A THRIVE Podcast

Welcome to our sixth episode on Resilience, as part of UoL's Thrive Podcast.

Missed a previous episode? No worries, find the playlist here.

Listen below, or scroll down for the episode transcript!

Transcript

Hello! This is the penultimate episode of our seven part series on Resilience. This episode will go over Effective Coping for when life gets stressful and how we can cope with that.

 In the last episode, we went over motivation – understanding what motivates us and what our values are, especially when we are confronted with obstacles in pursuit of our goals.

The content of this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. This is not medical advice and it is not a substitute for treatment or diagnosis. Please contact your general practitioner for professional medical advice.

I’m Gemma, I’m part of the Student Health and Wellbeing team at the University of London and this is a THRIVE podcast. If you’re in need of a transcript please go to campus life dot London dot ac dot uk.

There are some events we can change, and some events we can’t. Understanding which is which can inform how we react. Most of us will have lost a loved one at some point in our lives. We react to this stress in different ways. Some might take action and throw themselves into planning a funeral and contacting the rest of the family. Another person may choose to take more time to rest and mourn privately.

There’s no “right” or “wrong” here. Consider the sailboat metaphor. Every storm is different, as is every captain. There’s no “best” way to sail for every boat and every storm.

Other ways of coping with stress and difficult events can include: distracting yourself, meditating, researching the problem, expressing emotions, and seeking practical or emotional support.

While you cannot choose what happens to you, you can choose how you respond, as the captain.

Some ways of coping can be more helpful than others. Helpful ways of coping allow us to bounce back and begin to move forward. Less helpful ways will not improve our situation and can even end up making us feel worse. The way we choose to cope ends up impacting our overall journey.

Imagine a captain sailing through a storm they’ve never experienced before, they’re unskilled – unsure of the speed they should go at and maybe even panicking. They’ll likely navigate the storm much more slowly and will need more time to recover before they get back on course to their desired destination.

A more experienced, skilled captain, on the other hand, knows when to slow down and speed up, and even when to take a break. They will stay strong during difficult weather and keep moving forward, while coping.

Coping one way may work this time, but this way of coping may not apply to the next stressful event we face. So, when trying to cope with a stressful situation, it’s important to ask ourselves two questions.

One: What can I control about this situation?; and Two: Should I take action or surrender to this situation?

First, let’s consider “What can I control?”

It’s not worth wasting our energy on things we can’t control. Sometimes we make good judgements about how much we can control a stressful situation, and other times we may over- or underestimate how much we can actually control. So, we end up taking too much or too little action.

When we overestimate our control, we overcontrol a situation.

This is a captain who, despite the overbearing weather, tries to fix everything. They use all their energy and maybe even steer their boat off track.

Overcontrol can look like becoming too clingy with a friend who’s growing distant, or over researching and losing sleep over a new illness going around, or even going back to training for that marathon even though you’re still injured, and then you end up making things worse.

On the other end of the spectrum is underestimating a situation, leading to undercontrol.

This is a captain who ignores the damage on their boat, who thinks they can’t do anything about it anymore. But this also ends up making things worse and steers them off track once again.

Undercontrol can look like finding your job stressful and dissatisfying, but all you do is complain about it, rather than try to change your circumstances. You may feel peeved when a friend cancels on you last minute, but you decide to never confront them. Or maybe you’re diagnosed with an illness, but decide to not follow doctor’s orders even though they’re there to help you.

Now, let’s consider the question: “Should I take action or surrender?”

Whether you take action or surrender is dependent on how much control you feel you have over a situation. Taking action to improve your situation is called “active coping”. But, sometimes, there’s really nothing you can do, so you choose to surrender.

Taking action looks like doing something practical to help manage the stressful event we’re experiencing. This is a captain who positions themselves to carefully steer the boat through the storm – you can’t stop the storm, but you can make life a little easier for yourself.

Examples of active coping may mean creating realistic plans when you have a large workload, taking a break when you feel anxious at a social event, or calling the insurance company for help when your home is flooding.

We can’t control everything though, so sometimes the best thing to do is surrender and accept what you can’t change. This captain may be going through an intense storm with seemingly endless obstacles, so they simply must change course and take a break from steering.

Surrendering may be accepting your insomnia rather than agonising about all the ways you could try and sleep right now, it might be having a bad date and accepting that the other person doesn’t feel the same way as you, or even getting the news that you’re losing your eyesight and soon you’ll be blind, so you accept the change and instead of trying to “fix” it, you make accommodations instead.

Surrendering doesn’t mean that you give up completely, but instead means that you accept what you simply can’t change.

Every stressful event is different, and we can also learn how to cope better. Remember to ask yourself: What can I control? And, should I take action or surrender?

Alright, here’s your Call to Action: Make a note of the things you can and cannot control – what you often can control are your own actions, and what you can’t control is external from you – other people’s thoughts and behaviour. What’s stressing you out at the moment? Now list what you can and can’t control about this situation. Now you know what you can control, list the actions that you can take and highlight what actions would be most helpful. Also, ask yourself what it would look like to surrender to what you cannot control and how that may affect you. Keep note of the stressful situations that you come up against and how you can cope with them.

Our next and final episode on Resilience will be on Making a Plan. Thank you for listening, check out our Campus Life site, and follow us on Instagram at wellatuol. Keep thriving.