Sooo, I'm thinking we all want to cope better with, well, all the things: work, kids, our own thoughts + feelings, how wild the world feels...y'know, LIFE.
And in this week's episode of The Transforming Anxiety Podcast I'm going to break all of it down into:
Stress
Stressors
Maladaptive coping strategies
Adapative coping strategies
so that we have a practical way to figure out where we are and how to cope better.
If you've felt a bit lost with how to get through a tricky situation or just completely zoned out, for hours at a time, and then come to and wondered where you went, this 20-minute episode will help.
Join me and let's talk about how to cope better…
Text PODCAST to (816) 354-1279 and I’ll send mindfulness reminders, anxiety hacks, and little love notes your way from time-to-time…
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Find out more about DJ Sol Rising here. His music is the beautiful intro / outro for the podcast and he has a prolific catalog of offerings for meditation, yoga, and generally relaxing and chilling out.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there, welcome in today. So, we’re gonna talk about how to cope better. Which, haha, I’m guessing MOST of us want to understand and know how to do. We’re getting through the days and weeks, but if we could cope BETTER with what life throws at us and how wild the world is and just, y’know, the general hourly details of the day, I’m guessing we’d all welcome that. Yeah?
So I want to start by unpacking, a bit, HOW we cope. There are 2 ways in which we cope with all the things and some of its good and some of its not so good. And I think by pulling back the curtain on our coping mechanisms and ways of trying to handle life, we can understand a bit better what’s working for us, what’s not working for us, and what we could, perhaps, do differently. And by virtue of the ways in which we cope, we can find better strategies to cope in healthier ways. Ok, that was a whole word salad. Let’s just get into it…
I want to actually talk first about the difference between stress and stressors. Because there’s the stress / anxiety / overwhelm / worry in our lives…and then there are the things that CAUSE the stress / anxiety / overwhelm / worry. And those are different things. It’s one thing to feel stress. It’s another thing to be dealing with a stressor.
So let’s start here…
…and by starting here, I also just want to say: we’re going to WAY oversimplify this for the sake of conversation today. We could spend a lot of time here, reflecting and getting self-aware. So don’t skip this step just because we’re kinda glossing over it and making some assumptions today, ok? Ok…so in super simple terms: stressors are the things that activate the stress response in your body. So you have the perception that you are under threat, that you’re in danger, and your sympathetic nervous system gets activated, you get that dump of adrenaline, and you feel what we call anxiety, or stress. Stressors can be internal OR external. Internal stressors are things like: thoughts, belief systems, self-talk, self-image, your personal history or past experiences, and what you imagine, that fantasy future that is never HERE but is full of all of those “what if” worse-case scenario thoughts. Those are internal stressors. External stressors could look like: the people in your life, work, health, finances, family, conversations, societal pressures, global pandemics, war, social issues, you get the idea. Anything coming at you that doesn’t originate inside your own mind, heart, or body. Yeah? So, there are internal and external stressors. Told you we were gonna fly through this for the sake of getting to coping and how to cope better. You still with me? Haha, ok…those are stressors. Then there’s the stress. You have sensed some internal or external stressor and then your body gets dysregulated. Your nervous system lights on FIRE. And you’re FEELING stress, you’re FEELING anxious. Stressor leads to the feeling of stress. Now, obviously these 2 are very closely related and tangled up together. But…but…I want you to appreciate that dealing with the stress is very different from dealing with the stressor.
Let’s do an example to talk through this. Let’s say that you’re worried about a conversation that you need to have with someone important to you - a boss, a close friend, your partner, your teenager…someone that means a lot to you and the conversation is meaningful, but you’re not sure how it’s going to go. Ok? So there’s the stressor - in this case, the conversation and the relative unknown of how the conversation is going to go and how the person you’re talking with is going to receive the conversation, how they’re going to react. The stressor. It’s an external stressor in this case - the other person, the conversation, yeah? And then there’s the STRESS. The anxiety that you’re feeling. Your heart is pounding, your palms are sweaty leading up to this conversation, and you’re feeling antsy, you’re pacing around because you just can’t sit still. You FEEL the stress. 2 different things, right? Stressor and stress.
So…you have the conversation. Phew. It’s over with. Went pretty well in fact. Yay. So the stressor? It’s gone. It’s over. The conversation is a thing of the past. But…you notice that you’re still feeling a bit sweaty. You’re still kinda agitated and fidgety. Stressor is gone. Stress…not so much. In this case the stressor was kinda like a light switch; there was a moment it was over and alleviated. But your body is taking some time to come down off of that dysregulation…the stress is NOT like a light switch.
Now, there are other examples; there are plenty of time when the stressor is absolutely NOT like a light switch. There are what’s called chronic stressors where we never really get full relief from the stressor because it just keeps coming at us. If you have a tricky relationship with your parents, perhaps. Or you have an ongoing health issue that you’re dealing with. Or financial stress with no end in sight. These are what’s called chronic stressors because they just keep coming at you.
