Coping With Emotions: 5 Everyday Habits That Help
Within 110 days, I was overtaken by a storm of emotions that thunderously rolled into my world with an ectopic pregnancy, a cancer diagnosis, and a stem cell transplant. Taken captive by feelings bigger than my body, mind, and heart could handle, I entered survival mode and began to disassociate.
Nonetheless, I was determined to survive and live a full life. Being a stranger to numbness, I knew I could not live in a state of disconnect. I needed to confront the emotions, thoughts, and feelings I was unable to process immediately. What I didn’t realize was how coping with emotions would become such an integral part of my day-to-day.
In this entry of The Idea Feed, I will be sharing ideas of coping habits that you can try on for size and adopt if it feels right for you.
Before we dive in, I want to emphasize something important: I share from my own lived experiences with creativity, healing, and well-being. I’m not a licensed therapist or medical professional, so nothing here should be taken as professional advice. Please take what resonates, and seek out the right support for your personal journey.
Coping Strategies As Self-Kindness
Actively choosing to face my emotions is now an act of kindness I practice for myself. I started to find that the outcome of this practice was a ripple effect of positive change for my toddler, husband, and others around me.
Later, I was pleased to discover that Trudel-Fitzgerald et al. (2024) found that coping and emotion regulation overlap in a significant ways. It validated what I was finding to be true: my ability to regulate my emotions was strengthened even through a cancer relapse.
Early in my healing journey, I relied on talk therapy, EMDR, and breath work. While helpful, it was not as consistently available or diverse enough to manage my towering emotions. With the guidance of my therapist, it did not take long for me to recognize I needed more coping tools to manage my emotions and cope with my trauma.
The variety of strategies in my coping tool kit now serve different purposes, just as Trudel-Fitzgerald et al. (2024) found to be necessary. My tools allow me to flex between:
Taking action and change the situation I am in
Focusing on my well-being through what I can control
Reinterpreting a stressful event to alter my emotional response
Accepting what I cannot change
Continue reading to find the practices I find integral for my mental health while healing from a traumatic experience and dealing with new emotions.
Expressive Writing For A Few Minutes A Day
Without applying a filter, I write for 5-15 minutes in the privacy of my own journal or notes app. Grammatical errors are welcome and hesitation cannot trespass. Expressive writing is a therapeutic writing practice I turn to when my chest feels heavy from experiences that I must peel off one by one and examine why they’re sticking with me.
I seek peace in this practice, though tears often appear. I dissect what happened, how I felt in the moment, and what I am still carrying. I move fluidly through this heart-wrenching dance on paper (or screen) to find meaning from what happened.
Oftentimes, I find myself reinterpreting the belief I initally carried away subconsciously. In my experience, this can happen as I write or when I reflect back on my emotion-laiden scribbles. All at once, I am (typically) able to make peace with the emotion I’ve met and tuck it gently in my heart with a lightness it did not posses before.
Visualization To Bring Myself Back To Center
Maintaining my well-being often means utilizing visualization to regulate my nervous system.
When I feel myself entering fight-or-flight, I close my eyes and use self paced imagery to reduce the adrenaline pulsing through my body. I slowly move through one of my favorite memories and notice multiple senses. Whether it is the wind whirring around and lifting my hair from my shoulders, or the sound of my infant’s deepened breath as they start to fall asleep on my chest, these sensory experiences take me out of the present and into a moment that brings me peace.
Waiting until your body is experiencing extreme stress is not necessary. More regularly, I turn to this helpful practice while lying in been with positive thoughts lulling me into a state of calm to sleep more soundly.
A busy mind can pose a challenge though. If I am unable to control my thoughts through visualization alone, I turn on bilateral stimulation music and try again. As The TTI Team (2026) explains, bilateral stimulation with music is a technique that engages listeners by using repetitive, rhythmic sensory stimulation of both sides of the brain to process traumatic or anxiety-provoking memories. This tool has been one I heavily rely on in the midst of anxiety inducing moments or restless nights with looming dark clouds of what-ifs and negative thoughts.
Visualization has become a staple technique that I practice on my own for healing and regulating my nervous system along my cancer journey. More-so, it has been immensely helpful to discuss my thoughts, feelings, and visualization experience with my therapist. This, or any self-led practice, do not replace therapy but provide an accessible way to find calm in the chaos of calamity.
