Episode 02: Coping Mechanisms 101
Stress and anxiety are part of our daily lives. Whether its brought on by work pressures, family challenges or COVID-19, we all need to find healthy ways to cope. In this episode, Right Track Medical Group's Dr. Katherine Pannel and Taryn Cooper are with us again to discuss healthy ways to deal with the challenges and stress we all face. Listen now below, or anywhere you get your podcasts.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to South of Fine, a podcast from Right Track Medical Group, dedicated to de-stigmatizing mental health in the south through genuine conversation about the challenges that we all face every day. For more information, please visit our website, righttrackmedical.com\SouthofFine. While we hope you enjoy listening to our podcast, please remember that this is not a substitute for professional diagnosis or for the treatment of any mental health condition.
Rhes Low, Host:
Hey, guys. Glad to have you back for another episode of South of Fine. Once again, I'm your host Reese Low. In our first episode, we discussed the state of mental health during this time of COVID-19. And the consensus from our guests, Dr. Katherine Pannel and Taryn Cooper of Right Track Medical group, is that many of us are having a difficult time coping psychologically during this pandemic. Additionally, they warned us that these effects could be quite long lasting.
This week, Dr. Pannel and Taryn have graciously agreed to give us a bit more of their time, so we could get to the specifics of these coping mechanisms and how they are helping us at this time or how they can help us at this time. Dr. Pannel and Taryn, thank you guys for joining us again.
Dr. Katherine Pannel, Medical Director of Right Track Medical Group:
Thank you. Glad to be back.
Taryn Cooper, Coordinator of Best Practices at Right Track Medical Group:
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Low:
Awesome. So that we're all starting from the same place, can you guys go back over a little bit of what a coping mechanism is?
Dr. Pannel:
I think the simplest way to explain what a coping mechanism is, is it's just something that you put into place during times of anxiety and stress. We can have negative coping skills, but we can also have positive coping skills.
Cooper:
Yeah, yeah. I, one hundred percent agree with that. And that's basically the simplest definition. Any time we have uncomfortable emotions that we feel, based on stress in our lives or our circumstances, that's when we're going to find ourselves using coping mechanisms to deal with those uncomfortable emotions or that stress.
Low:
Okay, cool. Outside of the pandemic, what are some examples of when and how people can use coping mechanisms? Taryn?
Cooper:
Yeah, thank you. Well, anytime in our lives, when we're dealing with stress, which we deal with stress on a daily basis, we can find ourselves using coping mechanisms. This could be, there's some sort of conflict in a relationship I have. This could be a major stress on my life, like losing my job. This could be even a positive thing, like having a baby. These are all things that cause us additional stress in our lives that might require us to use some sort of a coping mechanism.
Low:
All right. Those are great, guys. I think that gives us a good backbone of where to begin here. Can coping mechanisms be negative and maybe give us some specific examples of negative coping mechanisms?
Dr. Pannel:
Yes. Coping skills can be both positive and negative. An example of negative would be alcohol to dampen anxiety, drugs, to dampen anxiety. Also, things such as isolating, not having to deal with people, staying in your bed and sleeping, that's a negative coping mechanism. Sometimes people yell at other people to express anger and even emotional eating is a negative coping mechanism. I know, especially for females, when they're depressed and anxious, they tend to turn to food for comfort. Those are just a few examples of negative coping skills.
Low:
I like that you're saying ‘coping skills’, too. I think that we understand that a little bit more than coping mechanism. It makes it more human. Okay, so what are some of the coping skills that people can use to deal with the unpredictability of this pandemic? Is it a matter of just surrendering to the lack of control or how do we do this?
Cooper:
Yeah, I think the number one way that we can cope is to talk about the stress with a supportive person, a family member or friends. The more we feel like we're not in this alone, I think the more resilient we actually can be. We actually have found that resiliency is determined by who is with us before, during and after a stressful event or traumatic event. And so, if we know that we have those people around us, if we're able to normalize our experience and say, "Okay, I know what I'm feeling. I'm not the only one who's feeling this. I know that there are other people who are feeling this way as well." We do tend to find that we come out on the other side feeling a little less scathed and a little more resilient. I think just having those people, being able to talk about how we're feeling, normalizing it, naming that emotion, those are all really, really important coping skills.
