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Practise · Distress Tolerance

TIPP

When arousal is too high to think, TIPP changes your body chemistry directly instead of asking you to reason your way down. Four skills, pick one, follow the timer.

Distress Tolerance · Crisis

TIPP — bring a 9 or 10 down fast

When arousal is too high to think, change your body chemistry directly. Pick one and follow the timer.

TIPP is one skill inside the fuller DBT toolkit — Wise Mind, Self-Soothe, Emotion Thermometer, PLEASE, DEAR MAN, and the crisis decision matrix all live on one page.

See all DBT skills →

TIPP is a fast physiological brake, not a substitute for care. If you're having thoughts of harming yourself, or life feels not worth continuing, please reach a person now — see support & crisis lines. If you have a heart condition, are pregnant, or have an eating disorder, check with a doctor before using the Temperature skill specifically (cold water on the face affects heart rate).

Questions people ask

What does TIPP stand for?
Temperature, Intense exercise, Paced breathing, and Paired muscle relaxation — four DBT distress tolerance skills that work by changing your body chemistry directly, rather than by thinking your way down.
Why does cold water help with panic?
Cold on the face and held breath trigger the mammalian dive reflex, which drops heart rate quickly — a fast, physiological brake on a nervous system that's too activated for thinking to reach.
How is TIPP different from just breathing exercises?
Paced breathing is only one of TIPP's four skills. TIPP is specifically for arousal that's too high for a slow-breathing exercise to touch on its own — Temperature and Intense exercise work faster at the very top of the scale, before breathing work has a chance to land.
Where do my entries go?
This page doesn't save anything you do here — there's no plan or log to keep. The only thing stored in this browser is your sound/volume preference, which never leaves this device and isn't personal content.