Sensory Coping Skills
What are sensory coping skills?
Coping skills that use your senses.
True or False: Every coping skill is healthy?
False
Someone is making a loud noise that you find distracting/annoying
Earplugs, headphones, leaving the area (depends on the situation)
Name 2 healthy coping skills
Journaling, listening to music, taking a walk, meditation, deep breathing, talking to someone, writing, drawing, building something
Name a smell you find calming.
Various smells
What is an example of a sensory coping skills that uses smell?
Smelling candles, perfume, essential oils etc.
True or False: Coping skills are something everyone is born knowing how to do?
False: coping skills are learned throughout a person's life
You feel sluggish, unfocused, and trapped at your desk during the afternoon slump.
Chair yoga, alerting strategies
What are 2 examples of unhealthy coping skills?
Using TV to avoid your problems and feelings, fighting, calling someone names, punching, throwing things, screaming, yelling, sarcastic comments
At home, you might use these to help make your room fill with a relaxing scent/smell
Candles, plug ins, room spray, incense
What are the 5 senses?
Touch, see, taste, smell, hear
True or False: A coping skill that is helpful for you might not be helpful for someone else?
True: everyone reacts to coping skills differently. This is why practice is so important.
Walking through a busy city center leaves you feeling completely overstimulated and dizzy.
Grounding methods, deep breathing, etc
How do unhealthy coping skills affect us?
Make us feel worse, get us in trouble, impact friendships/relationships, we avoid the problem and it gets worse
Name three sounds that you find calming
Various answers
What is a sensory coping skill that uses sight?
Focusing on a visual detail, identifying every item in a room that is a specific color, reading a book, looking out the window at clouds/birds/stars/nature, looking at happy pictures
True or False: Healthy coping skills are used to avoid problems in our lives?
False! Coping skills help us work through our problems or difficult emotions in a healthy way.
We will never be able to avoid all of our problems and avoiding makes the problems worse!
Your brain is racing at 2:00 AM, and your body feels too restless to sleep.
Using a weighted blanket or putting a heavy pillow on your chest, etc
What are 2 benefits of using healthy coping skills?
Helps you feel more relaxed
Helps you manage your big emotions
Helps you have a clear mind
Creates and maintains healthy friendships/relationships
Helps you make positive decisions
Helps you feel more in control
What senses are you using when you pet a dog or a cat?
Tactile/touch
Name 2 of the additional senses.
Vestibular, proprioception, interoception
True or False: The word olfactory involves your sense of hearing?
False: olfactory is smell.
You have a long, boring virtual meeting and find yourself constantly drifting off.
Using fidgets, chewing on crunchy foods, etc
When does a healthy coping skill become unhealthy?
We use it to avoid our emotions or problems
We do it too much
When it makes our feelings bigger/worse
This is a loud sound made in nature. It can be alarming/scary to a lot of people and soothing to others. It is often extremely loud and happens when there are bad weather conditions.
Thunder