I recently read a Substack article by Jud Brewer, MD, PhD, who wrote Unwinding Anxiety and The Craving Mind, about distress tolerance and the value of teaching it to our kids. In it he discusses the potential damage cell phones have on our ability to tolerate the discomfort of not doing anything. It’s insightful, and I highly recommend it.
Building our distress tolerance is what the Just Do Nothing process is all about. In order to do hard things, we have to work through discomfort, whether it’s feeling something we don’t want to feel or having thoughts we don’t want to think.
A Simple Way to Practice Distress Tolerance
The next time you’re waiting in line or stuck in traffic and you go to pick up your phone, stop. Let yourself feel the discomfort of waiting. How hard is this for you to do?
You might think this is a small change, but for many of us, this may actually be harder than we think. It depends on the person and their tolerance for whatever feeling comes up.
When you think of doing something hard, often we think of the big, sexy goal only.
One of the biggest reasons we get stuck is that we pick a starting point that’s filled with too much distress.
What would happen if your goal was to run a half marathon but you started trying to run 10 miles? Chances are it would be way too hard, you’d run the risk of injury and quitting. Starting with a walk and jog for a mile is more sustainable. The same is true regardless of what change you’re trying to make. Because our brains are not wired to like discomfort, we want to be intentional about how we approach the change process.
I always remind my clients that we want to work with our brains, not against them. Toward this end, this is where scaling the change comes in. When we break down those big changes into smaller, less difficult ones, it gives us an opportunity to respond differently when we start to feel uncomfortable. That’s how we retrain the brain that the situation is uncomfortable but safe while incrementally building our confidence and distress tolerance muscles.
What Does Scale the Change Mean?
Scaling the change helps you decide what you’re willing to do. Think of this as a way to determine your starting point.
Create a scale from 3-10:
10 = Your ultimate goal
8-10 = Right now outside of your window of tolerance (e.g likely to trigger overwhelming discomfort)
5-7 = Moderately challenging but getting progressively harder to do willingly
3-5 = Easier starting points to build confidence
For example, if your goal is reducing your time on Instagram, your scale might look like:
10- not checking IG on my day off
9- not checking IG in the evenings (after dinner to bedtime)
8- not checking IG on a workday
7- not checking IG for 3 hours
6- not checking IG for 2 hours
5- not checking IG for an hour
4- not checking IG if I’m stuck in traffic, waiting for an appointment, etc, see a notification
3- not checking IG during meals if I’m alone
Start with activities rated 3-5 on your scale. Once those become easier, gradually work your way up.
We’re going to use our urge surfing skills, while adding in more distress (though I still want the distress level to be relatively low).
In general, your scale will contain experiences/situations that fit the following parameters related to a specific goal:
9-10: These are the situations/experiences that, right now, you can’t imagine tolerating at all. They’re just too hard. If you engaged in these, your body would likely flood with adrenaline, and you’d be immediately outside your window of tolerance.
7-8: These are the situations/experiences that are still quite hard to do without lots of resistance to feelings, but they’re not completely outside your window of tolerance.
5-6: These are the situations/experiences that you could do while practicing allowance of the feelings that come with them. They’d be tough, but they’re doable.
3-4: These are the situations/experiences that are low-distress situations and therefore great starting points for practicing an allowing mindset.
Need help doing something hard?
Scaling the change is one of the tools that helps us do the hard things. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? But it’s so not easy, especially when you’re alone. Keep at it, keep practicing.
