Coping Strategies for Trauma

Coping with trauma is not about being strong enough or positive enough. It is about learning how to live inside a body that has known overwhelm, fear, or helplessness. It is about slowly discovering that safety can exist again, even if tiny, even if fleeting, even if it’s something you have to practice over and over until it becomes familiar.

For many people, trauma isn’t just a memory. It’s a physiological imprint. It lives in your nervous system, your muscles, the speed of your thoughts, the way you scan a room, the way you brace for disappointment or danger without even realizing it. Coping, in the truest sense, means helping your body feel a little less alone with what it has carried.

In this blog, we will explore coping strategies that support your mind and your nervous system as you work to heal from trauma. My hope is that you feel seen, validated, and resourced as you move through this.

Coping Is Not Linear

Let’s start with this truth: you’re not doing it wrong if your symptoms change day to day. Trauma healing isn’t linear. Some days your nervous system feels open and hopeful, and on others it feels like you’re right back where you started. This doesn’t mean you’ve regressed. It means your system is doing its best to protect you.

Coping strategies give you ways to support yourself through these fluctuations. They help you build internal safety, even as old patterns rise up and ask to be tended to.

1. Grounding Strategies That Anchor the Body

Grounding is not just a mindfulness buzzword. It’s a way of communicating safety to the nervous system. Trauma often leaves your body in a state of hyperarousal or collapse. Grounding brings you into the present moment without asking your system to do more than it can handle.

a. Orienting to Your Environment

This is one of the most gentle and powerful grounding tools, especially when your system is overwhelmed. Simply look around the space you’re in and notice:

• What colors you see

• What objects feel comforting or neutral

• Shapes, textures, and light

This is a way of saying to your nervous system, “I am here. I’m not in the past. I’m in a safe-enough environment.”

b. Feeling Your Feet

This sounds basic, but it works. Trauma often pulls your awareness up and out — into future fears, past memories, or internal spiraling. Bringing your attention back down into your feet helps reorient your sense of stability.

Try this:
Put both feet flat on the ground. Press them gently into the floor. Notice the sensations: temperature, pressure, weight. Imagine the floor holding you up.

c. Temperature Changes

A cool washcloth, an ice cube, or a warm mug can help interrupt panic or dissociation. It gives your body something immediate and tangible to latch onto.

2. Breath Practices for Regulation (Without Forcing Calm)

Breathing is one of the quickest ways to shift your nervous system, but when you’ve experienced trauma, deep breathing can sometimes feel scary or activating. So the goal here isn’t “take a deep breath to calm down.” It’s “take a breath your body feels safe taking.”

Here are a few options:

a. Lengthen the exhale

Instead of forcing big inhales, try exhaling just one or two seconds longer than your inhale.
For example: inhale for 4, exhale for 5 or 6.

This signals the parasympathetic system without overwhelming you.

b. Box breathing (with softness)

Instead of rigid 4-4-4-4 counts, try a gentler version:

• Inhale for 3

• Hold for 2

• Exhale for 3

• Hold for 2

Keep the edges soft rather than strict. You’re not performing. You’re soothing.

c. Hand-to-chest breathing

Place one hand over your chest and inhale just enough to feel your hand rise. This helps bring awareness to your body in a gentle, nurturing way.

3. Coping Through Sensory Regulation

Trauma affects sensory processing. You may become more sensitive to sounds, lights, pressure, or movement. Or you might go the opposite direction and feel numb or disconnected. Sensory strategies help rebalance you.

a. Weighted blankets or gentle pressure

Pressure helps soothe the nervous system by activating proprioceptive input. If a weighted blanket is too much, try:

• pressing your hands together

• hugging a pillow

• leaning against a wall

These small pockets of pressure can help your system feel more contained.

b. Sensory reduction

If your environment feels overstimulating, try:

• turning off overhead lights

• reducing noise

• using soft fabrics

• creating one “low-sensation corner” in your home

Your senses deserve rest.

c. Stimulating sensory input when you feel shutdown

When dissociation or numbness takes over, gentle stimulation can help bring you back:

• a textured object

• peppermint essential oil

• holding something with weight

This is not about shocking your system but inviting it back into connection.

4. Cognitive Coping: Reframing Without Gaslighting Yourself

Cognitive tools help you work with the stories your trauma taught you — without minimizing the pain.

a. “My body is remembering”

Instead of saying “What’s wrong with me,” try:

“My body is remembering something that used to be unsafe, and it’s trying to protect me.”

This creates space between who you are and what your trauma responses are.

b. “Both-and” thinking

Trauma often creates black-and-white thinking.
Instead of “I’m fine” or “I’m falling apart,” try:

“I’m struggling right now, and I’m doing my best to support myself.”

