DBT Mindfulness Explained: Skills and Everyday Practice

Mindfulness Is a Core Tenet of DBT

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a form of therapy that focuses on helping people manage their emotions, improve relationships, and lead more balanced lives.
At its core, DBT equips people with practical, life-changing skills grouped into four skill sets:

• Mindfulness
• Distress tolerance
• Emotion regulation
• Interpersonal effectiveness

This article focuses on the mindfulness skill set, which helps people stay present and fully engaged in the current moment.

Understanding Mindfulness

Mindfulness means intentionally giving your full attention to the current moment without judgment, and making room for all of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Quite simply, this means that you’re fully engaging in the task at hand.

For example, when you are eating, slow down, engage your curiosity, and savor each bite. Remain open. You will likely notice that your mind becomes distracted, gets hooked on thoughts, or wants to rush to something else.

You may also notice thoughts like, “This is hard,” or “I’m not doing it right.” That’s normal. Allow space for these experiences, and when you catch your mind wandering, gently guide your attention back to the act of eating.

When you slow down and notice what is happening “in the moment,” you can become aware of both your inner experiences and the world around you with some distance, without feeling overwhelmed. In this state, you can act without overreacting and make decisions that align with your core values.

Everyone can tap into their ability to be mindful. Like any skill, it is easier when you practice every day. Because the mind naturally tends to wander, it can take effort to bring awareness back to the present moment and tune into your emotions and thoughts.

The Impact of Mindfulness on Our Health

The practice of mindfulness has real, research-backed benefits for your mind, body, and relationships. Practicing mindfulness can reduce stress, improve focus, support emotional balance, and strengthen the way you connect with others.

Balance Your Mind

Mindfulness helps reduce stress, anxiety, and depression by allowing you to notice thoughts and feelings without getting swept away. Over time, it strengthens emotional regulation and decreases negativity.

Boost Brain Power

Regular practice can physically strengthen parts of the brain linked to memory, learning, empathy, and emotional control. It also improves focus and attention while helping you feel more centered and less stressed.

Support Your Body

Mindfulness can promote relaxation and even support immune health. Practices like mindful eating help you tune into your body’s signals, make healthier choices, and enjoy each moment more fully.

Enhance Relationships

Mindfulness increases empathy and compassion, helping you connect with others and yourself. Couples often report higher satisfaction and closeness, while parents find themselves more patient and self-forgiving.

Heal From Trauma

Research shows that mindfulness may reduce symptoms of PTSD and other trauma-related conditions. Emotional avoidance is a key predictor of PTSD symptoms.

Mindfulness invites a willingness to experience thoughts and feelings, provides a counterweight to our tendency to avoid them, and offers a practical skill for coping and recovery. Even a few weeks of consistent practice can create measurable changes in the brain.

Takeaway: Make Mindfulness Your Ally

Mindfulness is a skill anyone can develop. By incorporating even a few minutes of practice into your day, you can feel more centered, think more clearly, and approach life with greater awareness and compassion—for yourself and those around you.

The Origins of Mindfulness

Beginning in the 1960s, mindfulness has been an essential component of many evidence-based treatments in the mental health field, including mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy. Such therapies include meditation, the formal counterpart to mindfulness.

Studies have shown that mindfulness is effective in lessening the following physical and mental symptoms:

• Anxiety
• Insomnia
• Stress
• Pain
• Depression
• High blood pressure

There is also some evidence to suggest that it can help with painful conditions, such as fibromyalgia, and respiratory conditions, such as asthma.

As if this didn’t seem good enough, some of the additional benefits of meditation include a longer attention span, better sleeping patterns, and decreased levels of burnout.

Mindfulness for Behavior Change

The practice of mindfulness allows you to be in better control of your emotions and how much life’s stressors impact you, both in the short and long term. More importantly, it can help us with how we react to the curveballs thrown our way.

Reduce Destructive Behaviors

Everyone wants to avoid suffering. When you avoid painful issues in your life by trying to suppress feelings or by engaging in impulsive behaviors, you may feel short-term relief. Ultimately, though, the avoidance of pain only leads to more distress and suffering in the long run.

Mindfulness teaches you to accept emotional pain, instead of trying to suppress it or avoid it, so that you can learn to better tolerate and manage it.

Gillian C. Galen, PsyD, a child and adolescent psychologist at McLean, sees many patients who have engaged in destructive behaviors to avoid feeling pain. “Many people seek treatment because they engage in behaviors that get them in trouble, and they want to change,” Galen says. “These behaviors include suicide, self-injury, and substance use, or screaming at one’s partner or making rash purchases.”

