What Is Distress Tolerance? Understanding the Skill of Getting Through Tough Moments

Life brings joy, connection, and meaning—but it also inevitably includes stress, uncertainty, and emotional pain. When we face a surge of difficult feelings, our instinct is often to escape them as quickly as possible. We distract, shut down, overthink, lash out, or turn to habits that provide relief in the moment but may create problems in the long run.

Distress tolerance is the ability to get through emotional discomfort without making the situation worse. It doesn’t require us to like or fully resolve the distress—it simply helps us survive it, ride it out, and respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively.

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What Exactly Is Distress Tolerance?

Distress tolerance refers to a collection of skills, often taught in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) that help us cope with intense emotions, urges, and crises. The goal isn’t to remove or even alleviate distress, but to tolerate it long enough for the wave to pass. Emotions are temporary, even when they feel intense and overwhelming. Learning to weather them builds resilience and reduces harmful coping patterns. At its core, distress tolerance is about saying: “This moment is painful, but I can handle it.”

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Why Distress Tolerance Matters

When we improve our capacity to tolerate distress, we’re less likely to react impulsively or engage in behaviors we later regret. This can have a meaningful impact on emotional health, relationships, and overall quality of life.

Here are a few key reasons it matters:

1. It Helps Prevent Reactive or Harmful Behaviors

When emotions spike—anger, anxiety, shame, loneliness—it’s easy to act on impulse. Distress tolerance skills create a pause between emotion and action, allowing us to choose responses that align with our values rather than the urgency of the moment.

2. It Builds Emotional Resilience

The more we practice tolerating discomfort, the more confident we become in handling future challenges. We learn we can survive difficult feelings without shutting down or escaping them.

3. It Supports Mental Health Recovery

For individuals managing anxiety, depression, trauma responses, or relationship stress, distress tolerance can be a powerful tool. It provides a way to move through tough moments without spiraling into rumination, avoidance, or self-criticism.

4. It Creates Space for Problem-Solving

When we’re highly distressed, problem-solving is nearly impossible. By first calming the emotional intensity, we make room for clarity, creativity, and thoughtful decision-making.

Examples of Distress Tolerance Skills

Distress tolerance can take many forms. Here are a few practical strategies you can try:

• Cold water or temperature change to interrupt emotional escalation and ground the body
• Deep breathing or paced breathing to regulate the nervous system
• Distraction techniques (music, movement, puzzles, calling a friend) to ride out urges
• Self-soothing with the senses—soft blanket, calming scent, warm tea, gentle touch
• Radical acceptance: acknowledging reality as it is, even when it’s painful
• Grounding exercises (5-4-3-2-1 senses technique) to anchor attention in the present moment

These strategies don’t make problems disappear, but they help us get through the storm without capsizing.

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A Skill You Can Strengthen Over Time

Distress tolerance is like a muscle—the more we practice during everyday stress, the more accessible it becomes when life gets overwhelming. You don’t need to wait for a crisis to start. Try small moments of tolerating discomfort, whether it’s sitting with an urge to check your phone, slowing down instead of rushing, or breathing through frustration.

With practice, we become better able to face difficult emotions with steadiness and self-compassion.

Distress may be part of being human, but the ability to tolerate it is a powerful step toward healing, balance, and lessening of emotional distress.