deep breathing, yoga, meditation, talking to someone, sports, small naps, puzzles cooking/baking, cleaning, reading, music, and a tons more! Anything can be coping skills if it helps.
You may be thinking to yourself, ‘Is there such thing as a negative coping skill?’ The answer to that question is yes, there are positive and negative coping skills. Negative coping skills are activities/behaviors that harm you and people around you. Theses are activities people take part in to avoid, deny, neglect their feeling and problems. Some negative coping skills consist of: substance abuse, isolation, overreacting, under eating, over working/neglect work, dangerous/reckless behaviors. over sleeping, under sleeping, and more.
Theses “coping skills” affect you negatively, physically, and mentally. in the moment you might feel good, like it works. But it only hurts you in the long run. They only cause pain and problems. Coping skills can vary from person to person. That’s why it is very important to find coping skills that work for you.
In the series that will follow this article, we will look at a number of coping skills, beginning with music.
