Coping Skills For Teens: How To Handle Difficult Emotions
Stress and other difficult emotions are often thought of as being experienced only by adults. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), teens actually experience a higher level of stress than adults do during the school year, and 34% of teens believe their stress will increase over the next year. However, there are strategies for building a tool kit of coping skills to manage difficult emotions, and help is always available through licensed online counselors.
Why is it important to cope with difficult emotions?
Whether you’re experiencing stress, anxiety, anger, or any other challenging emotion, you’re not alone. These are common emotions that people of all ages experience at times. It can sometimes be tempting to turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as binge-watching Netflix, escaping into video games, eating far too many unhealthy snacks, or even turning to alcohol and drugs. However, there are more effective positive coping skills available for helping teens with anxiety.
Starting the process of using healthy coping skills
How do you begin replacing unhealthy habits with positive, productive ones as a teenager? It might help to first become more aware of any coping mechanisms you currently use that aren’t really helping you. Maybe as soon as you feel that familiar twinge of anxiety, you grab your phone and start scrolling through social media. Perhaps you turn to the snack cupboard anytime you feel overwhelmed. It’s important to be gentle and not judge yourself for turning to these kinds of coping mechanisms. The fact that you’ve developed these ways of coping means you’ve made an effort to handle your difficult feelings in one way or another.
Once you’ve identified some unhealthy habits, you can change them into effective coping mechanisms that can improve both your mental and physical health. For example, when you notice yourself grabbing your smartphone, you could set it down and take a few deep breaths instead, or you could even go outside and take a short walk. Rather than reaching for those sugary snacks, you could opt for fresh fruit or nuts, which offer several health benefits and can give you some energy to face the situation at hand.
If you want to develop healthy coping mechanisms that last in the long term, it may be easier if you write them down, commit to them, and make them a consistent habit. While this might be challenging at first, over time, it can become part of your regular routine.
You may also find it useful to talk to a teen counselor who can help you look at your feelings and assess where they might be coming from. They may help you to determine the root of the problem so that you feel more empowered to manage challenging feelings.
Healthy coping strategies for teens
You may even want to make your own list of coping strategies to turn to when stress or challenging emotions arise.
Activities
These positive coping strategies are meant to help you calm down and regain control over your emotions so that you can return to the situation at hand feeling more capable and empowered.
- Write, color, draw, sculpt, or create in another way.
- Sing, dance, or play an instrument.
- Take a warm bath or shower.
- Go for a walk or drive.
- Clean and organize your surroundings.
- Read a chapter of a book.
- Hold an ice cube. This is a common grounding technique to redirecting the mind away from overwhelming thoughts or feelings.
Communication
Interacting with others can be a great way to receive social support and manage difficult emotions.
- Talk with someone you trust, such as parents or guardians, friends, or other families.
- Write a note to yourself or a friend.
- Volunteer or find a way to help others.
- Snuggle with a pet.
- Role-play the situation that you're stressed about.
Positive thinking
Research shows that positive thinking can help teenagers to reduce their anxiety. There are ways you can train your brain to focus on the good in life. The following suggestions may, over time, work to naturally encourage you to be more mindful of yourself while facilitating resilience in a variety of situations. In addition, these can be important skills to build and use not only in your teen years but throughout your lifetime.
- Create a gratitude list of all the things you are grateful for in life.
- Brainstorm solutions for the situation at hand.
- Write down all of your strengths and positive attributes.
- Make a pros and cons list if you're struggling to make a decision.
Releasing tension
Sometimes, it may help to release intense emotions, and this can be done via a variety of mechanisms.
- Watch a YouTube video or show that makes you laugh.
- Get your body moving with exercise.
- Allow yourself to cry.
Lifestyle changes
Your lifestyle can have a significant impact on your stress levels and ability to handle stress and other emotions. Consider making some of the following changes to improve your mental health.
- Set aside at least eight hours of sleep each night.
- Fuel your body with healthy foods.
- Cut back on caffeine.
- Make deep breathing a part of your everyday routine.
- Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated.
Seek help for managing emotions
If you’re experiencing stress or difficulty with challenging emotions, you don’t have to face them alone. You can reach out to a professional counselor experienced in helping teenagers who face similar concerns. If you’re a teen, you can turn to your school counselor for help, but if seeing a counselor in person makes you nervous, you might consider online therapy. Online therapy has been proven to be effective for anxiety, and you can talk to a therapist from the comfort of your own home. In some cases, it may be necessary to speak to your parents so that they can look into getting you (or themselves) a therapist.
TeenCounseling is one alternative to in-person therapy for teens, and it tends to be more affordable than in-person therapy. The same services are offered to adults through BetterHelp. The availability of online therapy simply means you don't need to go anywhere outside of your home to obtain the help that you or your loved one needs - plus you save money and time.
Takeaway
How do adolescents develop coping skills and strategies?
Adolescents typically learn coping skills and strategies from their parents or caregivers. Knowing how to manage stress is not innate; it is a learned skill often modeled by parents or taught directly. It is important that teens are given the resources and education necessary to develop effective coping skills. When encountering significant stress, many young people turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms - such as substance use - if they have not been taught other ways to manage their stressful feelings.
If an adolescent’s parents or caregivers are unable or unwilling to teach them healthy strategies, they may be able to find help at their school. School counselors and other professionals can help teens by teaching coping skills for managing academic stress and other types of stress teens often encounter.
How do you maintain coping skills?
