A good way of determining if you are engaging in healthy coping behavior (AKA coping skills or coping strategies) or if an unwanted defense mechanism, is regular introspective practice called mindfulness. Practice looking at yourself on a regular basis and being mindful of what you are doing. Is it a behavior that promotes a healthy life or is it physically/medically or psychologically harmful? Prevent harmful defense mechanisms from becoming habit (or breaking the habit that has already occurred) by practicing mindful awareness throughout the day and especially when you are stressed out or bothered by something. Mindfulness can be used to promote mental wellness throughout the day. Especially when you are feeling stressed and down, check in with yourself regularly. You can then redirect your awareness to the simple, pleasant aspects of your environment such as the sounds around you, tastes, smells, etc. Tune in to your stress, notice where it is in your body. Then practice mindful exercises to alleviate that stress.
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The Feeling Better Blog
- What does depression feel like?
- The importance of telling the difference between between reality and the negative voices in your head
- Anthony Bourdain’s suicide. Tears of a clown and the silent killer
- Mindfulness and meditation can help stop or reduce drinking or using recreational drugs
- Mini-panics
- Coping Skill 9: The news may increase your anxiety: Turn off TV, computer screen or any electronic screen.
- The Unreliable Narrator
- Body Scan your way to reduced stress (8)
- Cleaning: Coping Skill 6/100
- Soft Technique: Moving Into The Pain: (C.S.#7)
- You make me feel
- Coping Skill 5/100: Gardening (outdoor OR indoor)
- Coping Skill 4/100: Keep a Journal
- Play a musical instrument (Skill 3/100)
- Coping Skill 2/100: Music
- Coping skill 1/100: Do nothing
- 100 coping skills in 360 days
- “Self serve” therapeutic intervention: Coping Skills
- Mindfulness for Road Rage
- Meditation (The New and Improved Post)
- Strengthen the Observer
- Crying in the Dark: Why and How Psychotherapy Helps
- Mindful Rushing
- Can you Walk While Meditating? Can you Meditate While Walking?
- The importance of being ernest: Authenticity in therapy
- Mindfulness in stress reduction
- Maladaptive coping mechanisms: externalizing and internalizing
- Defense mechanisms Vs Coping Strategies
- Does anxiety make you angry?
- Germanwings Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz gives people with mental Illness a bad rap