Managing Impulsivity with Urge Surfing
ACT for ADHDADHDers often get really pushed around by their impulses, their urges, their cravings, their desires. And if they get jerked around by those inner experiences, then they get pulled into self defeating behaviors whether it's the phone, whether it's gaming, whether it's drugs or alcohol or eating junk food or whatever. So one of the most useful skills that we can teach our ADHD clients is urge surfing. Urge surfing is an incredibly useful mindfulness skill for anybody that has difficulties with impulsivity.
It dates back to the 1960s to the work of Marla and Gordon in their work with relapse prevention. And the metaphor goes that an urge is like a wave. It rises, it reaches a peak, and then it falls again. And then it rises again, reaches a peak, and then it falls again, and so on. What happens if you're in the sea and there's a big wave coming and you try to resist it?
Well, you get slammed. Things are gonna go much better if instead of resisting the wave, you surf the wave, you ride it out and go with it. So this is what we aim to do with our own urges, cravings, desires, impulses. We aim to mindfully surf them. It's a variant of acceptance. We allow the urge to be there and we notice it as it rises, reaches a peak and then falls again.
And if we can respond to it mindfully, that means we don't have to act on the urge. We can take control of our arms and our legs and do something more effective than what the urge is telling us to do. To be clear, this is not about resisting the urge. We don't want someone sitting at a table resisting the urge to go and drink. It's about surfing the urge. The idea is you allow the urge to do its own thing rising and falling within you while you invest your time and energy in living your values doing something meaningful.
And it's worth noting that not every client will get to experience that clear rise and fall of the urge as they do this practice. It doesn't actually matter. The main thing that they need to get out of it is the experience that they can have the urge there without acting on it. They can have the urge and still take control over their arms and legs and do something more effective than acting on the urge.