Manage Emotions With Better Coping Skills - Guided Exercises

Learn to manage your emotions with better coping skills. In this talk, Dr. Traci discusses the importance of coping skills and when and how to use them effectively. This track includes a guided practice of breathing exercises, mindfulness techniques, progressive relaxation, and a grounding exercise. This should not to be used when you're in need of a coping skill. Use this when you're already calm so you'll be better prepared when you do need a way to calm down.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Dr.

Tracey Moreno,

Psychologist.

Today I want to walk you through some coping skills because we all need to have a whole arsenal full of all kinds of different coping skills,

Things that can just take,

You know,

A couple seconds to a couple days.

A couple seconds would be like a quick breathing technique,

A couple days could even be like up to a vacation.

We have to have different things ready for different times because we can't always do everything.

Say if your primary coping skill would be music or exercising.

Well when you're at work you just can't leave and go do that all of a sudden.

So we have to have a bunch of others ready for us.

Now the key to coping skills is that they're going to be much easier to implement when we're at the earliest possible level of that stress build up.

So having that awareness within yourself is very important.

And coping skills are a way to decrease our symptoms and reduce stress on the body.

What's really important is that coping skills have to be very conscious.

Say for instance if one of your coping skills is walking the dog.

Well that can also be a chore.

So we have to consciously put the dog on the leash,

Get ready to walk out the door and say to ourselves,

Okay I'm going to walk outside.

It's time for me to just breathe and let go of what I'm feeling.

And I'm going to look around,

I'm going to take in the sky,

The flowers,

The grass,

The sounds,

Whatever it is.

If we don't do that then it's just kind of like,

Alright hurry up Fido,

Hurry up,

Hurry up and pee,

You know,

And we just get even more frustrated than when we started.

So make sure that when you use a certain coping skill that it's a very conscious effort and you're using it to let go.

So one of the very quickest,

Easiest ones that you can pretty much do anywhere is breathing techniques.

So first off we want to make sure that you are engaging in proper breathing.

A lot of people don't breathe properly,

Believe it or not.

So we want to make sure that you're breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth,

But you also want to make sure that that breath goes all the way down to the diaphragm,

To the tummy.

And so what I recommend is putting one hand on your chest or your heart area and your other hand on the belly.

And then when you breathe in,

Your belly should be sticking out more than the hand on your heart.

And then when you breathe out,

It contracts and goes back down.

So go ahead and try that a few times and just make sure you have that proper breathing technique.

Your belly should be moving in and out more than any other part of your body.

And so for the rest of these,

If I say engage in proper breathing,

That's what you're going to do.

Just make sure you're breathing in and out through the nose,

Out of the mouth and into the diaphragm.

Okay so now we're going to go ahead and engage in proper breathing.

And when you're ready,

Breathe in as much air as you can and hold your breath for four seconds and then breathe it out as slowly through your mouth as possible.

After that you can go back to breathing normally.

And when you're ready,

I want you to repeat that on your own two more times.

Inhale,

Hold for four.

And exhale.

One more time.

And when you're done,

You can breathe normally.

This is one of my favorite ones and you can repeat that as many times as you need.

Okay let's go on to another breathing technique.

Go ahead and engage in proper breathing.

This time I want you to breathe in through your nose for a count of,

Let's start out with three.

And then when you breathe out,

I want you to breathe out to a count of four.

Then when you breathe in,

I want you to go to four.

And out to five.

The next one will be an in-count for five.

And out for six.

And you'll just keep moving up as much as you can control your breath.

And the goal is to make your out breath longer than your in breath.

And the process of having to count that breath and pay attention to which number you're on.

You know the three,

Four,

The four,

Five,

Five,

Six.

That is a mindfulness technique.

So when you're doing that,

It's very hard to continue to stress on whatever you were stressing about.

And now it brings you present,

You're mindful,

You're calm and focused.

And you've refocused your attention off the stress and onto your body in the present moment.

In talking about mindfulness,

Mindfulness is a great way to bring us present.

So here's one mindfulness technique you can use.

This one goes through all the five senses in your immediate surroundings.

So you're going to go through five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

So you're and then you're going to go through all the senses.

So you're going to say out loud,

Five things you see.

Then you're going to say four things you hear.

Three things you feel.

Two things you smell.

And one thing you can taste.

Again the part of keeping track of the five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One and then keeping track of each of the senses is a way to just bring you to the present moment and refocus your attention.

So here's another mindfulness technique.

Using your sense of sound,

I want you to start by identifying the furthest thing you can hear,

The furthest thing.

And then we're going to gradually come in until you're hearing something like on your own body,

Like your heartbeat.

So you could start with maybe you hear a plane or you hear cars or construction or a dog barking.

Then as you come in it could be maybe something,

If you're at home,

Maybe like outside in the yard.

If you're at work maybe it would be something like in the building.

