We’ve spent quite a bit of time getting into our heads recently, so today we are going to talk about three skills that focus on the body. We're going to break down the TIP skills—and yes it is an acronym!
TIP skills target our body chemistry to reduce the feeling of overwhelm and other forms of high emotional arousal. The skills work quickly, often within seconds to minutes, for those of you looking for more instant gratification. These skills are easy to use and don’t require a lot of thinking, which is important when you’re in a highly stressful situation.
One caution that I give my patients about TIP skills is that they're not designed to solve problems, they're designed to bring down your emotional arousal so you can then think clearly and then solve problems. I’ve had several patients actually be surprised that the skills worked and they have become go-to skills for many of them.
I like these skills for when you are near a breakdown point and need to get your emotional arousal down fast. Other times when the TIP skills are useful include: when you're in a crisis and have high urges to engage in destructive behaviors; when you're not able to process information correct; when you're caught up in an emotional and can't get out; or when there's a problem demanding your attention but you're too overwhelmed to think clearly.
When looking at skills like TIP, the expectation shouldn’t be to drop from maximum intensity to zero. Instead, you're looking for any change in your emotional experience. So, you might start at 100 and see yourself drop to an 80, which is still high but better than where you started. Others may notice that their overwhelm is steadily increasing, but stops increasing after the use of a skill. I tell my patients all the time that sometimes our skill usage isn’t about feeling good, it’s about keeping things from getting worse. TIP skills are short-acting, so they may be the first in a combination of other skills.
You might be thinking, but Dr. Johnson, how do these skills work? The TIP skills are designed to activate your body's physiological nervous system for decreasing arousal. Your nervous system is composed of two parts: the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system is the one that revs you up. It’s responsible for your fight or flight response and increases arousal. The parasympathetic system tries to keep things balanced. It helps with increasing emotion regulation, which is associated with decreases in emotional arousal. The TIP skills are all about activating your...
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