Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a highly effective approach for managing intense emotions, originally developed to help people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) but now widely used to treat various emotional challenges. DBT emphasizes skills for building emotional resilience, understanding your feelings, and responding to them in healthier ways. Here’s a look at some foundational DBT techniques for regulating emotions:
1. Understanding and naming emotions
- Why it helps: Identifying and naming emotions is the first step toward managing them. When you label your feelings, you create a bit of distance between you and the emotion, which can help decrease its intensity.
- How to practice: Practice checking in with yourself throughout the day. Try to name what you’re feeling specifically (e.g., instead of “I’m upset,” try “I’m frustrated because I felt ignored.”). Use an “emotion wheel” or list to help pinpoint the exact emotion.
2. Practice opposite action
- Why it helps: This skill involves doing the opposite of what your strong emotion urges you to do when your initial response might not be helpful. This can help break the cycle of emotional reactivity.
- How to practice: For example, if you feel angry and want to isolate, try doing the opposite by engaging with others or doing something kind. If fear tells you to avoid something, consider taking a small, safe step toward it. By challenging the automatic response, you create more control over how emotions guide your actions.
3. Self-soothing with the five senses
- Why it helps: Self-soothing uses your senses to ground you in the present moment, which can calm your nervous system and reduce emotional overwhelm.
- How to practice:
- Sight: Look at something visually appealing, like art or nature.
- Sound: Listen to soothing music or nature sounds.
- Touch: Hold a comforting object or wrap yourself in a soft blanket.
- Taste: Savor a warm cup of tea or a small piece of chocolate.
- Smell: Use essential oils or a calming scented candle.
4. Check the facts
- Why it helps: Strong emotions are often fueled by thoughts or assumptions that may not be accurate. By “checking the facts,” you can see if the situation truly aligns with the intensity of your emotional response.
- How to practice: When you feel overwhelmed, ask yourself:
- What are the actual facts of this situation?
- Am I interpreting this situation accurately?
- Is my emotional response proportionate to what is happening?
- This practice encourages you to step back, assess the situation, and possibly find a different perspective.
5. Building positive experiences
- Why it helps: Regularly engaging in positive activities can improve your emotional baseline, making it easier to handle negative emotions when they arise.
- How to practice: Schedule enjoyable activities throughout your week. This might include spending time with friends, engaging in hobbies, or trying something new. By increasing positive experiences, you create emotional “padding” that can help buffer you from life’s inevitable stresses.
6. Reduce emotional vulnerability (ABC PLEASE)
- Why it helps: Taking care of your body and mind on a daily basis makes it easier to handle intense emotions.
- How to practice: DBT recommends the “ABC PLEASE” acronym:
- A – Accumulate positive experiences
- B – Build mastery by engaging in activities that make you feel competent
- C – Cope ahead by planning for emotional challenges
- PLEASE – Take care of Physical health, avoid substances, eat, avoid mood-altering drugs, sleep, and exercise. By attending to your physical needs, you create a foundation for emotional stability.
7. Mindfulness of emotions without judgment
- Why it helps: Allowing yourself to feel an emotion fully without judgment or suppression helps it pass more quickly and less painfully.
- How to practice: When an emotion arises, try to observe it as you would a passing cloud, noting its presence but not pushing it away or getting consumed by it. Remind yourself that emotions are temporary, and you don’t have to act on them.
Final thoughts
Learning to regulate emotions is a process that requires time and patience. Practicing these DBT techniques can lead to a greater sense of balance, allowing you to respond to life’s challenges with resilience and self-compassion. Over time, these skills can help build emotional resilience, helping you handle both the highs and lows of life with a newfound sense of peace.