Urge Surfing
Urge Surfing is a technique originally developed by Dr. Alan Marlatt for substance abuse. It can help you abstain from the behaviors you’re committed to stopping. It’s backed by research and can be helpful for a range of addictive behaviors including smoking, impulsive spending, skin picking, binge eating, etc. To understand how the technique works, it’s helpful to start by understanding the nature of urges.
The Nature of Urges
Imagine that one day a baby tiger approaches your house. It’s really cute so you play with it for a while. Before long it becomes hungry and irritable, you decide to feed it and it immediately settles down. The tiger continues to visit you and the pattern repeats. Overtime, it grows bigger, becomes more aggressive, and needs more and more food to feel satiated. You’re regretting your decision to get involved with this tiger because it’s getting pretty scary… but you continue to feed it because you’re afraid if you don’t, it’ll eat you. Unfortunately, the more you feed the tiger, the bigger it gets. (Hayes, 2005)
Just like the tiger, our urges get bigger each time we give in to them. We experience urges as physical sensations in the body. As we repeat the cycle - urge → action, urge → action, urge → action - the two can become so interconnected that we don’t even notice the urges anymore! At the first inkling of an urge we just act! If we do notice urges, we often see them as a sign that the associated behavior is inevitable. So what can we do?
Urge Surfing
It’s called urge surfing because urges rise and fall, just like waves. Additionally, trying to stop an urge is much like trying to stop an ocean wave. It doesn’t work. In fact, resisting the wave just results in you getting smacked even harder. We resist urges in all kinds of ways - suppressing them, arguing with them, judging them, telling ourselves we’ll just fantasize about the behavior, etc.
Instead, we can use our awareness to simply observe the urge. With practice you’ll learn urges aren’t catastrophic, you don’t have to act on them, observing them makes them easier to bear, and they come and go. In fact, urges typically subside within 30 minutes. Essentially, you’ll learn to detach the urge from the associated behavior and feel more in control. After all, the ability to notice an urge and choose how to respond to it is the mark of a truly free individual.
When learning this skill, I suggest honing the skill on a less challenging urge before applying it to your addiction. You can practice on urges to pick up your phone, scratch an itch, turn on the TV, etc.
How to Practice
Start by taking a few minutes to focus on your breathing. This will help steady your attention.
Begin to scan through your body and notice where you’re experiencing the urge. If you experience the urge in multiple places in your body, focus on one area at a time. Observe the sensations like a curious scientist who has never encountered anything like this before.
Is there movement to the sensations?
What is the quality of these sensations - pressure, tingling, heaviness?
What’s the temperature?
Can you mentally outline the edges of the sensations?
If you start to feel overwhelmed, bring your breath to the forefront of your awareness and allow the urge to shift to the background. Your breath is like a surfboard that can help you surf the waves!
Continue to shift back and forth between the urge and the breath.
Guided Meditation
You can use the guided meditation below to support your urge surfing practice!
Hayes, S. C. & Smith, S. (2005). Get out of your mind and into your life: The new acceptance and commitment therapy. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.
