Coping is about what we do to alleviate situational stress, that is, the ability to manage challenging, threatening or dangerous situations. It also refers to the ability to generate and maintain our psychological well-being in the face of a worrisome external condition.
The possible stressful situations we could face when skiing could be:
- Apprehension when ascending certain lifts.
- Anxiety when descending narrow or steep slopes.
- Uncontrolled anxiety when passing through congested areas.
- Nervous tension when skiing in adverse weather conditions (fog, rain, heavy snowfall, wind).
- Self-perception of lack of control.
- Despair when perceiving that others may run us over.
- Paralyzing anguish generated by heights.
- Fear of falling and not being able to get up.
- Fear of getting hurt.
- Suffering generalized discomfort when facing events that put our own performance in evaluation (descending moguls or deep snow, participating in a competition).
We tend to adopt a certain coping style to the situation if we perceive it as controllable, or to focus on the emotions if believing that the situation is uncontrollable, that it cannot be changed, or that it is out of our control.
Developing coping skills is of interest to instructors and coaches as learners and athletes are regularly faced with distressing situations that they must deal with. Understanding the different coping styles and strategies that skiers use is useful in helping to overcome them.
In the healthy coping of the stressful situation we have personal resources to overcome the obstacle or facilitate its solution.
Some of these resources are:
- Considering alternatives.
- Reinterpret the situation.
- Seek help in modeling, i.e., observe the behavior of other skiers in similar situations.
- Use humor, when appropriate, to mitigate the tension generated.
When going through a stressful situation it is normal to experience the following:
- Anxiety (we want the situation to pass quickly).
- Generalized fear (of hurting ourselves or others, of not being able to control ourselves).
- Anger at ourselves (for not having the ability to control the situation).
- Disorganization (not knowing how to organize our own skiing).
- Feeling of helplessness (want to overcome it but cannot).
- Feeling of loneliness (facing the situation in isolation and helplessness).
- Hopelessness (we cannot overcome it).
- Worry (what will happen to us if we do not master it).
- Uncertainty (when will we be able to control and overcome the situation).
In the management of stressful situations, it is beneficial to keep in mind the positive experiences that are generated:
- The experience to face new or similar challenges.
- The recognition of cooperation and empathy with others who are in the same situation.
- The development of tolerance to difficulties.
- The observation of the effort made to adapt.
- The deployment of self-knowledge.
Modes or strategies of stress management
Coping with environmental conditions in the mountains is an essential part of skiing. We need to develop a sense of well-being by practicing a healthy activity related to environmental situations. Also, we need to be confident in our responses to adversity since the mountain generates different levels of stress and, therefore, different psychosomatic reactions. In these cases, coping strategies must be developed to deal with such situations.
The stress management mode, or coping strategy, is the way in which we cope with and resolve a stressful situation. These are the behaviors we adopt to solve conflicts generated by internal or external realities that become sources of challenge or threat and exceed our own resources. These psycho-affective mechanisms are activated when the skier-context balance is broken and the objective of the management strategies is to recover our lost mental or emotional harmony.
The development of stressful situation management begins in childhood. Parents and teachers are responsible for providing examples and suggestions for coping with worrying or distressing situations. In adulthood these strategies are learned through trial and error, through observation of others, or through outside help. Their effectiveness results from our beliefs about our own ability to cope with stressful scenarios (perceived self-efficacy). We tend to use different coping strategies depending on the situation. While some are more adapted to our own requirements than others, none by itself is effective in coping with all situations.
Coping strategies can be classified mainly into cognitive and behavioral. Cognitive strategies involve the conscious management of our thoughts and emotions.
- Positive strategies refer to seeking calm through awareness and reasoning about the situation, breathing, positive internal dialogue, positive thoughts, reassessment, or seeking help if our own strategies do not work.
- Problem orientation consists of confronting the situation by seeking solutions. It is applied when the situation is perceived as controllable and may lead to emotional distancing if it is perceived as impossible to change. If we use this style. we focus on the problem by facing it, changing it, or eliminating it. For us, the priority is to eliminate the source of stress by seeking information about the circumstances and learning new skills to manage them.
- The anticipation strategy refers to anticipating possible threatening situations and proactively preparing to deal with them. This helps to minimize distress by anticipating what they will be like allowing preparation to cope.
- Emotion-focused coping is characterized by reacting emotionally to the context through self-blame, learned helplessness, or frustration. This type of coping is a mechanism used to mitigate distress by preventing or reducing the emotional agents provoked by the situation. The aim of this mechanism is to modify the meaning of the stressful situation or to divert attention.
- In the avoidance orientation we tend to ignore, distort, avoid, or escape from the environment perceived as threatening. In avoidance, also recognized as denial, we behave as if there is no source of stress, or ‘stressor’, therefore, no change in behavior, perception, or emotional response is required. We act by ‘forgetting’ or distracting ourselves rather than coping with the situation. While we may recognize that it is stressful, we may also believe that it cannot be changed.
- The use of a sense of humor contributes positively to our emotional and mental well-being. The physiological process of laughter produces muscle relaxation, exercises the cardiovascular area, and increases oxygenation and endorphin generation. The regular practice of humor is a sign of positive adaptation. Its use in stressful conditions can collaborate in the perception of a certain control since we may feel helpless, so we apply it to escape momentarily from the helpless situation we are experiencing.