And, of course, there are other times when you feel the weight of STRESS, like the feeling of anxiety, sometimes it just evaporates off of you in an instant. Like: we’ve all been glued to the Olympics, right? And you see these athletes getting ready. It’s their turn on the beam or their heat is coming up or whatever and you see them, game face, airpods in, just STRESSED. They’re prepping. They’re where they need to be to mentally and physically get ready to compete. Yes. The event is the stressor. They’re in the biggest competition of their lives…that’s the stressor. And they’re FEELING it. The stress of that. And then…they do their thing…they’re freakin’ brilliant. Like, even if they biff it they’re at the OLYMPICS and they’re all totally geniuses. So they do their thing and then, then, you see the immediate relief. PHEW. Stress…OVER. Gone. Just, poof.
So, stressors and stress. 2 different things, but completely interrelated. So…should we talk about what we came here to talk about today? Ha, ok. How do we cope? How do we cope with the stressors and stresses in our lives?
Alright: we cope in 2 ways. We either cope maladaptively. Or, we cope in an adaptive way. So let’s break this down…maladaptive coping. To give you a somewhat technical definition: maladaptive coping strategies work to reduce the symptoms of stress in the short-term. But they do not nourish you, meaning they are not medium or long-term fixes AND they usually only address the stress that you’re feeling in the moment, not the stressor - the thing that created the stress in the first place. You can guess at some maladaptive coping techniques, right? Drinking, that’s a good one. Scrolling social media or Netflix. Overeating. All kinds of substances, really. Drugs, food, alcohol, smoking, vaping, you name it. All pretty decent ways of escaping the moment and numbing the stress…but of course, they’re not at all effective in managing the stressors AND and they can actually lead towards their own issues and problems…creating a whole different stressor and stress in your life. I have seen a LOT of people over the years who fall into a maladaptive coping mechanism to deal with stress and then they create a new stressor, and more stress, in their lives…and then they come to me with THAT quote-unquote problem…I’ve talked to so many people over the past decade who think drinking is their problem. Or overeating. Or working too hard. Or the job they have, they think that’s the problem. When in fact, a lot of times these are maladaptive coping mechanisms for a deeper, more underlying problem they were trying to fix years or decades ago. We’ve all done this. It’s a very human thing to do for sure. But it distracts us from what’s really going on. And it piles up a whole traffic jam of STUFF that doesn’t need to be there in the first place.
A few other examples of maladaptive coping strategies: rumination, emotional numbing, trying to escape or avoid things, procrastination, blaming or self-blaming…if you notice that you’re getting caught in patterns of trying to either unburden yourself of all responsibility or, paradoxically, if you’re trying to take on ALL of the responsibility in an area of your life like at work or at home, risk-taking behaviors…this is what I call the “screw it” stuff, like, oh well, what does it matter, I might as well just fill-in-the-blank with something extreme or borderline dangerous or just completely out of the norm for you. Another one is anxious avoidance…when we do this weird pendulum swing of grasping onto things really tightly and then pushing them away and then pulling and then pushing, like we can’t just settle into the middle space and BE.
If…we can only figure out how to come at things in an adaptive way. Adaptive coping strategies are a different way to handle the stressors and stress of life. So, some obvious ones: sleep, rest, downtime…these are all good. Planning ahead, and being careful not to OVERplan. Exercise and movement, going for a walk, this is very important for a lot of reasons. Talking things out, either with a friend or family member, seeing a therapist, working with a mindfulness teacher. Sometimes you need to VENT and get things off your chest, and sometimes you need help to really process how you’re thinking and feeling so that you can move forward in a healthy and grounded way. Meditation can help, mindfulness practices can help, staying connected to good friends and engaging in hobbies or activities that are purely fun can really help. There are so many adaptive coping strategies…those are some universal, broad ideas, but think about what works for YOU. What YOU love and need and what fills you up.
A clue that you’ve found something that is an adaptive coping strategy is when it’s healthy, when it feels good, and when it brings you closer to the kind of person you want to be in the short AND long-term. James Clear calls this “casting a vote for the kind of person you want to be.” Just consistently and continuously showing up and being healthy, whole, honest, real, and YOU. For me, some of these are yoga, walking, and reading. These are things I love to do, for sure, but they’re also ways that I can cope with stressors and the stress of life. Talking with friends, going for a walk alone and listening to music or a podcast or just the noises of nature, being outside, all of this is super helpful.
