Distress tolerance skills - slower reactions for better outcomes

I was thinking the other day how we rarely run into trouble when things are going great. Seems obvious, right? It’s usually when we are stressed, or rushed, or surprised, or tired or hungry or… otherwise off balance, that we say things we regret, do things that make it worse, and suffer the most difficult emotional upheavals. I often hear clients berate themselves for not using a new skill when it would have helped, and then describe the wildest, most… Action-movie-level of crisis situation they were experiencing at the time, and I feel urged to normalise that they couldn’t be totally skilful while defusing metaphorical bombs on the roof of a speeding bus.

Distressing situations reduce the mental resources we have available, and so expecting yourself to use skills in a crisis is a nice goal, but also asking a lot of yourself. When you’ve got less resources to work with, complicated things are less likely to be helpful - you probably won’t remember a 6 step calming process if you can’t even feel your body in that moment. Simple, short concepts which are easy to remember with a short phrase or visual image can help a lot in overwhelming situations.

When in crisis, the urge to act can be powerful, but you’re less likely to choose a great action when you’re overwhelmed. Delaying the time between right now and when you take your next action can make the difference between taking a deep breath instead of saying something mean, stepping away from the situation instead of kicking a chair, or calming down enough to take a mindful moment instead of spiraling further into anger.

There are so many ways to do this, and they might start with practicing a simple statement like picturing IF YOU CAN’T CHANGE IT, SLOW IT DOWN printed on a big street sign. You might picture your overheated mental processes as snap-freezing and slowing to flow like glaciers, or imagining yourself as suddenly going really still, like a tree whose trunk and roots remain still and anchored, even as the leaves rustle in the wind. My favourite version of this is picturing the ‘But you told me to freeze!’ moment from Jim Carrey’s The Mask, which brings a goofy humor to whatever tense situation I’m facing at the time.

The takeaway message is that when you feel the urge to speed up, you can slow it down. When you feel rushed, you can withdraw your consent to rushing at any time. When your feelings and body demand that you do something right this second, you can promise to think about doing something in one minute instead, like the old saying “45 seconds is the difference between a reaction and a response”. You deserve to use all your skills and experience in facing whatever challenges come your way, and part of being able to do that is giving yourself the time to mobilise those resources to your own advantage.

So next time you’re in a crisis and feeling overwhelmed, maybe you could… Hurry up and slow down!