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What are Coping Strategies?

In this video we explore what coping strategies are and why we create them . . .

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With stories of the workload of education staff making regular appearances in the media in recent years, there's no denying that today's school staff have a lot on their plates, and this means that you will often find yourself developing coping strategies.  But, it's important to make sure that these coping strategies are healthy.

Coping strategies are conscious or subconscious activities that people do to try to ease difficult emotions and circumstances. We often turn to them when our levels of stress and anxiety become higher than what we are able to handle alone.

Any activity can become s coping strategy for staff working in education — it's the repeated act of turning to something to make us feel better which makes a particular behaviour a coping strategy. Such strategies can make a substantial impact on educators' well-being, though some are more effective than others.

 

All coping strategies provide some perceived benefit, but unhealthy strategies have inherent risks or carry the potential to become damaging. Engaging in this type of unhealthy coping strategy can ultimately be counterproductive. An example is regularly drinking alcohol to subdue the day's stress and consequently developing an addiction.

 

Healthy coping strategies enable people to cope with distressing emotions in a more constructive manner.

Unlike many unhealthy strategies, developing healthy coping strategies usually takes conscious and concentrated effort. However, the payoff is that relying on healthy strategies is much more likely to result in long-lasting positive outcomes.

 

Examples of unhealthy coping strategies include:

Unhealthy alcohol use

Emotional eating

Addictions

Sleeping too much

Social withdrawal

You can find guides relating to some of these unhealthy coping strategies in your wellbeing toolkit.

Examples of healthy coping strategies include

Relaxation techniques

Using social support

Exercise

Healthy eating

Seeking professional help.

 

You can discover more abut creating healthy coping strategies in our guide to coping strategies, which you can find in the 'Bitesize' section of your Wellbeing Toolkit.

To access this content you need to log in to your wellbeing toolkit.

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