Nowwww, I want to caution you about ONE small little thing. Like most things, this isn’t a super simple, cut-and-dry, black-and-white thing. Meaning: maladaptive things aren’t always ONLY maladaptive. And adaptive coping strategies aren’t completely and totally ONLY adaptive coping strategies. I know…
But think about this. Let’s take something like Netflix, for example. This is something that you could use for good, or for evil. 2 different scenarios for you: one way to Netflix is to get home after work, run around like crazy for a couple of hours with dinner, kids, activities, cleaning, taking the dog out, and then phew, everyone is in bed and you crash on the couch and you don’t even care what you’re watching, you’re just in that tired-but-wired place and you want ANYTHING that will distract and entertain you, so you scroll through and then you find a kinda mindless show that you can watch, but also kinda ignore, and you binge through 5 episodes, while also kinda numbing out on social media on your phone, so you’ve got multiple screens going, and then, oh crap, it’s after midnight and you should’ve been in bed hours ago. You drag yourself to bed knowing you’re going to wake up short on sleep and you are beating yourself up for watching so much TV and you didn’t even really enjoy it; it left you feeling kinda empty. Ok, that’s one way. That’s a maladaptive way. Just hit the easy button and wait for Netflix to sweep you off to some other place for a while so that you can avoid your own reality. Yeah?
But you can also use it in an adaptive way. And no, you don’t have to watch some high-brow, educational documentary either. In fact, let’s say that you’re going to watch the exact same crap, but now you’ve labeled it your guilty pleasure show and you KNOW when you get home from work that you have 2 episodes to look forward to tonight when the house quiets down. You’re going to save that good piece of chocolate and get your comfy PJs on and when the kids go to bed, you’re going to sit down and RELISH that show for one full hour. You’re coming at it with intentionality. You know exactly what you’re up to and you’re not hoping for this ridiculous show to make you feel better. Nope. You are going to watch this show, and text a friend about it, because it’s so absurd and it makes you laugh and it gives you and this friend something to connect over. At the end of episode 2, you shut it off, get ready for bed, and you’re asleep at a reasonable time.
It’s the energy behind it, it’s how deliberate and purposeful you are with it. When we try and escape from our lives by looking around and outsourcing our attention to something like Netflix, we’re hosed. We aren’t relaxing…we’re AVOIDING. There’s a huge difference. You can be clear and clean about what you’re up to, even if it’s total trash TV or if you’re eating junk food or if you’re working late…these are all things you can do in an adaptive way that feels relaxing or serves what you need or want to do or heck, it just feels GOOD…that’s one way to approach those things. Or you can just zone out, and instead of bathing the whole thing in awareness, you’re just trying to avoid and resist and basically NOT be here, you’re trying to get as UNpresent as possible. That’s a red flag that whatever you’re doing, it’s maladaptive. I personally try and just go to bed when I’m in that mode. It might be time to hit the hard reset button for the day and just go to sleep. Try again in the morning. If it’s not time for bed or if I’m not tired, walking and breathing or things that are tricky to do in a maladaptive way. Walking is, honestly, time-consuming enough that you almost can’t overdo it. And breathing, well, as long as you’re not actively inducing a panic attack through breathing exercises, you’re probably onto something at least neutral, and at best, something that’s healthy and supportive for your nervous system.
So, yes, I did want to point that out. There are ways to eat, work, relax, engage in your hobbies, watch TV, be on your phone…lots of activities that can walk a fine line between adaptive and maladaptive. So I want you to be AWARE. It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? That we need to be aware of what we’re up to, that we need to just bathe it all in self-awareness and try to be as hip as possible to what we’re actually up to.
So, how do we cope better? Finally, we’re answering this question. And here it is: more adaptive coping strategies, fewer maladaptive coping strategies. Be onto yourself. Get honest with yourself. And see where you zone out, where you’re trying to avoid feeling something, doing something, or just BEING with yourself. Less of that. And MORE taking care of yourself by doing things that bring you closer to yourself, to who you want to be, things that are healthy and nourishing. This doesn’t mean you can’t have dessert or watch Netflix or work late. It just means: be onto yourself with it. Do it with intention. If you’re asleep at the wheel and some part of your brain is hitting the easy button and getting you to avoid life by doing whatever you’re doing? Nope, that’s not it. But if you’re aware? If you’re actively choosing it and it feels good? Well, you’re probably onto something. Yeah? Yeah.
Alright, that’s it for today. One QUICK announcement for you…I will tell you more about this in the next few episodes but I want to let you know now that it’s coming…I’m going to be teaching a fall mindfulness course. It will start on September 9th, that’s a Monday, and it will run for 6 weeks…every Monday for 6 weeks. I’ll have links and details and all that good stuff for you soon. I want to work WITH you. I want to see you in that class. So, again, more soon, but a fall mindfulness class is coming with some easy but very practical ways to transform anxiety. Sound good? Ok, I will see you next week at the same time, same place for more transforming anxiety. And until then, please, take care.