When people are facing situations in their lives that put them in some level of stress or pressure, they often take up strategies to help them manage the situation. The situations can be positive or negative. These strategies have been called Coping strategies or mechanisms.

Coping strategies, may involve focusing on the situation, so as to manage it towards resolution. It may also involve focusing on the emotions that come up due to the situation.

On another level, coping strategies can include 'Confronting the issue', or 'Avoiding it'.

With coping strategies, there are those ones that are helpful, and there are those ones that are unhelpful.

Helpful coping strategies may include:

1. Seeking support, counseling.
2. Exercise or other forms of physical activity.
3. Relaxation through soothing music, massage, art & poetry etc.

Unhelpful coping strategies could include:

1. Risky behavior (extreme sport, high speed driving and other forms of adrenaline-high activities).

2. Escape or isolation from society.

3. Unhealthy soothing through over-eating, binge drinking, excessive use of social media. Etc. These often lead to dependence on what they consume.

4. Numbing: This is when soothing behaviors have degenerated and is used to mask the effects of stress. It includes use of drugs, binging, unhealthy eating etc.

When a person is experiencing emotional stress, seeking counseling, therapy and support is highly recommended. Other forms of coping strategies may only serve to sooth the situation (as in the case of helpful coping strategies) or make it fester (as in the case of unhelpful coping strategies). As a wise man once said, “You don't want to place a sticky plaster over an infected wound”.

Therapy deals with underlying issues.

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