Low:
Great.
Dr. Pannel:
And I love that you mentioned too, control. I think that is really huge right now. I think a lot of anxiety surrounding this pandemic is all about lack of control. I don't think you surrender to it, but acknowledge that yes, there are some things about this virus that we absolutely cannot control. We have government that are making regulations that we have to follow and we can't control those regulations. We can't control this virus but focusing on things that you can actually control will calm those anxieties. Focusing on healthy diet and hydration, exercise, setting up a schedule through the day. Those are things that you can tangibly control, and it gives you a sense of calm and comfort knowing that there are still things in life that you can control.
Low:
Yeah, absolutely. Just acknowledge what you can't control and then, do your best controlling the things you can. Great. What are some coping skills for those of us who are, and there are a lot of us, obsessed with disease prevention right now. Scared to go outside, wiping our children down with wet wipes.
Cooper:
Yeah. I want to build off of what Dr. Pannel said in focusing on what we can control. For those very particular people who are overly focused, overly aware of not contracting COVID, I would just ask the question, ‘Do I have a real reason to be concerned? Am I within the category or group of people who maybe is more susceptible or would have higher or worst symptoms? If I am the elderly population or I do have a preexisting condition, what is it that I can do? What is being recommended to me? What are the experts saying?’ That's the information that I really would want to make sure I'm paying attention to.
Cooper:
And then, reaching out if I have to continue to isolate. Which I think we're all, for another week, at least in the state of Mississippi, encouraged to still social distance. Try to do that as much as possible, just trying to follow the recommendations that have been given to us. And then, just be smart about the activities that we're reintroducing into our lives and really focusing on what we can do to not only keep ourselves safe, but to keep people in the community safe as well.
Dr. Pannel:
It's funny that you asked this question about the obsessions now. I actually talked with my sister yesterday. We were just sitting by the pool and she's having a lot more anxiety than she normally has to the point where she makes stops along the way to work to The Dollar General, The Dollar Store, Walmart, just to go in and look for disinfectant, toilet paper, paper towels. Even if she doesn't need it, she is hoarding it because she is so scared that she's going to run out. And it has become obsessive. She buys it regardless of if she's got tons in her garage, she's going to buy it. And she was asking me, she's like, ‘I just feel like I think about this all the time. About how I can keep myself from getting it, how I can disinfect my house.’ And was asking me, ‘What should I do?’ I don't want to do medicine. If it comes to that, I will."
But now, I think a huge way to not focus on all of that is distraction as well. I told her she's a big reader. She's needs to cut that out. I was like, ‘Get back to reading. Read a book.’ She actually borrowed one of mine yesterday and then texted me at midnight last night that she had finished it. So, she did take my suggestions. She might have gone a little bit far with it, but reading is a great distraction to not think about the hard things in life. There's different ways to distract too. Positive ways.
Cooper:
One really positive coping skill is actually laughter. It seems kind of silly to say out loud, but laughter is healing. It brings joy to our lives. It connects us with another person. That person that we're connecting to. And adults are way less likely to laugh than kids are. And if you think about how much a kid laughs during the day compared to us adults, it's crazy. And so, if we can just incorporate more fun into our lives while we have some extra time, I think that that is really important. It's a good distraction, but it also promotes joy and helps us laugh.
Low:
Awesome. I like that. I think that laughter forces us to breathe when most of us are holding our breath a lot of the times. From what I've learned in life, through different areas of what I've been through, we don't breathe. And it's so important to get that laughter so we can take a deep breath and deal with these things. Is that too simplistic?
Cooper:
No, I don't think so at all. I think we can even picture, as a society or as a country right now, we're all holding our breath. And so, if we can see each other exhale and then take that deep breath back in, and there's a sense of relief to that picture of just being able to breathe and relax and be present.
Low:
Yeah. So, we're developing these precautionary guidelines from state to state. We're moving back into the world into a normal. But it's not really normal. So how do we cope with stepping back into this new normal?
