The coping strategies listed below should be used to cope with stress, anxiety, and depression.  

Please visit www.getselfhelp.co.uk/visitor.htm for detailed instructions on how to practice mindfulness.

• Guided discovery:

1. Initially, when learning mental imagery it is best to find a quiet place in which you will not be interrupted for 10-15 minutes.
2. Take a few diaphragmatic breaths and feel your body relax.
3. Picture a scene in which you are really relaxed. Usually these scenes involve water, mountains, animals and other natural scenes. If you can, recall a previous time that you were very relaxed and mentally imagine that scene.
4. Become engrossed in that imagination. Try to use all of your senses. What can you see? What can you hear? What does it feel like to be in the scene? Imagine the relaxing moment.
5. Remain with the scene that you have created for 10 minutes.
6. Imagine a wave of relaxation washing slowly through your body. Starting at the top of the head the wave of relaxation reaches and relaxes every muscle as it moves down your body to the tip of your toes.
7. Slowly bring your awareness back to your breathing.
8. When ready, open your eyes and smile and feel the relaxation and recharging of the mind and body that has taken place.

• Imagine a point of time in the future where the present stresser no longer exists.

• Engage problem solving skills by generating alternatives.

• List advantages of living.

• Manage impulsivity by taking deep breaths.

• Create coping cards. i.e. Thought “There’s no way out of this” Response “Things are really tough right now, but that doesn’t mean there is no way out. I’ve been through a lot of hard times before, and I’ve always made it through.

• Increase pleasurable activities.

• Increase social support by attending to existing relationships, establishing new ones, and modifying reactions towards others.

• Exercise and systematically relax muscles starting from your head to your toes.

• When emotional pain becomes too much to handle distract your self by engaging all senses (touch, hear, taste, smell, sight).