When you engage in impulsive or destructive behaviors, you may think that it is something that “just happens.” However, self-destructive behaviors are often triggered and do not occur spontaneously.

When you are not being mindful, it can be hard to identify your triggers, and it can seem that everything happened so fast. As a result, you may feel out of control and hopeless.

When you practice mindfulness and start paying attention, you can better identify your triggers and slow down your reactions. Mindfulness practice can help people sit in a space between the urge to do something and acting on that urge.

Mindfulness gives you the space to pause, and as you sit in that pause, you can choose how to react. You are no longer propelled by your emotions to act. You may choose to do that destructive behavior, or you may choose to do something different, more skillful, or more effective.

Reduce Emotional Reactivity

Mindfulness teaches you to let emotions run their course. This is known as “successful grieving.”

When you have an emotional experience and you allow yourself to feel it, rather than pushing it away, it becomes easier to bear over time. Being mindful involves noticing and labeling uncomfortable emotions, such as sadness, fear, and shame, without fighting them.

For example, if you experience anxiety, you might think, “Oh my, I’m anxious. I don’t want to be anxious. This anxiety is awful. Why am I always anxious? This is horrible. I hate this.” You might feel an urge to try to fight the anxiety and try desperately to calm down.

However, these attempts to calm or control the anxiety will only intensify it. You become anxious about being anxious. As the anxiety escalates, you become more panicked.

Mindfulness provides an alternative approach: Allow yourself to experience the anxiety. Put words to the experience: “I notice my heart beating faster. I notice my palms getting sweaty. I notice my thoughts racing.”

Once you simply experience anxiety mindfully, through observing and describing it, it starts to slow down because you are not struggling against it. When you observe and describe your experience, the emotional intensity will play itself out like a wave: It will intensify, peak, and then subside.

Gain Daily Balance

Being mindful also involves noticing positive emotions, like joy. Small moments of joy always happen in our daily lives, but noticing them requires attention.

For example, when you are depressed, you have a negative bias and have a hard time paying attention to pleasant experiences. Mindfulness can help you have a more balanced view of your daily life.

Who Benefits—and How To Get Started

Anyone can benefit from a regular mindfulness practice. Mindfulness training is particularly beneficial to those who have difficulties regulating their emotions, are impulsive, have endured a traumatic event, or are recovering from a substance use disorder.

If you or a loved one is having difficulty managing stress, emotions, or negative thoughts, mindfulness can be a great tool. Also, mindfulness practices can help you make healthier choices and improve your relationships.

Indeed, mindfulness plays a role in breaking habits, such as overeating. By becoming more aware of your emotional triggers and eating behavior, you can replace bad behaviors with healthier ones.

Mindfulness can improve relationships and may cause you to disengage from unhealthy relationships. Research findings indicate that mindfulness can improve interpersonal skills in general. When you stay attentive and present in a relationship, it cultivates empathy and connectedness.

If you’re looking to get started in mindfulness, many get started by using apps, such as Headspace, Insight Timer, Buddhify, and Happier Meditation. Such programs guide you to strengthen the “mindfulness muscle,” acting as a gateway to regular mindfulness practice.

Looking for a Clinical Approach to Mindfulness?

Many clinicians have begun to incorporate mindfulness as a holistic approach to mental health.

There are several mindfulness-based treatment models you should discuss with your health care provider, including the following:

• Mindfulness-based stress reduction
• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy
• Acceptance and commitment therapy
• Dialectical behavior therapy

These treatments have become more widely available over the past several years. Along with evidence-based therapy, practices such as meditation, yoga, and other mindfulness techniques can increase self-awareness, concentration, emotion regulation, and overall wellness.

If you want to find someone who has the right expertise, make sure to verify their credentials and formal training experience.

A Beginner’s Guide to Mindful Meditation

Mindfulness doesn’t need to be an hours-long, silent practice to be effective.

Meditation, on the other hand, may be more impactful if you can find a quiet place. But you can meditate anywhere, for as long as you’d like.

Here are some steps to get started with meditating.

Find a Location / Position

• Choose a quiet spot
• Cross your legs carefully in front of you in a comfortable position
• Straighten your upper body and maintain good posture
• Soften your gaze: You can close your eyes if that is comfortable or lower them so that your gaze is unfocused

Start Your Practice

• Breathe deeply from your belly or your chest: A good starting point is “box breathing,” where you breathe in for four counts, hold your breath for four counts, and exhale for four counts
• Concentrate: As your thoughts wander, keep them coming back to your breathing; this will help you relax without judgment

3 Skills of Mindfulness Practice

Mindfulness involves being fully present and aware, using specific skills to engage with the moment.

