Lots of people have difficulty with change — whether it’s a breakup, a layoff, a move, becoming a parent, aging, illness, or simply realizing life is not unfolding the way they expected. But change always comes. So how can we improve our emotional and mental health to be better at coping with it? Being Unprepared……
Self-care and self-soothing are important skills that strengthen emotional well being and resilience. Here are some practical strategies to help strengthen both skills. Updated: May 25, 2026 Self-soothing and self-care are skills that help people manage stress and emotional discomfort. Self-soothing helps you feel calmer in the moment, while self-care builds habits that support long-term……
Last updated: June 18th, 2024 Life is full of situations that shouldn’t be the way they are! Sometimes you can fix these situations, but sometimes you can’t. Accepting things as they are is a powerful way to cope with situations that you don’t want or that shouldn’t happen. Many things in life are beyond your……
It is normal to experience a broad range of emotions. In fact, emotions are what make us human! Common emotions include sadness, joy, excitement, fear, guilt, anger, shame, and anxiety, to name a few. Experiencing a broad range of emotions is natural and unproblematic. However, intense emotions or rapid fluctuations between positive and negative emotions……
Last updated: October 21st, 2025 With contributions from Grace Anderson, Ph.D. A crisis situation is short-term but often highly stressful, with the potential for negative outcomes. Crisis survival skills are helpful when your emotions are threatening to get the best of you and you’re tempted to take unhelpful actions. The STOP skill is one of……
“Improving the Moment” refers to a set of strategies recommended in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to help you get through emotionally trying situations. These skills help in situations when our usual self-soothing efforts aren’t getting the job done. The DBT IMPROVE the Moment skills are intended as a menu of options you can use to……
The ABC PLEASE skills are DBT emotional regulation skills designed to reduce emotional vulnerability by improving self-care, coping skills, and positive experiences. The acronym stands for: Below, we’ll explore each skill in more detail and discuss practical ways to apply them in daily life. The ABC PLEASE skills from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) are important……
When emotions are out of control, you can use TIPP skills to bring down the intensity. There are four TIPP skills described in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). Using them in a crisis can calm things to the point that we can then use other coping skills. They are presented first in summary form, and then……