Why Coping Skills Stop Working
- 21 hours ago
- 5 min read
And What to Do Instead
Written by Evan Vukets, RCC, Registered Clinical Counsellor in Abbotsford, BC. I support men in Abbotsford, the Fraser Valley, and online across BC. Learn more about me.
Most men who reach out for counselling are not starting from zero.
They have coping skills.
They have insight.
They have been able to think their way through problems before.
And yet, at some point, the tools that once helped stop working.
This is often where frustration turns inward to character attacks:
Why am I still stuck?
Why does this keep happening?
Why can’t I just apply what I already know?
The answer usually has less to do with motivation or discipline, and more to do with what state your nervous system is in when you try to cope.
Coping Skills Are Not Failing
They Are Being Used at the Wrong Time
Coping skills rely on access to the thinking part of the brain.
When you are calm enough, you can reflect, plan, problem solve, and regulate impulses. When you are overwhelmed, that access changes.
Stress does not just make things harder emotionally.
It changes how the brain functions in real time.
This is why logic can suddenly feel unavailable.
This is why advice you would give someone else feels impossible to apply yourself.
This is why coping skills can feel useless when you need them most.
It is not a personal failure. It is a brain and nervous system response to chronically high levels of stress and pressure.
What Happens in the Brain When You Are Overwhelmed
When stress builds beyond a certain point, the brain shifts priorities.
Instead of focusing on long term planning or emotional nuance, it moves into survival mode.
Professor and Neuropsychiatrist, Dr. Dan Siegel, describes this clearly through his hand brain model, which many people refer to as 'flipping the lid.'
When you are calm and regulated, the front part of the brain, or the 'thinking brain' helps with:
Reasoning.
Planning.
Decision making.
Emotional regulation.
Impulse control.
When stress becomes intense or prolonged, the brain shifts into protection mode, or the "survival brain." The nervous system prioritizes survival over reflection or logical problem solving.
This is sometimes described as “flipping your lid.”
When this happens:
Logic becomes harder to access.
Emotions feel louder or shut down.
Coping skills that require focus stop working.
You react instead of respond.
The problem is that as men we rely mostly on logical coping skills, which require logic...the very system that stress temporarily shuts down when overwhelmed! So when men try to fix overwhelm with more logic, more effort, or more self criticism, it often backfires.
(If you want a deeper nervous system explanation, you can read: Fight Stress Right)
The Window of Tolerance
There is a concept often used in trauma work called the Window of Tolerance.
This model speaks more to our nervous system than purely the brain (The nervous system is the body’s communication network, connecting the brain to the rest of the body and shaping how we think, feel, and react).
When we’re outside our window of tolerance, coping skills don’t fail because we’re weak. They fail because the nervous system is asking for regulation first.
The Window of Tolerance describes the range where you can stay emotionally engaged without becoming overwhelmed.
Inside it you can:
Think clearly.
Feel emotions without being overwhelmed.
Stay present.
Use coping skills effectively.
When stress stays within this window, tools work well.
When stress pushes you outside of it, you may move into:
Hyperarousal, anxiety, irritability, anger, and racing thoughts.
Hypoarousal, numbness, shutdown, avoidance, and exhaustion.
Most coping skills are designed to work inside the window, not far outside of it.
When someone is overwhelmed, adding more strategies can actually increase pressure.
This is often when men say:“I know what I should do, but I can’t.”
Why Pushing Harder Often Makes Things Worse
A common response to overwhelm is to try to busy ourselves as quickly as possible.
Do more.
Try harder.
Push through.
For some people, this works briefly.
For most, it only increases frustration and shame.
Why?
Because the nervous system does not respond well to force.
Trying to override anxiety or shutdown without addressing the underlying state can actually increase tension.
This is why grounding and regulation are not about fixing emotions.They are about creating enough safety for the system to settle on its own.
What Actually Helps When Coping Skills Stop Working
When someone is outside their window of tolerance, physiologically our body and brains shift away from:
Problem solving.
Self improvement.
And nuanced insight.
To fix this, the goal becomes regulation first.
This might look like:
Bring ourself back to the present (techniques like progressive muscle relaxation).
Movement or walking.
Slowing the breath (5 effective techniques are listed here).
Temperature changes (like putting cool water on your wrists or face or a shower).
Sensory grounding (like 5,4,3,2,1)
These are not solutions.
They are bridges back to capacity.
Once our nervous system settles and our brain turns back online, cognitive coping skills can become effective again.
This Is Not About Doing More
It Is About Doing Things in the Right Order
One of the most important reframes I offer clients is this:
You do not need better coping skills.
You need better timing.
Trying to think your way out of overwhelm when the nervous system is dysregulated is like trying to reason with a smoke alarm while the battery is dying.
Regulation comes first.
Then reflection.
Then action.
This sequence matters.
How Counselling Helps With This Pattern
In counselling, this work is less about teaching new techniques and more about learning how your system actually responds to stress.
Together, we slow things down enough to notice:
Early signs of overwhelm.
What stress pulls you you outside your window of tolerance.
What tools reliably brings you back.
Over time, this builds trust in your own internal signals instead of fighting them.
The goal is not constant calm.
The goal is flexibility and recovery.
Counselling does not replace coping skills.
It helps empower you to make them effective again.
Final Thought
If you have been telling yourself for a while that you should be able to handle things better by now, take a pause.
What if the problem is not effort or insight, but asking your brain to do something it cannot do in that moment?
You wouldn’t blame a hammer for not being able to cut a dovetail.
It’s not what it’s for.
When stress is high, the thinking brain isn’t available.
No amount of logic will fix that in the moment.
Learning how to work with your nervous system and brain instead of against it often changes everything.