This shifts you out of shame and into possibility.

c. Values-based coping

Ask yourself:

• What matters to me right now?

• What kind of person do I want to be in this moment?

• What small action aligns with that?

This keeps you connected to your agency.

5. Emotional Coping: Making Space for Your Feelings

A lot of people fear that if they let their feelings in, they’ll be swept away by them. Trauma can make emotions feel too big, too sharp, or too dangerous.

Here are ways to support emotional processing safely:

a. Name the feeling without fixing it

Try saying:

• “This feels like grief.”

• “This feels like fear.”

• “This feels like anger.”

Naming helps your brain integrate the experience.

b. Give the feeling a role or function

Every feeling has a job, even if it’s not an easy one.

For example:

• Anger might be trying to protect you.

• Sadness might be letting you know something matters.

• Fear might be scanning for danger out of habit.

When you understand the function, the feeling becomes less threatening.

c. Let the emotion move

Your body wants to complete the stress cycles it never got to finish. Try:

• shaking your hands

• pushing gently against a wall

• stretching your arms

• walking outside

Emotions are physiological waves. They are meant to move.

6. Coping Through Connection

Trauma often isolates you, not out of choice but out of survival. Rebuilding safe connection is one of the most powerful coping tools.

a. Co-regulation with another person

This could be:

• sitting next to a trusted friend

• talking with someone who feels emotionally safe

• hearing a steady voice

You don’t need to talk about the trauma to benefit from connection.

b. Connection with animals

For many trauma survivors, animals feel safer than people. A pet's steady breathing, gentle weight, or affection can help regulate your system.

c. Community support

Being around others who understand trauma — support groups, gentle movement classes, healing spaces — helps your nervous system feel less alone.

7. Coping Through Boundaries and Self-Protection

Trauma often teaches you that your needs are too much or that protecting yourself will cost you connection. But boundaries are coping tools.

a. Micro-boundaries

Small boundaries count:

• “I need a moment.”

• “I’m going to step outside.”

• “I can talk later.”

You don’t need a big speech to protect your energy.

b. Internal boundaries

When your thoughts spiral, try:

“I hear that part of me that’s scared, and I’m going to slow down the story.”

This helps you separate fear from reality.

c. Boundaries with others

You are allowed to say:

• “No.”

• “I’m not available.”

• “I’m not comfortable with that.”

Boundaries help your body feel safe enough to heal.

8. Somatic Coping: Coming Home to Yourself

Somatic coping helps you reconnect with your body gently and respectfully.

a. Pendulation

Move your attention between a part of your body that feels tense and one that feels neutral or grounded. This helps your system learn that it doesn’t have to stay stuck in one sensation.

b. Movement choices

Your body needs a voice in how it wants to move:

• stretching

• slow walking

• yoga

• gentle swaying

• dancing

Let your body lead.

c. Titration

Take in small pieces of experience at a time.
Don’t force yourself to feel everything at once. Healing happens dose by dose.

9. Coping Through Supportive Routines

Trauma can make life feel chaotic or unpredictable. Structure helps you rebuild stability.

a. Predictability

Choose one or two routines that feel manageable:

• morning tea

• a 10-minute walk

• journaling

• consistent sleep times

Predictability communicates safety.

b. Rest practices

Rest isn’t laziness. It’s part of regulation. Your body repairs itself when you let it slow down.

c. Creative expression

Art, writing, music — these allow emotions to move without words.

10. When Coping Isn’t Enough

Coping helps stabilize your nervous system, but healing often requires deeper work. Therapy can help you understand your trauma, integrate the fragmented pieces, and create a life that feels grounded and aligned with your true self.

There is no shame in needing support. Trauma is too heavy to navigate alone.

A Final Word of Compassion

If you’re coping with trauma, please know this:

Nothing about your responses is a character flaw.
You are not broken, dramatic, or too much.
Your nervous system is doing exactly what it learned to do in moments when things were too overwhelming.

Coping strategies are not about perfection. They’re about giving yourself new experiences of safety — slowly, gently, consistently — until your body begins to believe them.

You deserve to feel grounded, supported, and connected again. And you don’t have to rush your way there. Your pace is what it needs to be, there’s no need to compare it to others. Your healing is yours.

About the Author: Trauma Therapy Denver CO

Martha Carter is a licensed therapist providing virtual services in Colorado. She is trauma-informed and trained in somatic, neurobiology-based modalities to help people with all types of trauma, chronic pain, and eating disorders heal from the inside out.

(Colorado residents only)