DBT Distress Tolerance Tools

DBT Distress Tolerance Skills are meant to:
- Get through moments of intense emotion WITHOUT MAKING THINGS WORSE
- Sometimes you can't make things better, but you can brave the storm.
DBT Distress Tolerance Skills are NOT for:
- Making your life worth living
- Long term changes

With Eight (8) Brand-New DBT Tools, Distress Tolerance will come easy. Sometimes it's the little things that really make the big difference (like learning to tolerate moments of extreme emotion) Here's what each tool does for you:

- Why Tolerate: Learn why tolerating is EXTREMELY Important. The first time I heard about Distress Tolerance Skills, I thought it sounded POINTLESS. Why learn to just tolerate? If you have that same attitude, this is a MUST. Less of a tool, but more of an in-depth explanation which may open your eyes to why these skills are that important for anyone who finds themselves in a DBT Class (or even pondering taking a DBT Class).
- Pros & Cons: Go through a series of questionnaire to help you figure out the Pros & Cons of destructive behavior. Maybe you have self-harm habits, or maybe you just have a habit of getting into fights. Whatever the reason, Pros & Cons helps you reduce problematic behavior without simple Will-Power.
- Acceptance: Sometimes we're in a situation where we cannot will ourselves, nor use logic, to calm ourselves down. We don't have the time or the resources to improve our situation. And all our minds are doing is giving us more and more pain. Radical Acceptance is not giving up, nor is it accepting defeat. It is accepting REALITY, and not simply what our brains are telling us is reality. A GREAT Tool to use 5 minutes a day.
- Allow: Our minds can take hold of us. But can you emotionally decipher the difference between the story we tell ourselves, and reality? Learning to Allow Our Thoughts can help us to understand that YES, we have thoughts, and YES, they influence us. But NO, they aren't always an accurate reflection of reality. The only thing they are 100% accurate about is that they are thoughts. Learn to play with your thoughts and see them as they really are.
- Distract, Soothe, & Improve: When we are really riled up, there is no way we can be too logical about doing the right thing. But what if we had a simple list of things WE knew that we actually would enjoy doing to get through hard times? Use this tool to generate and recall easy-to-do actions to help tolerate distress.
- Body Temperature: Did you know that your body temperature can be the straw that breaks the camel's back? I don't know how many times since I first started DBT that I've changed my body temperature, and thus, avoided a huge fight and waste of a night with my spouse. Learn how this works, and what you can easily do, as an individual, to make body temperature work FOR you.
- Hard Exercise: Some of us LOVE exercise. Some of us HATE it. Some of us have notions about how it has to be. Whatever the reason, exercise has many many benefits. But what if you could harness the greatest EMOTIONAL benefits from them to help you tolerate a stressful moment (and at the same time use as little of your precious time, energy, and willpower as possible)?
- Progressive Relaxation: If you aren't already doing thing, you really need to! Not only can it help temper your mood at any time, but it can also turn around your mood in just a few minutes. Luckily, this is a skill you will probably use the rest of your life if you ever have trouble sleeping, because it is AWESOME for helping you sleep. Great side benefit!


All tools have a built in Save Function. So every time you use a tool, your records will be updated and you will be able to look back at the tool's conclusions.

- Check out our other DBT Apps in the App Store too!