Coping - what strategy do you use?

How do you manage the hardships and struggles that come your way in life?

The answer would determine, to some extent, your health. So listen up.

People have several strategies to cope. Naturally, researchers have jumped in to learn, classify and understand how human beings cope.

To keep it simple, let us focus on two kinds. Task focused coping and emotion focused coping. You direct your attention and focus on the issue, or you direct your attention to how you feel about it.

You can obviously do both.

In task focused, you can be actively coping. You pick up the phone, call a friend, an acquaintance and act to solve.

In planning focused, you analyze, anticipate, and solve the issue. You are thinking a few steps ahead and attempting to deflect, divert, or address.

In restraint focused, you use your patience. There could be a better moment for addressing it.

In socially centered, you reach out to others to help you overcome.

But what of your emotions, you might ask? Isn’t that the real problem?

Sure, so you would reach out to friends and family and ask for support in social coping.

You might reframe the problem as one that is teaching you valuable lessons, powering your growth and development.

You learn to accept or even outright deny that there is a problem. People do both.

Finally, you could turn to a higher power, and leave the burden to her.

I was surprised to find that for many of the challenges in my life; I have run through the entire gamut. That is the nature of problems, is it not? They persist and refuse to go away.

Here is what I learnt. The skill to comprehend which coping mechanism or style is useful for a particular problem saves you a ton of time and energy.

Reach out to me on twitter @rbawri Instagram @riteshbawriofficial and YouTube at www.youtube.com/breatheagain