Health and Wellness
5 Coping Strategies to Better Manage or Deal With Bad News
No one wants to receive bad news in life, but it is part of reality, so people have to deal with it no matter how they feel. People deal with bad news differently depending on how bad it is and how much emotional control they have over themselves.
The mental effects of bad news include depression, anxiety, stress, and more. Fortunately, there are certain ways to recover mental and emotional stability after receiving bad news. If you are not very good at managing your emotions after receiving bad news, here are several effective ways.
- Breathing Exercises
The most proven and effective way to regain control over your emotions is to practice breathing exercises. It helps you stabilize your mind and body by regulating your oxygen intake, which usually lowers when you’re hit with stress. It also reestablishes your focus on the issue so you can think clearly and form an active response.
There are different types of breathing exercises you can do to clear stress. The most common ones include pursed-lip breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, breath focus technique, lion’s breath, sitali breath, and more. You can learn some more advanced breathing forms through meditation and yoga. If you want to learn either, you can find trainers near you.
- Exposure
The first reaction most people have when faced with bad news is trying to avoid their emotions as much as possible as they perceive that others would see it as a weakness. But this is an entirely wrong perception as not dealing with your emotions subconsciously eats away at you, making you absent-minded, depressed, or even stressed constantly.
Instead of avoiding your emotions, you need to face them head-on. Doing so will allow you to come to terms with the bad news and move in. Once you’ve dealt with your unresolved emotions, they no longer affect your psyche.
- Reframing
The most effective way to confront and deal with your emotions on an immediate basis is to reframe them in a positive way. Of course, certain news, such as the death of a loved one, can’t be dealt with a positive reframing. Still, in most other instances of bad news, such as failing a test or not getting a promotion, reframing can be an effective tool to avoid negative emotions.
For some people reframing comes easy as they can easily identify the positive from bad news or bad outcomes and focus on them. But for others, it’s not always easy and will require some time to reframe. Remember, you can’t always control things, but you can control how you experience them, so master the skill of reframing.
- Self-Control
People who are easily overwhelmed by bad news tend to have less self-control than others who can handle bad news better. Self-control comes through discipline, so if you have had a disciplined childhood, controlling emotions would easily come to you. But if not, you’ll need to work on many aspects of yourself to achieve high self-control.
The underlying principle of self-control is thinking logically and acting on your thoughts with strong determination. To think logically, you will need to think without your emotions distracting, which is the most important part. Learning meditation is one of the best ways to exert control over your emotions.
- Seek help
Many alcoholics and drug addicts often have serious issues dealing with bad news because their addiction takes away any form of mental control they have when intoxicated, making them the worst candidates for receiving bad news. If you or a loved one is in such a situation, seeking help is the best action.
Fortunately, finding good help these days isn’t that difficult, thanks to the many excellent drug and alcohol rehab centers across the country. All you have to do is look it up on the internet. For example, if you live in Boynton beach, Google ‘drug and alcohol rehab centers in Boynton Beach’ to find one near you.
Take the Time you Need
No matter how hard people try, bad news will always be a part of everyone’s lives. So instead of trying to escape, dealing with it and moving forward is the best choice. While some might have an easier time, don’t be demotivated if it takes a while to get there.