Catch Yourself Before You Fall - Stop unhealthy coping mechanisms taking control of you life!

Have you ever inadvertently fallen in to a pattern of using unhealthy coping mechanisms that are now difficult to break free from? Did you miss the early warning signs?

We all have moments in our life when we reach for something that makes us feel better, more fulfilled, happier, less stressed, more engaged, more in control.

It could be the tough day at work....you come home, you have chores to do, family confrontations to deal with, financial struggles to combat. You look for something that will take the edge of the stress. A glass of wine whilst you make dinner maybe? That could turn into a bottle possibly or maybe you stop at one. Either way it feels good. You deserve it, you need to switch off and after all there's no harm in having a glass of wine once in a while is there?

And there isn't! Except when you come home tomorrow and the day after and the day after that, you will have quite likely had another bad day at work, your family problems will still be there and the chores you were meant to do will still remain. You may even have more on your plate ( not dinner - you still need to make that! ).

Last night the wine was good. You actually enjoyed making dinner, the kids were less annoying and the chores seemed less important. You felt relaxed and ready to enjoy your evening and lets not forget it tasted good too, So maybe you'll have a drink tonight too and the following night.

Before you know it, you realise you're drinking every night but you've convinced yourself its ok because it makes you feel good, you believe you're meeting your needs and its not like you drink all day?! But this is the point where you begin to rely on it being there, it becomes a coping mechanism! You've built the association that you need it to feel better.

At this point how do you feel when you come home and realise you've run out, do you accept it and do something else? Do you jump back in the car and head off to the shop using up more of your precious time? Or maybe a member of your household needs picking up in a couple of hours from the station, do you feel resentful or possibly refuse to do the pick up? It could be any number of reasons why you can't have that drink right now but the point is you've come to rely on something that has now become an unhealthy coping mechanism. There's a fine line between unhealthy coping mechanisms and addiction, don't you think? Maybe they're the same thing.

Anything you do, even when it appears to be positive, that makes your day better, fills a void or allows you to forget your negative emotions can become an unhealthy coping mechanism once you start to rely on it to fix the way you feel. More often than not, you'll need more of it to sustain the way you feel and long term it will not fix anything.

How I noticed I was falling

When I first started bodybuilding, I spent maybe an hour at the gym at a time. I did this fairly religiously about 4 times a week. It felt good. I was feeling strong, my body was changing in the way I'd always wanted it to and I could ignore my problems at home.

A few months in, my time in the gym had increased. I was weight training 5 times a week, attending 2 boxing style classes and took up pole fitness once a week. Some days I was doing two or more training sessions a day sometimes for up to 2 and a half hours at a time. I'd also got heavily into calorie and macro counting and totally obsessed with how much protein and how little fat i could get into my diet. I started to obtain injuries (unsurprisingly!), my body wasn't overly happy with the copious amounts of protein I was consuming, my head was full of guilty thoughts if I missed a training session, didn't hit my nutritional goals or ate too much food. I'd become to rely on it and it had become an unhealthy coping mechanism. But this was just part of the process right? If you want to achieve great things, or a great strong body in my case then you had to deal with unwanted side affects and I was happy anyway! I loved it! I still do and the thoughts are very much still there but they're lying dormant and I have a much healthier way in which to enjoy it.

Had I failed to catch myself before I fell?

Ok so I hadn't fallen completely into a diagnosable eating disorder and yes this can be classed as such. ( Something I hope to talk about in more detail in a later blog and something close to my heart ) but I had fallen a fair way and become reliant on an unhealthy coping mechanism until I realised and was able to pull myself back out.

So how do we stop ourselves from falling and what are the early signs?

When we turn to harmful coping mechanisms there is often a unassociated need which has not been met that has caused us to feel emotions that are unpleasant and unbalancing. Rather than assessing what we need to do to meet the underlying need we turn to something else to make us feel better for a short time. A quick fix. But if the core need has not been met we'll feel pretty rubbish without our quick fix and we are in danger of indulging on a regular basis. This creates a new routine- a destructive one that is hard to break. We need our fix and we find it difficult to cope without it at this point. We are reliant on it and find it difficult to break, causing us more negative feelings like guilt, frustration resentment and anger. It begins to take it's toll on us and the people around us. It is now controlling us and the way we behave.

The key to avoiding this downward spiral is self awareness and self regulation.

There are many things we indulge in to help us feel good, like alcohol, recreational drugs, exercise, sex and food. These are all things that give us instant gratification by triggering an explosion of dopermine in the brain. This means if you want to keep feeling good you will need to keep indulging. They won't fix your problems or underlying pschological needs. Most of these examples are perfectly acceptable when used to fulfil the needs for which they are intended and you should indulge in things that make you feel good but you need to be aware of why you are doing these things.

Are they to fulfil the need for which they were intended?

Are you becoming over reliant on these behaviours?

Are they distracting you from deeper needs that need to be met?

Are they becoming destructive to your finances, work, family or health?

Make time and space to reflect and understand yourself, your motives , your emotions, your needs and desires.

Self awareness is a powerful tool that can help us to evaluate situations , make good choices, gain more self control and avoid us falling into bad habits. When we have good self awareness we are able to self regulate more effectively, meaning we can monitor and manage disruptive emotions and impulses and produce positive results and deal with our emotions effectively.

Key points to remember

Its a lot harder and more destructive both for yourself and others if you ignore or don't recognise the early warning signs that you are becoming reliant on a behaviour and using it as a harmful coping mechanism.

Regularly reflect on your feelings and needs and what you are doing to meet them- become self aware.

Ask yourself if the behaviour you use or about to use is going to meet your underlying needs.

Put self control measures into place for example a set of rules of when and how much time you will devote to the behaviour and monitor how you stick to your rules.

And if you need support ASK for it, from friends, family or professionals.