Urge Surfing Exercise
Learn: Urge surfing is a technique for managing unwanted behaviors when you experience distressing thoughts and emotions. This technique can be used to stop or reduce drug and alcohol use, emotional reactions such as blowing up when angry, and other unwanted behaviors. Rather than giving into the urge, you will ride it out, like a surfer rides a wave. All waves come and go and some are larger than others, but eventually they pass and break onto shore and dissipate. Similarly, after a short period of time the urge will pass with the emotion if you can learn to ride it out.
Trigger: An urge is triggered by a person, place, thought, feeling, or something else.
Rise: The urge becomes more intense. This may happen gradually or suddenly.
Peak: The urge reaches its most intense point. It may feel as if it will never go away.
Fall: The urge loses intensity and eventually fades away.
Change: Acknowledge you are having an intense emotion and an urge to respond or react with unwanted behaviors.
Notice your thoughts and feelings without trying to suppress them. It will be normal to feel discomfort. Most people want to eliminate the feeling quickly, when the best way to deal with the emotion is to experience it while you focus on taking slow deep breaths.
Remind yourself:
It is okay to have an urge, they are natural reactions to habits and addictions.
An urge is just a feeling it is not a must. You can have the feeling and choose not to act.
Some discomfort is ok, there is no need to change it.
An urge is only temporary and it will pass on its own.
Grow: Over time when you practice “URGE SURFING,” you will develop a new neural connection that becomes your go to as a practice when you feel intense emotions, versus the “old way” of reacting with unwanted behaviors to the feelings you experience.
Source: Urge Surfing via Yale