Anxiety Coping Skills for Women

Certain coping skills for women can make a significant difference in anxiety presentation. That’s the takeaway from a new study of 10,000 women that looked at anxiety levels, stressful life circumstances, and self-reports on stress and coping.¹ But what do those coping skills for women look like? Are they things we can learn?

The study’s lead researcher, Olivia Remes, says yes.

Individuals with . . . good coping skills, view life as comprehensible and meaningful. In other words, they feel they can manage their life, and that they are in control of their life, they believe challenges encountered in life are worthy of investment and effort; and they believe that life has meaning and purpose. These are skills which can be taught. - Oliva Remes

For many of us with anxiety, it’s that sense of comprehensibility that’s lacking. Life feels unpredictable or out of our control, which makes it scary. Coping skills, however, can help us address this feeling, thereby reducing anxiety levels and increasing quality of life.

What Are the Best Coping Skills for Women?

Finding Meaning

The participants in the study who were less likely to experience anxiety were more likely to report feeling needed by children, spouses, or others. One of the strongest coping skills for mental health is to focus our attention on what we can do for others. Giving to others creates meaning in our lives, and that sense of meaningfulness creates an overall feeling of wellbeing that significantly decreases the likelihood of anxiety, according to the study.

Seeking Support

We don’t have to be able to manage our lives on our own to experience lessened anxiety. We just have to feel that those tools exist and that we have access to them. Asking for help when we need it is crucial to increasing feelings of manageability and decreasing overall anxiety levels.

Paying Attention to Feedback

Considering the lessons in a problem and figuring out how to use them for future success helps increase the feeling of comprehensibility. It helps the world make sense. It also helps shift our perspective in a positive direction­, which bolsters our sense of wellbeing.

Additional Anxiety Coping Skills for Women in Deprived Neighborhoods

• Manage over-reactions
• Look at the stressor/problem/worry objectively
• Communicate your feelings to someone else
• Accept yourself as-is; don’t expect “perfection”
• Celebrate your successes

Women won’t cure anxiety by utilizing coping skills, but we will reduce it. When we feel we can successfully confront the stressors in our lives, we experience greater levels of physical and mental health.² The more coping skills we can learn and use; the stronger, more competent, and resourceful we’ll feel.

Sources

¹ European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP). (2017, September 5). Coping skills affect women's anxiety levels, study shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 28, 2017.

² Vinje, H. F. (2016, September 03). Aaron Antonovsky's Development of Salutogenesis, 1979 to 1994. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
"The observation was made that exposure to stressors did not invariably lead to stress and illness. Stressors of various kinds created immediate tension in an organism, but if it was resolved it did not result in stress, which was the health-damaging condition one needed to avoid. Coping and tension management emerged as important concepts and intervening variables between tension and stress/illness."