1. Observe

This skill is about noticing your surroundings and internal experiences without judgment—essentially, watching without words. Use your five senses to stay present. This practice helps build awareness of your thoughts and feelings, which can reduce anxiety and promote calmness.

2. Describe

Describing involves putting your observations into objective words without interpretation. Stating the facts helps clarify your emotions, communicate better, and reduce emotional reactions.

3. Participate

This skill is about fully engaging with whatever you’re doing, whether it’s work, hobbies, or social interactions. Immersing yourself in the present moment helps reduce stress, combat boredom, and create a sense of fulfillment.

3 Ways To Be Mindful

Mindfulness requires intentional focus, acceptance, and adaptability in everyday life.

1. Nonjudgmental Stance

Practice accepting yourself and others without blaming or judging. Let go of both positive and negative opinions and approach situations with an open mind. This practice promotes self-compassion, reduces shame, and strengthens your relationships.

2. One-Mindfully

Focus on one thing at a time and avoid multitasking, giving it your full attention. This can reduce stress and increase productivity.

3. Effectiveness

This skill is all about finding what works best for you, rather than sticking to what’s “right” or “wrong.” Be flexible and adapt your approach to fit the situation so you can reach your goals more smoothly. This makes solving problems easier and helps you handle change with confidence.

Practicing Mindfulness as a Family

If you’re looking to introduce mindfulness to your family, a great starting point is to explain the purpose of practicing mindfulness. Try telling your family, “We do this to help train our brains to focus on the here and now.”

As a family, pick an activity, like one of the exercises below, or object to focus on. Set a timer for 3-5 minutes and ask family members to bring their attention to the object/activity.

Alert family members when their attention wanders from the activity. Parents should notice when their kids’ (or partner’s) attention has wandered. Gently bring their attention back to the activity without judgment. Everyone should resist the urge to be silly and/or competitive.

After the activity, share observations with your family:

• Where did your mind go?
• Did you notice any particular thoughts, feelings, urges, physical sensations, or judgments?

We know it may be difficult to get the whole family together for mindfulness practices. Another option is to incorporate it into things you’re already doing as a family, like eating dinner. Shutting off the TV while eating, or making mealtime a “screen-free zone” altogether, can help introduce focusing on one thing at a time—like eating—to family members.

Here are other mindfulness practices you can try with your family.

Twist and Shout

Each family member writes the words “twist,” “shout,” “baby,” and “shake” on a piece of paper. Each person makes a tally mark for every time they hear one of these four words as they listen to the song “Twist and Shout.”

Tear a Horse

Each family member is given a blank piece of paper. Everyone closes their eyes. When someone says “start,” each person tries to rip their paper into the shape of a horse without looking. Everyone shares their “horses” at the end.

Pass the Cup

Fill up a cup with water so that it is only an inch from the rim. Sit in a circle. Silently pass the cup around the circle, trying not to spill it. After five successful passes, start passing it around with everyone’s eyes closed.

Build a Story

Family members sit in a circle and take turns saying one sentence in a story. They create the story together, one line at a time, until the timer goes off.

Shoe Mindfulness

For one minute, have family members observe each other’s shoes. Then, each person describes the shoes without judgment and with overly specific language, such as “Your shoes are black and have white laces.” If someone makes a judgment, like “Your shoes are cute,” ask, “What makes you say that?” to prompt more descriptive language.

Mindfulness Is a Lifelong Practice

Incorporating mindfulness into your life doesn’t require huge changes—the core teaching of mindfulness involves noticing the present moment, including the emotions you are experiencing in the moment, without judgment. To ease yourself into being more mindful, notice when you are having judgmental thoughts and let them go—don’t feed into them.

When you engage in judgmental thinking, you end up enhancing your struggles. Notice when your internal thoughts become judgmental and set them aside. This can help reduce issues, both now and in the future.

Mindfulness, like any skill, gets easier to achieve over time. Don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t come easily to you when you start.

With time, mindfulness can become a natural part of your routine, helping you stay more centered, calm, and connected to the world around you. Soon enough, you’ll be focusing more on the daily joys of life with little to no effort.

Contributors

Lisa W. Coyne, PhD