Maintaining coping skills requires building healthy habits. Typically, the most challenging part of adopting a new coping skill is at the very beginning. As with many positive habits, there are not often immediate rewards. Coping skills often must be maintained for weeks before their impact becomes obvious. Because of this, it usually takes a lot of conscious effort to maintain coping skills in the beginning, although it does become significantly easier over time.
Experts do have some methods that can ease the process, such as linking a new behavior to a specific time and place with the following steps:
- Select a positive coping skill that you’d like to develop.
- Choose a simple method for practicing that skill.
- Select a time and place where you will practice the skill. It should be a place you encounter every day of the week.
- Every time you encounter that place at the time you chose, practice the skill, regardless of whether you need it.
- Make sure you practice the skill daily at the same place and time. It will become easier to maintain over time and will likely become second nature in about ten weeks.
Once you develop a good coping habit, you will likely find it much easier to apply the skill outside of practice sessions. A common misconception is that you need to be actively distressed to practice coping well, but practicing the skills when you aren’t overwhelmed makes them much easier to obtain when you need them most.
How are coping strategies helpful to students?
Academic stress is a significant barrier to high academic performance. The coping skills teens use to manage that stress may significantly affect their ability to succeed at school. Poor coping skills might worsen academic stress and induce other problems, like increased procrastination or social withdrawal. In contrast, healthy coping not only helps a student manage stress but can help them grow and develop as a person.
Evidence suggests that positive strategies significantly increase self-esteem, which may help students become more engaged in their coursework, make additional attempts to complete difficult tasks, and help them discover new avenues for solving problems. It is likely that healthy coping introduces positive change, which serves as a defensive factor against future adversity.
How can you promote healthy coping?
One of the best ways to promote healthy coping is by engaging in good mental and physical self-care. There are three foundational parts of self-care: sleep, diet, and exercise. Getting adequate sleep, eating healthy food, and engaging in regular physical activity are usually considered the most basic components of strong mental health and good coping. More advanced strategies, like relaxation techniques or cognitive restructuring, may not be effective if the basic requirements are not being met.
How can you prevent unhealthy coping strategies?
Many teens turn to unhealthy coping strategies when they need to relieve stress quickly and don’t have any healthy coping strategies to use. It is likely best to develop healthy coping skills before they are needed; coping strategies are usually easier to implement if a person has practiced them before they are overwhelmed by stress.
Preventing unhealthy coping likely requires that a person have at least a few healthy coping strategies to choose from. Some of them take little skill or practice to implement, like seeking emotional support from parents or friends. Others, such as countering negative thoughts with positive affirmations, may take some practice before they can be used during times of intense emotion.
What are coping strategies to overcome emotional triggers?
Several positive coping strategies can be used when emotional triggers dramatically increase feelings of distress. One of the most effective strategies is a relaxation technique like progressive muscle relaxation (PMR). PMR requires a person to tense and relax individual muscle groups and then note the relaxation they feel in their bodies. Other healthy ways to manage a strong emotional response are to listen to calming music, squeeze a stress ball, or take a walk. Exiting the situation and avoiding the emotional trigger will likely be helpful if possible.
How do you stay away from emotional stress?
Staying away from emotional stress isn’t always possible, but you can lower the chances that the emotional burdens around you become overwhelming. One of the best ways to limit the emotional stress in your life is to set healthy boundaries. Setting healthy boundaries requires self and social awareness; you need to understand how a situation is making you feel, as well as how another person is feeling.
Part of setting healthy boundaries requires you to remove yourself from overly stressful situations. In some cases, peers may try to influence you to remain in a stressful situation, but you don’t have to participate in anything that makes you uncomfortable. If other people’s stress significantly impacts your emotional state, you may need to take a step back from the situation to cope and evaluate your needs.
How do you stay calm in an emotional situation?
Staying calm in the present moment when emotions become heated can sometimes be challenging. It is likely best to have at least a couple of go-to strategies you can use to prevent strong emotions from becoming undesired behaviors. One of the best ways to stay calm, if you can use it, is to exit the situation as soon as you can. It is almost always okay to say, “I need some space to calm down,” before proceeding with a conversation or making a decision.
You may also want to consider some basic strategies that leverage your body’s biology to help you calm down quickly. One of the most effective is diaphragmatic breathing, or “belly breathing.” Anger, stress, and agitation are all fight-or-flight responses that arise when your brain detects a potential threat, even if that threat is just an emotional situation. Belly breathing directly counteracts the fight-or-flight response and reduces the physiological sensations of strong emotions, like a racing heartbeat.
Belly breathing is simple to do. Begin by inhaling slowly and deeply for four to six seconds. Hold your breath for a second or two, then exhale, taking another four to six seconds to do so. Repeat until you feel calm.
How are coping strategies different from emotional regulation?
While some coping strategies directly help you manage emotions, such as using relaxation strategies when stress becomes overwhelming, most coping strategies indirectly enable emotional regulation. For example, positive self-talk can improve self-esteem and resiliency, likely reducing the emotional impact of stressful situations. Although positive self-talk doesn’t generally calm you down directly - although in some circumstances it could - it likely helps form a strong foundation of resiliency that makes emotional regulation easier.
What is the relationship between coping strategies and psychological well-being?
Evidence has consistently supported that positive coping strategies can bolster overall well-being, while negative coping can significantly reduce it. Harmful coping strategies, like using substances or taking out your anger on a pillow, may provide short-term relief at the expense of long-term growth and resilience. Harmful coping methods may also increase stress and make it more challenging to manage difficult life circumstances by adding to the problems a person is already experiencing.
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