DBT Skills Collection

Distress Tolerance Skills

The following group of DBT Skills can be described as distress tolerance skills, which cause distraction from the situation by applying the acronym ACCEPT:

• A - Activities
• C - Contributing
• C - Comparisons
• E - Emotions
• P - Pushing Away
• T - Thoughts

Distraction through Activities - Get yourself moving:

• Watch the lights of the city in the evening - from far away, reflected on the water and above you the stars
• Mindfulness exercises
• Watch old movies / watch black and white movies
• Sitting by the water, going for a walk and letting your thoughts drift away
• Play video games
• Watch Anime movies
• Go to the sea
• Do breathing exercises (e.g. conscious slow and deep breathing, Wim Hof Method)
• Go to a fair
• Clean up
• Play Sudoku
• Memorize
• Drive around in your car - just driving and listening to music
• Autogenic training
• Baking and Cooking
• Walk barefoot in the woods
• Tinkering
• Begleri (Greek game of skill)
• Prepare gifts for close people
• Boxing
• Write a letter / e-mail
• Read books in the library
• Ironing
• Stroll around your city
• Chat with your loved ones
• Sing in a choir
• Play computer games
• Looking out the window to the sky and count clouds
• Consciously listening to the sounds of nature
• Feeling nature with all senses
• Use the advantages and disadvantages of the weather (heat, cold etc.)
• Walking through vineyards
• Playing an instrument (piano, drums, guitar, ...)
• Do an activity that you enjoy or have always wanted to do (e.g. going to a trampoline hall, stand-up-paddling, etc.)
• Draw any route on the city map and then walk, jog, cycle along this route.
• Learning a foreign language
• Take a trip
• Hug a tree
• Thoroughly clean up, rearrange or muck out a particular room
• Shopping
• Play or watch football, basketball, soccer, rugby, ice hockey, etc.
• Drink an Energy Drink
• Practice relaxation exercises
• Cook your favorite dish
• Look at something (looking into the washing machine, into the wood-burning stove, into an aquarium, out of the window or into the sky...)
• Decorate something
• Wear something comfortable
• Plan something (an excursion, a trip, a special hour in which you only take time for yourself, a party, a surprise...)
• Repair something
• Write something (letter, diary, poem, history, pro and contra list, shopping list...)
• Do something crazy
• Ride a bike
• Watch TV
• Play fidget spinner
• Watch movies (nothing sad)
• Pinball
• Photograph something interesting
• View photos
• Breathe fresh air or sea air consciously
• Drink cappuccino or coffee in peace
• Write down feelings, thoughts and feelings like a kind of poem
• Crochet
• Handwork
• Handicraft projects
• Housework (ironing, cleaning, washing dishes, chopping wood, doing some repairs, cleaning up, washing clothes, cooking...)
• Hot/cold showers
• Chop wood
• Listen to audio books
• Playing online games
• Walking in the rain
• Walking in the forest, pausing and taking a deep breath
• Walking in nature, looking, letting your eyes wander, looking for sunlight
• Go to a nice café
• Go to an amusement park, the movies, the theatre
• Viewing candlelights
• Put on your favorite clothes
• Play the piano
• Puzzle books: crossword puzzles, Sudoku
• Put headphones on and listen to music really loud
• Strength training, abdominal muscle exercises, push-ups, Thera-band, knee bends, self-defence techniques, boxing
• Doodle around on a piece of paper
• Baking cakes or cookies - regardless of the season
• Click pen
• Let yourself be massaged
• Learning for school or work
• Read a book
• Watch people in a park walking by
• Write songs
• Dance
• Maintain a list of beautiful moments
• Read funny paperbacks
• Watch funny videos on Youtube or movies on Netflix
• Make yourself pretty, put on make-up, do your hair
• Painting
• Painting - Adult coloring pages
• Paint - Coloring Pages
• Paint - Coloring pages for kids and adults
• Paint - point to point
• Paint - Connecting points
• Painting (with colored pencils, pencils, finger paints, pastel chalks, chalk, acrylic paints, emulsion paints...)
• Painting by numbers
• Painting Mandala
• Meditation in completely darkened rooms without external stimuli
• Walking the dog
• Playing with a pet or cuddling
• Talking to someone, fooling around, just being there, playing, sports,
• Playing with a child, doing handicrafts, having fun
• Assemble furniture
• Moorland and mudflat walks
• Go out into the fresh air at sunrise in the morning
• Ride a motorbike
• Listen to music and sing along
• Make music
• Sewing / Tailoring
• Nordic walking
• Online Sudoku
• Crumple/tear paper
• Prepare and read pros and cons lists
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Cleaning, tidying, arranging and thus making and keeping the home beautiful
• Puzzles, counting puzzle pieces
• Renovation (e.g. repainting a room, sanding down a table)
• Read schmaltzy novels
• Go for a walk (alone or not alone) and listening to music
• Play parlor games
• Sports/training (badminton, table football, table tennis, volleyball, football, jogging, boxing, swimming, running, walking, cycling, skating, dancing, horse riding, weight training, hiking, aerobics, Zumba, yoga, etc.)
• Petting enclosures in the zoo
• Knitting
• Writing a diary
• Dancing, Zumba or Bailaro
• Go for a cup of tea
• Phoning with friends/family
• Deep breathing in rhythm 3-3-6
• Watch an animal documentary
• Spend an evening together with good friends
• Washing or folding laundry
• Watch wrestling (distraction)
• Yoga
• Drawing
• Zen and Anti-stress coloring pages for adults
• Go to the lake, look at the water and let your thoughts drift

