9 Healthy Coping Skills for PTSD

Deep Breathing

Breathing plays an important role in the stress response. Unfortunately, many people do not breathe properly.

Over time, people forget how to breathe this way and instead use their chest and shoulders. This causes short and shallow breaths, which can increase stress and anxiety.

Fortunately, it is possible to re-learn how to breathe deeply from your diaphragm and help protect yourself from stress. Practice simple deep breathing exercises to improve your breathing and combat anxiety.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Using relaxation exercises can also be effective coping skills for PTSD, providing a way to reduce stress and anxiety. Progressive muscle relaxation alternates between tensing and relaxing different muscle groups throughout the body. This relaxation method is similar to a pendulum.

In addition, by tensing your muscles (a common symptom of anxiety) and immediately relaxing them, the symptom of muscle tension may become a signal to relax over time.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness techniques are useful coping skills for PTSD. Mindfulness has been around for thousands of years, and mental health professionals are beginning to recognize that mindfulness can benefit people dealing with anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions.

It is important to note that this type of self-reflection can sometimes bring difficult emotions or thoughts to light, particularly if you have a history of trauma. Some research has also reported that some people may experience significant distress when practicing mindfulness, including increased anxiety symptoms, dissociation, and emotional numbing. 

Self-Monitoring

Self-monitoring can be a helpful way of getting a handle on your anxiety symptoms.

People are creatures of habit. This means they often go about the day without thinking about what they are doing, feeling, or experiencing.

Lack of awareness may make people feel their thoughts and emotions are unpredictable and unmanageable. Unfortunately, this means that people cannot address uncomfortable anxiety symptoms without first being aware of what situations bring up these feelings.

Social Support

Anxiety is easier to deal with when you have people to stand by and support you. Research has found that finding support from others can be a major factor in helping people overcome the negative effects of a traumatic event and PTSD.

When you are dealing with a stressful situation, it helps to have a trusted person to turn to. Supportive people can also be a great source of emotional validation.

However, simply having someone available to talk to may not be enough. A supportive relationship has several important pieces that may be particularly beneficial in helping someone manage their anxiety.

These supportive connections, whether they come in the form of an in-person support group led by a mental health professional or an online group, can help people with PTSD connect with other people who share their struggles. This can be a source of valuable connection, encouragement, advice, and strength as people cope with the troubling symptoms of PTSD.

Self-Soothing

When you are experiencing anxiety, it is important to have ways of coping with those feelings. For example, seeking out social support can be an excellent way of improving your mood. However, the anxiety associated with symptoms of PTSD can sometimes occur unexpectedly, and social support may not be readily available.

In order to handle those situations where anxiety seems to strike out of nowhere, it is important to learn coping strategies that you can do on your own. These coping strategies focus on improving your mood and reducing anxiety and are sometimes described as self-soothing or self-care coping strategies.

Expressive Writing

Journaling can also be a useful coping skill for PTSD. It can help people express and process their thoughts and feelings (also called expressive writing), which can be a good way of coping with anxiety.

In PTSD, in particular, expressive writing has been found to have several benefits, including improved coping, post-traumatic growth (the ability to find meaning in and have positive life changes following a traumatic event), and reduced PTSD symptoms, tension, and anger.

Distraction

Purposeful use of distraction techniques can be of benefit in coping with emotions that are strong and feel uncomfortable, such as anxiety and fear. Distraction is anything you do to temporarily take your attention off of strong emotion.

Some helpful distraction techniques for coping with PTSD include:

• Talking to a friend or family member
• Doing housework
• Exercising
• Engaging in a creative task
• Watching a tv show or movie
• Reading a book
• Playing a game
• Counting backward
• Reciting a mantra or affirmation
• Visualizing an enjoyable scene
• Coloring in an adult coloring book
• Playing a video game
• Taking a nap
• Doing yoga
• Meditating

Behavioral Activation

Anxiety and avoidance go hand-in-hand. While the avoidance of anxiety-provoking situations may help reduce anxiety at the moment, in the long term it may prevent you from living a meaningful and rewarding life (especially as this avoidance grows bigger and bigger).

To try this approach, list activities that you find rewarding. Examples might include:

• Spending time with friends
• Engaging in exercise
• Going out for coffee
• Visiting the library
• Volunteering
• Rearranging furniture
• Hiking
• Taking photos
• Painting
• Cooking a meal
• Listening to a podcast 

Next, set a goal for how many activities you want to complete each week and then track your progress as you engage in these different tasks.