A Therapist's Guide to Building a Coping Menu for Anxiety, Stress and Hard Days
There’s a moment I see all the time in therapy.
A client is overwhelmed, anxious, emotionally flooded, or stuck in a spiral of negative thoughts. I gently ask, “What helps when you feel like this?”
And without fail, they stare at me like I’ve just asked them to recite the tax code backwards. “I don’t know.”
Meanwhile, if you asked them their Starbucks order, the plot of three seasons of a reality show, or exactly what their ex said during an argument in 2019, they could answer immediately.
This is not because people are incapable of coping. It’s because when we are emotionally activated, our brains become incredibly bad at accessing helpful information. Stress narrows our thinking. Anxiety convinces us nothing will help. Depression tells us there’s no point trying.
Which is exactly why I am a passionate believer in the power of the coping menu.
A coping menu is exactly what it sounds like: a list of things that help you feel better, regulate your emotions, or soften the intensity of a difficult moment. Think of it like a personalized emotional survival guide. It can include therapy skills, comforting routines, distractions, sensory tools, social support, movement, creativity, humor, or tiny pleasures that remind you you’re still a human being.
Some coping menus are simple and streamlined:
● Call my best friend
● Go for a walk
● Watch an episode of my comfort show
● Take a hot bath
● Sit outside for ten minutes
Others are absolutely enormous. I’m talking Cheesecake Factory-sized. Twenty-seven pages. Color-coded. Multiple sections. Emotional appetizers. Anxiety entrées. Dessert coping mechanisms.
Honestly? I support both approaches.
Because the goal of a coping menu is not perfection. The goal is accessibility. When your brain is struggling, you should not have to invent coping skills from scratch.
You should be able to look at a list and think:
“Oh right. I forgot music exists.”
One of the biggest misconceptions about coping is that every coping strategy has to be deeply therapeutic, profoundly mindful, or spiritually transformative. People think coping should involve journaling under a weighted blanket while drinking herbal tea and having a breakthrough about their inner child.
Sometimes coping is that.
Sometimes coping is watching raccoons steal cat food on TikTok for ten minutes or until your nervous system calms down enough to function again.
Both count.
Working with a therapist can help you identify what actually works for you and build skills you can use between sessions.
In therapy, we often teach formal coping skills:
● Grounding exercises
● Deep breathing
● Reframing thoughts
● Self-compassion practices
● Progressive muscle relaxation
● Mindfulness tools
These are valuable. Research-backed. Effective.
But I also encourage clients to include deeply personal, even silly, things on their coping menu. Because regulation is not one-size-fits-all.
Maybe your coping menu includes:
● Rewatching your favorite sitcom for the 400th time
● Buying an unnecessarily fancy coffee
● Organizing a drawer
● Listening to angry girl music while cleaning
● Petting your dog
● Going to Target with absolutely no intention of buying candles and somehow still leaving with three candles
Your nervous system does not care whether a coping skill looks impressive. It cares whether it works.
That’s important.
Some people dismiss their own coping tools because they seem “too small” or “not productive enough.” But emotional regulation often happens through ordinary experiences. Tiny moments of comfort matter. Tiny interruptions to suffering matter.
A coping menu helps us stop treating self-care like an emergency intervention and start treating it like preventative maintenance.
And here’s another important point: coping menus work best when they are specific.
“Feel better” is too vague.
“Take a ten-minute walk while listening to a playlist that makes me feel like the main character in an indie movie” is actionable.
Your coping menu should be personal enough that it actually sounds like you.
I also recommend creating different categories within the menu because different emotional states need different tools.
For example:
For anxiety:
● Ice water or sour candy
● Grounding exercises
● Breathing techniques
● Walking outside
● Calling someone safe
For sadness:
● Comfort TV
● Warm shower
● Favorite meal
● Looking through old photos
● Being around other humans, even quietly
For anger:
● Intense movement
● Loud music
● Punching a pillow
● Cleaning something aggressively
● Voice-noting your feelings before sending absolutely no texts to your ex
For emotional exhaustion:
● Cancel one nonessential thing
● Sit in silence
● Order takeout
● Nap
● Stop trying to optimize your entire existence for one evening
The beauty of a coping menu is that it removes pressure.
When people are distressed, they often believe they must find the perfect solution to their feelings. But emotional regulation is usually less dramatic than that. Often, we just need enough relief to make the next moment manageable.
A coping menu says:
“You do not need to solve your entire life right now. You just need one thing that helps by 5%.” That mindset shift is huge.
Another reason coping menus matter? They increase emotional self-awareness. As you build one, you begin noticing patterns:
● What actually calms me down?
● What makes things worse?
● What helps me feel grounded?
● What gives me energy?
● What comforts me?
● What drains me?
That awareness builds emotional resilience over time. You stop seeing yourself as someone who is helpless in difficult emotions and start seeing yourself as someone who has tools.
And tools matter.
Especially because difficult emotions are inevitable. Stress is inevitable. Anxiety is inevitable. Hard days are inevitable.
But suffering becomes much heavier when we believe we have no way to respond to those experiences.
I often tell clients that coping menus are like emotional emergency kits. You hope you don’t need them constantly, but when things get hard, you’ll be glad they exist.
And importantly, coping menus should evolve.
What worked for you at 16 may not work at 36.
What helped during grief may not help during burnout.
What regulated you in one season of life may feel completely ineffective later. That’s normal.
Your coping menu is a living document, not a carved stone tablet handed down from the therapy gods.
Add things. Remove things. Experiment.
And if you’re struggling to build one, start absurdly small.
Ask yourself:
● What usually helps me feel 1% better?
● What makes me feel safe?
● What helps me reconnect to myself?
● What comforts me when I’m overwhelmed?
● What helps me feel human again?
That’s your starting point.
One of my favorite things about coping menus is that they quietly challenge the idea that healing must always be serious.
Healing can look like:
● Dancing badly in your kitchen
● Texting your funniest friend
● Buying mozzarella sticks
● Sitting in the sun like a lizard
● Watching baking shows while emotionally dissociating just enough to regroup We are allowed to support ourselves gently.
In a culture that often glorifies pushing through, productivity, and emotional suppression, coping menus remind us that caring for ourselves is not laziness. It is an emotional responsibility.
So if you don’t already have a coping menu, consider making one.
Make a tiny one on your phone.
Make a giant one in a journal.
Make one with categories, colors, and tabs if that sparks joy.
Make one that includes grounding skills and reality TV.
Make one that includes breathing exercises and french fries.
The goal is not to become a person who never struggles.
The goal is to become a person who knows what helps when they do.
Sarah Davidson and the therapists at Solid Foundations Therapy provide individual therapy for anxiety, stress, emotional regulation, and coping skills in Downers Grove, Naperville, Wheaton, Lombard, and Westmont, with telehealth available throughout Illinois.
Building a coping menu sounds simple, but knowing where to start — and actually using it when things get hard — is a skill. At Solid Foundations Therapy, we help individuals identify what works for their nervous system, build a real toolkit for managing anxiety and stress, and practice using it before the hard moments hit. You will leave every session with something concrete to try before we meet again.
Ready to stop white-knuckling it through hard days?