Distraction through Contributing - Support others to distract yourself. For example, you can offer help or prepare a surprise:

• Encourage other people when they do something that makes sense and is positive for yourself
• Recognize and praise the achievements of others
• Helping to wash the dishes
• Helping to put on and take off the laundry, ironing
• Chatting, writing in a forum
• Making or wrapping a gift
• Talk to close friends
• Talk to parents/ mother/ father
• Plan or give away a joint activity
• Write a letter/ e-mail or SMS/ WhatsApp
• Visit or call a friend
• Getting hugged without having to talk
• Give someone a present (e.g. handicraft, paint, buy flowers)
• Send a card to someone
• Encourage someone
• Listening to / encouraging someone
• Doing someone a favor
• Mending clothes or darning socks
• Meet people who are good for you, who understand you
• Cuddle with your partner and hold him tight
• Cuddling with the kids
• Doing something with the family
• Talk to former fellow patients from the medical center
• Play something with a friend (e.g. board games)
• Self-help groups
• Ask for something or help
• Embrace loving people
• Going among people
• Query vocabulary or have it queried

Distraction through Comparisons - Think of people who are worse off. For example, read the BILD newspaper, deal with misfortunes and famines or think about how bad things used to be ("Today I have a nice apartment, in the past ..."):

• Others feel sorry for me - I do something to make me feel better!
• They have the same chances as me, but don't take it!
• Reality check
• What do I have that others don't?
• What else could be worse?
• I have something that others don't have (e.g. a job, a nice apartment...)
• Compared to the past, I have achieved a lot today (e.g. I have completed an apprenticeship, I have some good friends...)

Distraction through Emotions - You can "replace" a painful situation by consciously leaving the situation inwardly for a while and creating situations for yourself which can create a pleasant feeling. It is important that you promise yourself to come back to the distressed situation at a later time and deal with it:

• Act contrary to the feeling
• Changing the moment
• Watching schmaltzy movies or soap operas
• Watch a funny movie
• Read a novel
• Write something (e.g. diary, letter, poem)
• Listen to happy music
• Write down thoughts/feelings and put them away until the next conversation with a friend or until the next therapy - distract yourself until then or maybe put them in the safe
• Keeping a feelings log
• Children's program, funny series, watch a funny movie
• Light smiling
• Do something good for yourself (drink something warm in a café, take a warm bath, give yourself a flower, go to sleep, get a massage, buy a new diary, put yourself under the tanning bed, etc.)
• Let a friend cheer you up
• When I have negative feelings, I consciously try to create more pleasant feelings...

Distraction through Push Away:

• Build a wall between you and the situation in your imagination (Important! Deal with the situation at a later time)
• Push it aside (not too long, otherwise the displacement mechanism becomes like a "ball that you want to hold under water and which then pushes up all the more violently!)

Distraction through Thoughts (Brain-Flick-Flacks) - Distract yourself through thought games and thus step out of the emotional crisis:

• "Thinking around the corner"
• Diving into my fantasy world
• Accepting the situation
• Reduce to a minimum everything that needs to be done
• Get everything off my chest
• Working with skills... mindfulness, dealing with emotions and self-esteem
• Saying no sometimes
• Unconditional love
• Push it aside (not too long)
• Paint any points on a sheet of paper and try to draw a figure by connecting them
• Pray
• Hang paper clips together and take them apart again as quickly as possible
• Allow the bad day to pass by, it will pass and the next one has a chance to get better
• Build up the willpower to say "No, I never want to fall back into that deep black hole!"
• Just cry - frees the soul
• Letting go of emotional suffering
• Search for something on the Internet (or do puzzles or skill games)
• Count backwards in steps of 7
• IQ tests
• Juggling (with balls, with silk scarves)
• Set small goals that you can achieve and then be happy about them - no matter how small they are e.g. watering flowers, making beds
• Concentration or skill games
• Solve crossword puzzles or Sudoku
• Create your own crossword puzzle
• Light smiling
• Allow lethargy
• Solve math problems
• Name 10 female names beginning with the letter "A"
• Don't be too hard on yourself
• Switch off your guilty conscience, let yourself drift and let go
• Taking pleasure in little things
• Become aware that you are loved - by family, friends, animals - even when you are ill
• Just keep telling yourself I'm fine
• Accepting yourself as you are - and that is good as you are
• Be happy about everything you have achieved
• Writing a diary
• Translate texts from a different language
• Writing texts with the other hand or foot
• Dreaming
• Cry and then go out strengthened