Quick, Low-Effort Deep Breathing
Flung into a medical emergency, shortly after surviving another, my body was sent into survival mode. Breathing normally became an important task I had focus on. My mind could not comprehend how I was just updating Salesforce, but now I was in an isolation room on a Blood and Marrow Transplant floor of a specialty hospital. Who could breathe normally in such circumstances?
My care takers and healthcare team were determined to help me do just that so I could wade my way through the choppy waters ahead. Their genuine care and patience allowed me to find moments of calm that opened my mind to new practices. Now, these practices are ones I carry in my back pocket today.
Pursed lip breathing has been the MVP of my healing journey. While sometimes naturally done while exercising, Cleveland Clinic (2026) explains how this breathing exercise helps to slow breathing and get more air in and out of lungs. I found this exercise especially helpful when my white coat syndrome kicked in or when anxiety decided to bring its friend, insomnia, over at night.
In times that I find myself alone with heavy thoughts, I turn to box breathing. A well known exercise that was new to me, box breathing has become something I often practice while exploring difficult emotions or processing new medical information. Northwestern Medicine (2025) shares that box breathing is named for the four equal parts of the breath, but that it sometimes referred to as square breathing or 4-4-4-4 breathing. It is done by:
Inhaling through your nose for a count of 4 seconds
Holding your breath for 4 seconds
Slowly exhaling through your mouth for 4 seconds
Closing your mouth and holding your breath for 4 seconds
Repeating 3 or more times for at least 4 rounds
It’s important to emphasize that stressors do not need to be catastrophic or life-altering to require coping techniques like these breathing exercises. Now, I use exercises like pursed lip breathing before navigating a toddler meltdown. Sometimes, you can even find me seated on the floor attempt to teach this technique to my little one for their benefit.
Talking About Feelings With Others
Naming my emotions with clarity while talking with my therapist, husband, or friends brings me a sense of calm that still surprises me. Whether I feel violated or hopeful, negative and positive emotions alike feel more approachable and easier to sit with when discussed.
Curious what research shows about the impact of naming emotions, I was surprised to find a lack of substantial research and what was available, sometimes conflicted. Nook et al. (2021) found that categorizing the emotion an experience created may crystalize one’s experience and make it harder to later modify or see from another perspective. My personal experience begs to differ.
In my introspective noodling, I turn to the The Wheel of Emotions to give language to the feelings swirling in my head. Once it takes shape, I find myself getting to know or reacknowledging an emotion. Sometimes, it’s an old and welcomed friend. Other times I need to sit in an awkward silence with the word. Eventually, after some wrestling journalling or venting to others, I accept that the emotion is real and I cannot change that it happened or is something streaming through my heart at the moment. That’s when I come full circle to what Trudel-Fitzgerald et al. (2024) found to be true: I can accept it and I can change the situation I’m in.
Noticing Words I Use For My Mental Health
Perhaps it’s my love of words, but regulating my nervous system and coping with emotions does not stop at naming my emotions. Noticing the words I use while talking to others, journaling, or thinking allows me to be more in touch with myself. Taking the time to pause and consider the words I use opens a window of time to notice hurt I may have buried, gratitude I have not appreciated, or acceptance I have within reach. Spending a few short moments to dance a little longer with my words without distraction allows me to understand where my head and heart rest. Sometimes, I catch myself mislabeling my feels, and thus spinning myself into a world of confusion on a situation. Othertimes, I unveil feelings on situations I didn’t know I had. Then, I have the opportunity to continue the dance or revisit The Wheel of Emotions.
This act of noticing certainly takes time, requires vulnerability, and creates massive amounts of discomfort at times. However, when the act of noticing is complete, I typically find peace and gain a better understanding of myself. It is always well worth the introspective time and analysis.
Emotions are signals from our body that we are alive and feel responses to the things that happen to and around us. I encourage you to try one of these techniques and take 5 minutes to consider how it compares to your current coping habits.
References
The TTI Team. (2026, April 24). The science behind bilateral stimulation. Trauma Therapist Institute. https://www.traumatherapistinstitute.com/trauma-therapist-institute-blog/the-science-behind-bilateral-stimulation
Cleveland Clinic. (2026, July 8). Pursed-lip breathing: Technique, purpose & benefits. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/9443-pursed-lip-breathing
Northwestern Medicine. (2025, November). 4 breathing exercises for less stress, more energy. https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/4-breathing-techniques-for-better-health
Nook, E. C., Satpute, A. B., & Ochsner, K. N. (2021). Emotion naming impedes both cognitive reappraisal and mindful acceptance strategies of emotion regulation. Affective Science, 2(2), 187–198. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-021-00036-y