A very relevant question was recently posed to me by a young adult curious about how to approach coping, especially in seasons of transition and unknown. This question felt important to ponder because I think we’ve all asked it (especially in the counseling room) and because it’s a question that doesn't have a simple, “problem solved” type of answer. The kind of question that leaves us with more questions, but perhaps also leaves us with some helpful encouragement on what it is to be human.
The question posed to me was, “how do you cope with emotional turmoil?” Could there be a more relevant question to living human life? Personally, I don’t think so. So much of what makes us human is being able to live with the colorful array of emotional experience and expression. Something that so many people have studied and given beautiful insight on, yet still remains so nuanced. Nonetheless, join me in engaging a relevant, important question that we’ve all asked – how do I manage living this life with the ups and downs of emotional experience? How do I cope?
Exploring how to respond to emotional stress or turmoil, in my mind, infers inclusivity. That is, while we all go through different difficult emotional experiences, and naturally respond to them differently, we can’t deny that the throughline is experiencing emotion. This conversation is relevant to all of us, includes all of us, and can be added to by all of our unique experiences/stories. No one is exempt from feeling. So what better way to explore something we all have in common than hearing various perspectives on that shared thing. Quotes below are cited (and I’d encourage you to look further into them if so) if they’ve been notably named by one person.
“You can’t prevent a bird from flying over your head – but you can prevent it from building a nest in your hair.”
The natural world seems to provide helpful examples of what is within and outside of our control. We’d be at a loss if our energy was put toward preventing things like birds flying overhead or rain falling as it chooses, or flowers blooming in the springtime. We’re reminded each day that the sun rises and sets beyond our control. We've adjusted to these things quite well though. We’ve built our lives around the rising and the setting of the sun, we bring an umbrella when it rains, we plant gardens for the blooming flowers. In the same way, while we can’t prevent negative things from happening or from experiencing all negative emotions, we can prevent nests from building in our hair.
Nature may have been the first relevant example that we have the power to cope with life outside of our control. Without trying to eliminate a negative experience from ever occurring, we can find ways to prevent these negative experiences or emotions from absorbing us and negatively impacting us forever.
What are some simple, accessible ways to experiment with coping mechanisms?
When you’re experiencing difficult emotion, try:
Talking about it with others
Journaling or doodling about it
Engaging in movement/physical activity
Practicing gratitude (“Despite the challenge I’m going through, I am grateful for…”)
Practicing a hobby mindfully (putting strong attention toward the activity you’re doing)
“To expect ourselves to be able to change in a dopamine saturated environment, would be like expecting us to simply stop being human.”
-Anna Lembke talking about her book, Dopamine Nation
Anna Lembke is an expert on addiction research so this quote comes from her book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. In this book she shares a perspective of creating better habits and changing the environment around us as one way to do that. To better understand her perspective of creating sustainable habits, in turn, healthy coping skills, we must better understand the dopamine reward/response system.
To put it very simply, dopamine is a chemical in the brain that is responsible for sending particular messages – a chemical messenger. It carries messages regarding pleasure and reward. Basically, whenever we do something we enjoy (something pleasurable), there is a release of dopamine and that is like we are pressing a “happiness button” in our brain. This is the dopamine reward/response system. We all have endless evidence for how magnificently our brains operate, and this is certainly a part of the pile. Our brains ultimate goal as this response system plays out is to maintain balance. As unfortunate as this may sound, feeling pleasure 100% of the time would be very off balance. So when we start to engage in too many dopamine triggering experiences one after the other, like playing video games for hours on end or eating our favorite dessert excessively, the same amount of dopamine won’t be released (aka: our brain begins to regulate how much dopamine we’re receiving.) In turn, those same pleasurable activities start to feel a little less exciting, they lose their spark. As you may be able to imagine, this is the same process that takes place in drug and alcohol use and abuse. The less dopamine released by taking in the same amount of a substance, means less pleasure, typically resulting in the consumer taking a higher amount of the substance in order to feel the desired pleasure. Now, what does dopamine have to do with coping with emotional stress? Well, returning to and paraphrasing Anna Lembke’s words, “trying to change in a dopamine saturated world is like expecting ourselves to stop being human” encourages us to take into account our daily dopamine experiences in order to change, and perhaps just the same, in order to cope.
