TIPP: Skills To Change Your Body’s Chemistry When In Distress
“I find these skills specifically useful as a survivor, especially when experiencing a trigger.”
After enduring any form of trauma, it is inevitable that you are going to experience distress.
A useful DBT skill for when you are in distress is TIPP: Temperature, intense exercise, paced breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation. These skills are extremely useful as they change your body chemistry quickly to help you when you are in distress or feel the need to act on an unhealthy urge.
Temperature: When in distress, it is typical that one’s body temperature increases. By decreasing your body temperature, your heart slows down and your blood flow is redirected to your brain and heart, allowing you to slow down and think more clearly. You can do this by splashing your face with cold water, placing an ice pack or zip lock bag of cold water on your face, or taking a cold shower. If none of those do it for you, consider holding your breath and placing your face in a bowl or sink of cold water for 30 seconds at a time.
Intense Exercise: As TIPP skills are a quick fix, make sure to not overdo intense exercise. Spend 10-15 minutes max on these, the point of this skill is to do intense exercise to match your intense emotion. Examples of intense exercise can include putting on music and having a dance party, sprinting to the end of the street, or jumping jacks. Remember that it should not be a full on workout, the point is to get your body moving to distract your mind.
Paced Breathing: Allow yourself to calm down by slowing down your breath. One example of paced breathing is to breathe in for 4 seconds and then breathe out for 5-8 seconds. Do this for 1-2 minutes. My favorite type of paced breathing is box breathing: breathe in 4 seconds, hold breath 4 seconds, breathe out 4 seconds, and hold breath again for 4 seconds. Continue until you feel calm enough.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation: My favorite of the TIPP skills is progressive muscle relaxation, I can quite literally feel by body loosening up and being less tense. This is done by focusing on 1 muscle group at a time. Tense your muscles as much as you can for 5 seconds and then release and relax them. I like to work my way from my toes up to my head.
I find these skills specifically useful as a survivor, especially when experiencing a trigger. The goal of TIPP skills is to change your body chemistry to get you to remain calm, so try not to overuse these skills so they are the most effective when you are in distress.
-KelseyFlanagan