Positive ways to deal with negative feelings
What do you do when you’re feeling anxious?
CBT coping skills are tools that can help you handle negative emotions in a healthy way.
They provide strategies for getting through difficult situations with less tension, anxiety,depression, and stress.
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CBT coping skills help youdeal with uncomfortable emotions(anxiety, depression, etc.)
so you’ve got the option to feel better physically, make better decisions, and more.
Negative interpretations and evaluations can lead to unhealthy behaviors.
CBT works by changing how you think.
By replacing maladaptive ways of thinking and negative interpretations of events, you might reduce unhealthy behavioral patterns.
It also teaches you the skills and cognitive strategies needed to better cope with whatever life throws your way.
Self-Monitoring
Self-monitoringis a basic CBT coping skill.
Self-monitoring can help with this.
With this awareness, we can then take action to regulate our behaviors so we have more positive outcomes.
you might develop this skill by paying attention to your own thoughts, behaviors, and reactions.
To do this, you might trywriting in a journalor using amood tracker.
As you do this, you may start to notice certain patterns and triggers.
It also allows you to track your progress as you work toward implementing healthier CBT skills.
Diaphragmatic breathing involves pulling your diaphragm down while taking a deep breath in.
Being more involved with and engaged in these experiences improves your mood.
As your mood improves, so will your thoughts and coping behaviors.
It might leave you feeling paralyzed or trapped.
When this happens, you may not know the best choice.
Or you might make decisions that aren’t good for you in the long-term.
One way to move forward in situations like this is to weigh the shortand long-term pros and cons.
Cognitive Restructuring
Cognitive restructuringis a common CBT coping skill.
This cognitive strategy focuses on identifying negative thoughts or evaluations and modifying them.
Cognitive restructuring involves gathering evidence about certain thoughts and recognizing how they may be misinterpreted or distorted.
Then, you work on systematically replacing them with morepositive affirmations.
By modifying our thoughts, we can improve our mood and make better choices regarding our behaviors.
Because of this, you want to be careful whensetting goals.
So, how can you put this CBT coping skill to use?
Start by approaching your goals in a way that improves your mood and quality of life without increasing distress.
That’s when CBT coping skills come in handy.
They can help you better handle and manage difficult emotions and situations.
By changing how you interpret feelings and events, you’ll feel better able to manage your emotions.
However, if you aren’t getting adequate relief from these approaches, talk to a mental health professional.
These processes use the same types of strategies like those used in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
Regularly practicing cognitive coping strategies such as these can help improve your skills.
CBT coping skills such as cognitive restructuring can help change thought patterns that lead to anxiety.
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