Change can be difficult and unpleasant. We rarely welcome unplanned change with open arms. Coping with change is a challenge we all face at some point in our lives, often leading Us into a spiral of undesired behaviors! 

These are the 4 things you shouldn't do

when coping with change.

Coping with change is very challenging, but some behaviors seem to make it particularly stressful. Having a string of life changes recently in my own life, I feel particularly educated on this topic! 

We all have different coping mechanisms to deal with anxiety, stress, fear, and panic. All of which seem to be prevalent during significant life changes! 

I've noticed some unhealthy responses that have caused me to realize that they were not helping me cope with change well. As with most things, I cannot be the only one who manages significant change this way, so I wanted to share some of my top tips with you! 

These are the 4 things you do not need to do when coping with change!

Top Tips for Coping with Change

1. be unkind to yourself and others

Here's the truth, when stressed, our temptation to be overly critical is all-consuming! We can find something wrong with everything and everyone, including ourselves! It seems that nothing is ever good enough. That's because we aren't properly managing the stress and anxiety that sudden changes to our daily schedule have caused.  

When we feel out of control in certain aspects of our lives, we try to over-control other elements, including people around us! 

We must be careful and avoid the temptation to be so critical of others and make sure to protect our minds from being overly critical of ourselves! 

Being unkind to ourselves especially can have a domino effect on our mental health. Studies have shown that being critical of ourselves can lead to a whole slew of mental health issues! The last thing we need is to come out of a significant life change more beat up than when the transition started! 

You can avoid being critical by being cognisant of your current season of life. Being more self-aware of changes can help you identify when you are too hard on those you love and yourself. Having positive self-talk and extending grace to your situation will help you in coping with change healthily! 

More articles related to this point

2. overeat unhealthy foods

It may come as no surprise that one of the top binge eating causes is stress and anxiety. When coping with change, there can be a great deal of that to navigate through. During seasons of high pressure, there is great temptation to use food as a crutch to help us deal with the emotions we are experiencing. 

One of the times I find myself most influenced to eat emotionally is when a significant change in my life occurs. Though I love adventure and the outcome of change, the undesired and unexpected changes in my life drive me to all the sugary foods! 

I find myself craving junk food filled with refined sugars and carbs! These are some of the worst foods for anxiety and stress!  Though emotional eating feels satisfying at the moment, the action gives off a false perception that food will fix our issues. 

Coping with change is best settled by embracing the emotions and discomfort and working through them with a trusted counselor or friend! 

more from goodbye anxious on emotional eating!

3. Mindlessly scroll for hours on social media

Mindlessly vegging out on social media has been my go-to for coping with change for a long time! I've discovered that a bit of unrelenting guilt follows hours of binge-watching videos and tapping through stories! Feeling unproductive only adds fuel to the fire of the mounting anxiety that change brings on. 

None of that guilt ever helped me cope with change well at all. It simply numbed the stress I was feeling for a bit. Somehow it always seems to return with a vengeance, though! 

Social media, in general, was never designed to be a coping mechanism for change. It is certainly not a tool we should use to manage stress because it increases it rather than diminishing it (our intended use).

There's also a lot to be said about our mental state when experiencing significant shifts in our lives. That is the time we need to be most protective of our engagements on social media. Stress can cause us to be overly critical (as stated in point 1) and easily frustrated! We do not want a slight shift in our mental health due to change causing us to be labeled the dreaded "keyboard warrior!" 

It's better to limit our social media use when coping with change. Watching a movie, reading a book, or writing in a journal might be a better use of our time. 

Here are some other ideas for coping with change!

4. making LIFE-CHANGING DECISIONs

When unexpected changes disrupt the cadence of our lives, we feel unsettled and unsure about almost everything. Coping with change can be challenging if we decide to compound the changes being made! 

If you're anything like me, you start to question the validity and reasoning of just about everything you're familiar with. I think to myself, "if this is changing, then why not change more stuff? Just get all the change out of the way at once!" What a horrible idea that has been, lol! 

I find that most of the sudden changes I decided to implement while trying to cope with significant and undesired changes either don't stick or cause a great deal of stress for me later. 

Our decision-making skills are significantly altered depending on how much stress we are enduring. 

When in a season of coping with a change in your life that was completely unplanned, you should not try to make major life decisions. This is a season of great stress and anxiety, and we all know that anxiety diminishes our decision-making capabilities a ton! 

Major life decisions should be made when we can slow down and have a clear mind and heart. When we are unexpectedly dealing with change, it is definitely not the time for that! 

How to Mindfully Make Important Life Decisions

Finding ways of coping with change can be exhausting, but making sure to that healthily is critical to our mental wellness! There are many unhealthy ways to manage change, and it is our natural tendencies to lean toward those. We cannot allow what comes easy and natural to us to be an excuse to neglect our mental wellness during seasons of change. 

This article was all about the top 4 things you shouldn't do when coping with change!

Let me know in the comments below how this article helped you! What are some ways you cope with change, either healthily or unhealthily?

Saying Goodbye to Anxious,

Kristina G.