Dr. Pannel:
Ever since this virus came about, it has been ever evolving. The regulations, the virus itself, the treatments, everything has been changing. And just like lack of control, change is also very anxiety provoking. And I think just being able to step back and realize that it goes back to that thing, that you may have lack of control of the situation, but you just have to roll with it. You have to adapt that, yes, this may be a new normal, but you have to make the best of it. And that's, again, when these positive coping mechanisms come into place. You just have to figure out a way around these regulations to continue to do things positive, your mood and anxiety.
Low:
Great. Is remaining in contact with others, we've touched on this a bit, still as important these days as guidelines lift? I think we can answer that. But why is this idea of being in this together an important part of coping?
Cooper:
I've really been thinking a lot about grief as we think about this new normal. And so because there's so much that's changing, there are a lot of things about our daily lives that we just maybe will not have moving forward. And we're not even quite sure what those things are yet. I've been reading up a lot about grief and David Kessler is a grief expert researcher and he gives lectures. He actually helped with the stages of grief. He added a sixth stage and that is, creating meaning in your life after you've worked through the various stages of grief.
But he talks about this parable, it's called the long spoon parable. And in this parable, you walk into a room, there's a lot of really great food. You can smell it. You can tell... Basically, it's a feast. It's a room full of people having a feast. But you walk in and everybody looks miserable, and they're not enjoying the food. And when you look at them, you see that they have these really, really long spoons, so long that they can't actually bring the food to their mouth to feed themselves. They can't enjoy the food. They get to smell the food, they get to experience the food, but they don't get to actually taste the food and eat the food. He talks about entering into the second room. And that first room, he describes as this is like how I would picture hell. You have all these great things, but you can't partake in them. In the second room though, he walks into the second room, same food, everyone's sitting down, and they're having a feast.
But the expression on those people's faces are lighter, joyful. They're having a good time. They're enjoying each other's company. And what he saw that those people were doing is that they were feeding each other. They were taking those long spoons and reaching out to the person next to them and feeding the person next to them. And he would say, that's like our experience of heaven. I don't know if there's a clearer picture of what togetherness really means throughout all of this. Right now, we are in a great place to have empathy for one another because we're all in this experience. And that's actually how we find ourselves having empathy and creating empathy for each other is being able to access a feeling within myself that I know that this person is also feeling.
Like I said before, that helps create resiliency. That helps us cope, if we know that we can share with others how we're feeling and what we're doing to cope with what's going on. But I think it's important that we feed each other. I think it's important that we are in this together.
Low:
That's really awesome. I love that. And what's the name of the author of that again?
Cooper:
His name is David Kessler.
Low:
Very cool. Okay. So, moving on. What are some coping skills for people that are dealing with the loss of a loved one? We've had a lot of people go through that during this pandemic, and they've been unable to honor that loved one in a normal fashion or get support from family, friends in a normal way. Katherine, any thoughts on that one?
Dr. Pannel:
I've even seen a family member about this... Not a family member, I've seen a patient that has had this happen to a family member. They died in the hospital of COVID and they were not able to, one be with them as they were end of life. But they were also not able to honor them with a funeral. And especially in the South, funerals are big gatherings and celebrations in honoring those who've passed on. And so, it's especially hard for us not to be able to do that. But I even told her when she came in to see me, you can still, like I said, I think in the last podcast is, we have great technology. Just as we do Zoom conferences, you can do a Zoom funeral with your family. And I know that may sound a little bit cheesy, but just being able to gather in some form with your family and talk about the person that's passed away, the good memories, being able to honor them is huge. And not only honoring them, but it also gives us a sense of closure.
When we're not in the hospital or we're not able to tangibly see, I hate to say this, but the body or see the casket at the funeral, we don't get that closure that this person has passed on. And lack of closure can cause depression. It can cause anxiety. So being able to share that passing of that person with others is a good way to get closure. Also, if you don't even have family and you have a friend that's passed away and you want to honor them and really have a sense of closure, it's looking through pictures, writing down things that you remember, good memories. It's all about, like I said, just getting closure and being able to honor that person.