And then you're going to come in a little bit further and you're going to try to hear something like,

Again if you're in the house,

Maybe it's in the house now.

If you're at work it could be in your immediate,

Like on your floor or in your area.

And then you're going to come in again.

If you're in your house that would be like a sound in your room.

And if you're at work it could be the sound in maybe the office or maybe you escape to the bathroom real quick to take a mental break.

And then you want to come in to your body and focus in on a sound of your body.

Probably the two most common would be the heartbeat and maybe if your stomach is growling or something like that.

Okay here's a third mindfulness technique.

We're going to do the same type of exercise but now we're going to do it with our sight.

You're going to start with the furthest thing that you see and gradually make your way closer until you reach the smallest detail of your body.

So you could start with a cloud,

A star,

The sun and then you're going to gradually come in.

Maybe you see again a plane or something in the sky.

You come in a little further.

Maybe now you see the tops of the trees.

Come in a little further.

Now you see the branches or some plants or flowers.

Come in a little further.

You're going to see maybe if you're sitting on a blanket or sitting on the concrete or a chair or whatever you're going to notice that.

Then you're going to come in again and now you can notice the clothes you're wearing.

You're going to keep coming in until you would notice the smallest thing like maybe a freckle on your shelf or like a cuticle on your finger.

Again these are great ways to just redirect your attention and get yourself present.

Now we're going to move on to what I call a heart centered exercise.

This is actually my favorite one.

So I want you to put one hand on your heart and turn your focus inwards so that you can feel the beating of your heart.

It helps to close your eyes through this and if you can't feel your heart beat right away don't panic.

You're not you're not dead.

You're still alive but sometimes we're so caught up in the outside world that there are times that we can't feel it and it takes some time but it's not that it's not there.

It's that it's just difficult to transfer our energy and our attention from the outside world to our internal selves.

And if it is difficult for you to feel your heart beat this is a great example to show you how maybe disconnected your mind may be from your body which means this is the perfect exercise for you to practice.

So I want you to keep breathing and focus on your heart until you feel that beat.

Then I want you to choose one or more of these statements to say to yourself.

You can say them in your head but I believe that saying them out loud is much more powerful.

Here's the statements.

I am calm.

I am peaceful.

I am loved.

I am confident.

I am strong.

I am safe.

I am good.

I am capable.

I am worth it.

I matter.

So you can choose maybe one of these statements if one of those resonated with you and it's something that maybe you need to hear more of.

Pick that one,

Pick one or two and just repeat these statements over until your stress,

Anxiety,

Sadness,

Whatever emotion you're feeling decreases and you start to feel more calm.

Okay next is a body scan or a progressive relaxation.

So we're going to be using the visualization in your mind and one at a time we're going to identify the individual parts of your body starting with the top of your head and going all the way to your toes.

And as I say each part you're going to go ahead and close your eyes and as I say each part I want you to visualize each body part consciously and relax it.

So you can try it with me.

Go ahead and close your eyes and let's start with the scalp.

Forehead eyes cheeks jaw neck shoulders arms hands fingers chest upper back lower back tummy hips butt thighs knees feet toes Your whole body is relaxed.

Now for this one you can go through it as fast or slow as you'd like and you can kind of call out each body part to yourself and your mind and instead of going through like scalp forehead eyes cheeks you can say head you know you could say head shoulders hips legs and be done with it or you can go through even break it down even more and go through elbows and wrists and you can either even go through separate fingers.

Whatever you need in the moment and have time for.

And the last one we have is a grounding exercise.

So go ahead and sit with if you ideally the best way is if you could sit and have your bare feet on the ground the earth to connect with the earth.

If not you can do this absolutely anywhere.

But just go ahead and have a comfortable position and begin to engage in proper breathing.

Use your body as the trunk of a thick strong tree with its roots growing from your body and into the earth.

Breathe into this.

Imagine the roots grow deeper into the earth which is making your body stronger and able to withstand anything.

Breathe into this.

Keep imagining the roots growing deeper as you become stronger and breathe into each step that it grows.

Breathe into that strength and stability.

Now with this one too you can make it your own based on how specific you want to get,

How detailed you want to get or how general and quick you want to get.

But the basis is to make sure that you are feeling connected to the earth.

And so we want to you do any sort of visualization that is helping your body connect into the earth.

Now there are no rules for any of these things except for the proper breathing and make it your own.

That's really important.

Modify any of this stuff.

Even meditation.

Modify it.

Make it your own.

That's the only way that will actually do it.

These things don't have to be perfectly done.

Eyes closed,

Quiet room.

Usually if we can close our eyes and be in a quiet room we won't need this stuff anyway.

So really just do what you can and make it your own.

Do it quick,

Long,

Whatever it is that you need.

Good luck to you and take care.

Reviews

Thank you for providing different ways to connect with my body/mind when anxious. I will practice these techniques to help with my anxiety.