“Distress tolerance is a super power”
– Forrest Hansen
Distress is uncomfortable. Whether it’s anxiety when meeting new people, fear that your partner doesn’t care, or disappointment in missing out on something you want, “distress” does not feel good.
Because that visceral unpleasantness is a fundamental characteristic of distress, we tend to try to avoid it and want to protect our loved ones from it. The more intense the distress becomes, the stronger our instinct to avoid the pain gets. Though this avoidance reaction is understandable, it can undermine our mental health and the way we respond to adversity.
The erosion of distress tolerance skills is a modern problem. In early human communities, life was full of suffering, there was very little anyone could do about it, and there were precious few distractions from it. This forced human beings to learn to tolerate the distress in their daily lives.
In modern times, technology has lowered the amount of distress we face, allowed us to minimize and sometimes eliminate our distress, and offers almost endless distractions to sweep that distress under the rug.
In the short run this is great! But in the long run we are doing damage to our resiliency. When we avoid distress, we teach our brains that distress is a scary thing that needs to be avoided. Essentially reinforcing the fear of distress. Over time, our conception of distress as “dangerous” grows to mammoth proportions. This conception raises anxiety and causes more avoidance, which in turn, causes more anxiety. A vicious circle.
But there is hope…
If we learn to engage with our distress, hold fast in its current, we send a very different signal to our brains. This signal says that, although it is unpleasant, we can handle it, it’s not as bad as our anxiety told us it would be, and that it won’t last forever. This is the core of learning distress tolerance. Anxiety tells you you’ll break, distress tolerance teaches you you won’t.
Tools for distress tolerance are designed to turn the volume down on the distress while you engage with it. This can teach you that you can affect your experience of distress, and that you can take it. These may have some distracting elements, but they do not encourage complete avoidance of your pain.
- T.I.P.
- Temperature – Splash your face with cold water, hold an ice pack to your face, plunger your hand into ice water (all for 10-30 seconds). THis will draw your attention to the sensation of intense cold, reminding you that your suffering is not all there is
- Intense exercise – Use up the energy stored in your body. This is mildly distracting, but can also remove some of the emotional energy that is pushing the rumination. It also buys time for your emotions to calm down.
- Paced breathing – Slow, deliberate breaths while focusing on your body is one of the most effective ways we can lower our emotional intensity. This small measure of control over our experience of distress can help us to cope.
- Radical acceptance
- This is more of a mindset. One that is easier to embody after some paced breathing. We recognize that suffering is inevitable and choose to take it on rather than run away. This choice is informed by the tools that give us some control, the faith that we can handle it, and the truth that this suffering is temporary
- Reality is as it is – rejecting it does not change it
David
Simply Counselling Services