Low:
That's great. That's really awesome. We actually did that. I've mentioned that my father passed away before this. And on Sunday night we were all together with my mother and she asked us all to say a memory of my father, who the kids called, "Pop". And it was great. It was good for them and release some tears and brought, not closure, but a new beginning without that person. And it had nothing to do with the funeral, nothing to do with people dropping food off. And so, it was great. Those are awesome suggestions.
There's another sense of loss that people are going through, guys. And it's the loss for high school and college seniors' graduation. Or even prom. Major life events that have to be postponed, such as weddings. How do, how do you cope with those things? That's pretty tough. Those are first time things that people are missing.
Cooper:
Well, Brené Brown, she's a psychologist and also a researcher. She talks about comparative suffering and how really, when we suffer, there is no comparison. And when we do compare ourselves to other people, when they're suffering, it brings about shame. And where there's shame, there can't be empathy. There can't be empathy for yourself.
And so, with grief, because we know that any time we've lost a person or something in our lives, anytime there's been some sort of change, we're going to grieve. To some extent we're going to grieve. And that grief is not going to look the same for every single person. And so, I think that we have to just understand that grief is a personal thing. For a kid losing the rest of their school year, their world is a lot smaller than a world of an adult who can see that the rest of the school year wasn't everything. But to that kid in that moment, that was everything. And so, they might be grieving something fierce because they didn't get to do all of the things that they were planning on doing at the end of the school year. Same thing for a graduation.
One thing that I think is really inspiring that I've been seeing a lot of, is I've seen families take their high school grads or college grads and celebrate in some way. Like what we were saying about funerals, just honoring that person who means so much to us. That's what we're doing when we're celebrating those graduations in our own way or that child in our own way. And I've seen people have porch parties. I've seen a school hold parades for their students. Their teachers go out of their way to come up to the front door of a student's house to honor them tell them that they're thankful for them or grateful for them.
Those are the things that I think we can do to deal with the things that we've lost. And then, we can move on to having some perspective. So, first, it's empathy for yourself, realizing whatever you're feeling, it's valid. I think for most of us, this is our first pandemic. We've never done this before. So just having grace for yourself, having empathy for yourself, and then, having some perspective to say, ‘This is going to end, eventually. It's not going to be this way forever.’
Dr. Pannel:
I actually did a video for parents about this. One, how to talk to their children about COVID and then, how to handle these big milestones that they're missing out on. And I started with, first of all, don't minimize their lack of being able to attend. These are life moments to them.
Don't minimize the importance. Don't go to them and tell them, ‘Oh, it's just your high school graduation. When you're an adult, you won't even remember that. You'll remember your...’ Don't minimize because for them, like Taryn said, this is the biggest thing in their world at the moment. So never minimize to make it better.
In fact, let them know, in fact that, it is very important and this whole pandemic, it really sucks that it ruined it for your ceremony. But then, put a positive spin on it. I know one of the ways is to tell them that... I graduated in '99 and nobody probably remembers my high school graduation. But this class of 2020, everybody's going to remember. You graduated during a pandemic.
Low:
Right.
Dr. Pannel:
There's probably not going to be another class that's going to be able to say that they graduated during a pandemic. So you'll be forever remembered. So put a positive spin on it.
Low:
That's cool. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. What are some signs that you are struggling to cope?
Cooper:
I think if you find yourself using some of the negative coping mechanisms that Dr. Katherine was talking about before — anything that you use to numb, anything you use to isolate, anything you're using to not allow yourself to experience your experience in a positive way — those are probably some signs. If you haven't showered in weeks, if you're not getting out of bed, if you are not eating or you notice yourself gaining weight. These are all physical symptoms. You might have stomach aches.
The body, I think, is actually one of the first things to tell us that we're not doing well physically. And so much of what we're experiencing physically has to do with our mental and emotional health as well. And so, just do a quick assessment of yourself. Scan your body, see how you're feeling. Are you doing the things that you enjoy in life? Have you lost interest in some of those things during this time? Those could be some clear-cut signs that maybe you're struggling to cope in a positive way.
