Distress Tolerance Skills-Distract

These are skills for putting up with painful events and feelings when you cannot make things better right away:

The first of these is DISTRACT (Take your attention off of your worries/feelings) with:  "Wise Mind ACCEPTS"

ACCEPTS is an acronym for

Activities

Contributing

Comparisons

Emotions

Pushing Away

Thoughts

Sensations

Activities= getting active; doing something

 Exercise or work on a hobby; clean your home; call or visit a friend; go to work and be "one-mindful" when there; play sports; go out to eat; do gardening; play video games

Contributing= doing something for someone else

Do volunteer work; give something to someone else; make something for someone else; do something thoughtful or surprising for someone else

 

Comparisons= putting yourself next to others (in your mind) and looking at how they are dealing with things; thinking about others who are "worse off" than you

Emotions= Feelings (Figure out what you are feeling, then do something to help you feel opposite that feeling)

Read books, watch movies or listen to music that makes you have strong feelings.  Be sure that what you do creates different feelings than the feelings you have right now which are causing you distress.  Ideas:  Scary movies, joke books, comedies, religious movies, or listening to marching songs

 

Pushing Away= Block the situation in your mind for awhile~Use with caution

Push the problem away by not thinking about it for awhile.  Build a pretend wall between you and the problem.  Push the problem away by blocking it in your mind.  Don't allow yourself to think about the problem over and over again (that's ruminating).  Put the problem causing the painful feelings on a shelf for awhile or box it up and store it away.  use with extreme caution, otherwise it could become avoiding which is not healthy or helpful.

Thoughts= Change what you are thinking about

Count to 10; count colors in a painting or tree; do puzzles; watch TV; read.

 

Sensations= Doing something to change one or more of the fives senses

Hold ice in hand and wait until it melts; squeeze a rubber ball very hard; stand under a very hard and very hot shower; listen to loud music; have sex; put a rubber band on your wrist, pull it out and then let it go.