For instance, imagine you’re experiencing high work-related stress and you set a goal to increase your physical movement in the morning to help you cope with this and gain energy for the day ahead. But you’re spending an hour on social media as soon as you wake up, or skipping breakfast and drinking 20 ounces of coffee on your drive to work. Your pathway to starting your day with physical movement or generally in minimizing stress is looking pretty challenging. These concentrated dopamine triggering activities first thing in the morning are setting you up for a pretty imbalanced day ahead. But how could you expect yourself to change without taking into account that these activities are always around you/us? We live in a world where high dopamine activities/behaviors/substances are everywhere, and we need to make intentional decisions about which helpful dopamine triggering experiences we’ll engage in. When we are going through challenging situations especially, it can be paramount to take inventory of our time and the high dopamine experiences within our routine.
“We must focus less on just eliminating misery and more on adding happiness in our lives.”
-Marty Seligman
In the development of the psychology field and generally the mental health conversation there was a primary focus of “eliminating misery” that was maintained for a long time. In so many ways there still is a focus on limiting negative symptoms in our lives. Many of us would agree that that’s a primary goal of treatment. Something Positive Psychology adds to this conversation is the inverse approach of “adding joy” to our lives. I see this lens and approach to coping with emotional stress as revolutionary in some ways. While it’s important to process the heaviness in our lives and actually we must do this to healthily engage with the world, Positive Psychology would argue that we can simultaneously cope by engaging in things that add happiness.
There’s so much more to be said about the science of happiness and positive psychology in the counseling room, but thinking about this in your own life is the best place to start! Consider some of these ideas to add happiness to your day-to-day life. I’m not suggesting you ignore or push away the emotional stress, but perhaps effective coping with that emotional stress can come from engaging in happiness fostering activities. This list is NOT exhaustive nor does it include things specific to your interests or capabilities. So please keep this in mind :)
Happiness Stepping Stones:
Learning and trying new things (i.e. learning a new language, trying out a new hobby, tasting a new food.)
Being social – one of the biggest contributors to our happiness based on happiness science is social connection and pro social behavior. (i.e. calling your friends/family, going to a networking event, random acts of kindness.)
Sharing experiences with others. This can both mean doing things with others and talking about experiences with others. (i.e. Going on a trip with another person, completing a task with another person, talking to a friend about an interest of yours/asking about another person's interests.)
Physical movement (i.e. going on a walk, stretching, going to a workout class)
Being creative (i.e. arts & crafts, writing, journaling, singing, dancing, playing instruments, designing, brainstorming.)
Making meaning – connecting with your core values. (i.e. read a book connected with your spiritual practice, if family is one of your values, go and spend time with your family.)
There’s a really encouraging side to working through emotional difficulty. When we put energy into things that make us happy (scientifically proven and otherwise), we are building our emotional immune system, our ability to better handle emotional challenges in the future.
“The number one thing that most people can do to take responsibility for their experience is to ask for help.”
Trying out new ways to cope with stress, depressive or anxious symptoms and more can feel like a daunting, weighted task. While all of these approaches explored today may be worth giving a try, it should be equally encouraged to consider asking others to support you along the way. While it’s important to be comfortable in your personal agency and use your natural skills of adapting, flexibility, and growth, we shouldn’t overlook the resource that is our support system. Asking others for support is like joining in efforts toward a shared goal, as we’re all on a journey of making sense of the world around us.
If you want to take control of your life and your emotional experience, then practice asking for support as another coping skill. In some ways, coping could be viewed as the task of navigating being human every day. Sometimes that involves regulating and creating habits on our own. Other times, it means being connected with others and leaning on the people around us! May this be a reminder that you have the skills within you to do both and to create the life you most want to live.
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