Coping Toolkit
When getting back to activities that have been hard because of your pain, you might feel overwhelmed, stressed, worried, or unsure how you will get through the activity. In these moments, it is helpful to have a few coping tools that you know are helpful to you. Below are Coping Tools that other youth with pain have found to be helpful during Activity Exposures. The key to these tools is that they are active strategies. This means that instead of stopping the activity all together when things get challenging, you will do something to help you keep going.
Active Coping Tools
Breathing
Stretches
Movement Break
Helpful Thoughts
Just Get Into It!
Distraction
Whether you are stressed or in pain (or both!), taking deep breaths can help to calm your body and mind.
If your muscles get sore or tired, it helps to take a break to stretch so you can keep going.
If you need to take a break from the activity, a movement break is helpful! This means that you keep moving in some way, like a quick walk up and down the hall or shaking out your arms, but you still get a mental break from the activity.
Sometimes your mind gives you a lot of things to worry about that aren’t always helpful. For this strategy, you will work to change unhelpful thoughts into more helpful thoughts.
Sometimes you might find that you just love the activity so much that you want to just get into it! This strategy can be helpful for taking your mind off of everything else, including pain and worries.
Pairing an activity that you like doing (that isn’t challenging) with one that is challenging can help you do the hard activity. For example, some people like to listen to music while exercising. You are still paying attention to the activity you are doing, but the music can help to keep your mind off of the pain.
Your Coping Toolkit
That’s all for today! Great work