Exploring unhealthy and healthy coping strategies
How do you like your coping strategy? With sugar or honey?
With the developing technologies and increasing needs, there has been an exceptional amount of processed food that is produced today. Additionally, these processed foods are usually cheap, accessible and last long. Sounds good doesn’t it? Mostly, processed food has made our life easier to run by the day. In recent years there has been a significant increase in the consumption of processed food. However, what are the consequences of consuming process food in the long run?
Several studies have found that an increase in consumption of processed food was associated with obesity and other health risks. These are unhelpful effects of processed food consumed over prolonged period. Before I get you thinking that this article is going to be about food and nutrition, let me tell you how I associate this with our mental well-being.
Having to work with young people, I enjoy using analogies to help them understand thought processes. I find this analogy especially helpful for cognitive restructuring and other CBT models. Most of our coping strategies are like processed food. We prefer to use strategies that are accessible, easy to manage, lasts long and does not take too much from us. Most of the time, these strategies get us through the day. For example, a young person had presented to me with anxiety symptoms. Their current coping strategies include scratching self, punching walls or alcohol consumption. As they uncover these self-injuring behaviours, they learnt that the above-mentioned strategies ease of their anxiousness as it is “calming, distracting or satisfying”. Just like processed food, these strategies will help them get through the day easing of their anxiousness to a certain extent. However, in the long run, it leads to bruises and dependency.
Now, you have had a very long and stressful day. You are mindful of your physical health, but you also want to relax and wind down. Chamomile tea sounds great to you at this stage. But you like it sweet. At the pantry, you find brown sugar, white sugar, and honey. These 3 ingredients will sweeten your cuppa. However, the calories vary for each ingredient, being mindful of your physical health, which would you choose for your cuppa? These 3 ingredients are just the different strategies we have in our life. They aim to make our life better, however, in the long run some does damage to us.
If you are scratching yourself when you are anxious, how does that help you? Do you find it satisfying? Is it the marks that you see or the sound that you hear? Ask yourself what other ways you can achieve similar satisfaction. Maybe scratching a pillow? Or maybe using a pen/marker to draw on yourself? Both type of strategies helps you to get through your day. However, one may lead to bruises and the other disappears when you wash away.
Similarly, our unhealthy coping strategies may help us on a short term, however, lead to other risk factors. How can we change that?
Again, how do you like your Cuppa?