Dr. Pannel:
I think sometimes we don't even realize that we aren't coping well and that we can work just fine, and that we're managing just fine. But when I have patients come in and I've started them on medication, or they've been doing therapy for a while and I ask, ‘How are you doing?’ And they say, ‘Oh, I think I'm doing okay.’ I always ask them, if they're a child or if they are married, ‘What does your family member say? Can they tell that you're getting better? What do they say about how you are?’ Because they are often our best evaluators. They see you every day, they see the changes and they know what you were like before depression or anxiety. So just to bounce it off somebody else and seeing how they feel you're doing is also huge to know.
Low:
Alright, so coming to a close here, guys, how can people learn more about these positive coping skills? We've mentioned a few. Any more to add?
Cooper:
I would say I'm a big proponent of counseling. I would say seeing a counselor, especially if feedback from family members or friends is, ‘Hey, you're not really acting like yourself. You don't really seem the same.’ And you see a counselor, counselors can help you figure out which coping mechanisms work best for you personally. Like my husband, if he has a bad day, he'll hop on his bike and ride 20 to 30 miles. If I did that, I wouldn't be able to walk the next day. That's just not going to work for me. I think talking to a professional who can help you name what some of those coping skills can be for you and help you become creative to come up with those things. The more personal they are, the more they're going to stick, and the more they're going to mean to you in the end.
Dr. Pannel:
I agree with Taryn. I'm a big proponent of exercise being a part of any mental health plan. I know my patients get so sick of me. At every visit ask them, ‘Are you exercising?’ Good physical health leads and helps to good mental health. Also, back to that whole thing about technology, we have got so many great things. There are now even apps that you can download, like Headspace, that can help you cope, distract you. Look into apps that are helpful for coping. And like Taryn said, I think everybody should also be in counseling or therapy. I think everybody could benefit from it. And like she said, talk with your therapist and together, y'all come up with a plan for positive coping mechanisms.
Low:
I agree. Just talking with a counselor can only improve your life. And give you some fun stuff that you didn't know you could do.
Dr. Pannel:
Challenge you.
Cooper:
Absolutely.
Low:
That's right. That's right. We all need some challenge these days, outside of the global challenge that we're dealing with.
Dr. Pannel:
Yeah. I always say there's no cap on bettering yourself. You can always do something to better yourself.
Low:
Yeah. I love how you told your sister, ‘Read a book again.’ Why do we forget those things in the midst of stuff like this?
Dr. Pannel:
You just start turning more to the negative, unfortunately. The negative coping skills. The things that are maybe more instant gratification, like food, alcohol.
Low:
Oh, that was that instant... Yeah, that makes sense.
Cooper:
I think it becomes more about surviving in those moments, too. When we're surviving, we're not thinking about reading a book. We're not thinking about bettering our mind.
Low:
Yeah. Yeah.
Cooper:
So just remembering we can come out of survival. We're not in a place where we have to survive all the time. There are times that we can, like we were saying earlier, stop and breathe.
Low:
Great. Thank you guys so much. Once again, I'm a better person for talking to you. All right, everybody. If you find yourself struggling with mental health, now or ever, and are having a difficult time coping, don't be afraid to reach out for help. If you have questions about mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic that you'd like one of our providers to answer in a future episode, please email southoffine@righttrackmedical.com. And if you'd like more information about Right Track Medical Group or the South of Fine podcast, visit righttrackmedical.com. Okay. That's it. I am out, but please join us again. Especially if you find yourself or one of your loved ones feeling a bit South of Fine. How'd you like that? Sorry, I couldn't help it.
If you have questions about mental health and the COVID-19 pandemic that you'd like our providers to answer in a future episode, please email southoffine@righttrackmedical.com. And if you'd like more information about Right Track Medical Group or the South of Fine podcast, please visit righttrackmedical.com. Thanks to our production team Kelley Hunsberger, Caitlyn Clegg, Carol Ann Hughes, Aleka Battista and Reese Lau. A special thanks to Squadcast for providing superior remote interview services.
Continue Listening
Past Episodes
Explore our resources
