Quiet the Craving

Many of us have something that we’d like to change in our lives, but it can be pretty difficult to overcome addictions or strong urges.

The things we want to quit, and the urges we want to overcome, can cover a pretty wide gamut:

• Addictions like drugs, alcohol, smoking, or food.
• Video games, porn, Internet activities, phone usage.
• Shopping, online shopping.
• Sugar/sweets, cheese, sodas, potato chips, etc.
• Chewing nails or other nervous habits.

Of course, none of these activities is necessarily horrible, but lots of us would like to change behaviours around one or more of these. Urges stand in our way.

So how can we deal with these urges and addictions? It’s tough. I’ve found that it takes a combination of mindfulness and behaviour-change strategies.

Let’s dive in and see how we can create a multi-pronged approach to coping with these urges and addictions.

Urge Surfing

A mindfulness technique that has proven effective for dealing with addictions is called “urge surfing,” a widely-used technique developed by psychologist and addictions pioneer Alan Marlatt.

It’s something I used successfully when I quit smoking cigarettes more than a decade ago, and I’ve used it many times since then for other types of urges.

Here’s how I practice it:

1. Notice when you have an urge. Pause instead of acting on it, and just sit with it mindfully.
2. Notice where the physical sensation of the urge is located in your body. Is it in your stomach? Chest? Mouth? Focus on that area of your body and try to mindfully notice the sensations you feel.
3. Allow them to rise and peak, and then crest and subside, like a wave. Just watch them, as if you’re watching a wave. It’s not anything to panic about, it’s just a sensation rising and falling.
4. You can do this for a minute or two, or even longer. After the urge subsides, it might come back, and you can repeat this. You can also move on to other areas of your body where you notice urge-related sensations.

Why this works: We interrupt the part of our brain that just acts immediately on urges and shift to a new part of our brain. This pattern interruption is crucial to dealing with urges. We also learn that the urge isn’t anything urgent — it isn’t a command; but rather, just an interesting sensation that we can distance ourselves from.

Changing Our Environment

Another strategy that works incredibly well is changing your environment:

The urge passes whether or not you feed it

More on burnout in the letter, along with work, money, discipline and reinvention. Join free and four guides arrive over the next fortnight, one at a time.

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