During a school or work day, you make hundreds of decisions. From what to wear and eat, to what direction you’re walking, to whether or not applying for that new job is worth it, and even in how you respond to the emotions you’re feeling in the moment, you make decisions all day, every single day.

Making decisions involves weighing facts, feelings, thoughts, the needs of other people, and our future selves. While it isn’t always easy to get that balance right, we all try our best.

When strong emotions (like anger, sadness, fear) take the lead in our decision-making process, it can lead to making big decisions too quickly, without weighing all the factors. You can feel so overwhelmed with distress that you need to let it out right now, and that impulsivity can quickly lead to damaging decisions.

Impulsivity can become disruptive, and even destructive

Impulsivity is a short-circuiting of your decision-making process, where your feelings of emotional overwhelm push you to make choices quickly, sometimes without thinking at all.

Impulsive decisions can range from small, disruptive behaviors like being noisy in class when you’re bored or staying up way too late before an important day, to sometimes destructive behaviors like self-harm, gambling, substance abuse, or risky sexual behaviors.

What can impulsivity look like?

Impulsivity can mean doing or saying something without thinking; it can mean jumping to conclusions without bothering to find out more, or it can mean making choices now that don’t take into account what “future you” might want.

Blurting out “you always do this, why don’t you care about me!?”, punching a wall, or throwing things during a fight is impulsive. Deciding someone is ghosting you because their text message is slower than usual is impulsive. Skipping class now, even though you want your diploma and to build a future for yourself, is impulsive.

Impulsivity can also be:

• Picking fights, relationship instability
• Making and breaking friendships over and over
• Aggressiveness
• Throwing or breaking things
• Restlessness, interruptions, impatience
• Inappropriate comments
• Poor money management/overspending
• Poor academic performance that doesn’t reflect abilities
• Distractedness
• Poor planning/not considering consequences
• Overindulging; eating too much, sleeping too much, scrolling too much

What causes impulsivity in teens and adults?

For teens, some impulsivity is developmentally normal, because their prefrontal cortex, where emotions are regulated, hasn’t fully developed. At this stage of life, they’re less able to manage their behavior in response to emotions.

Add to that the stress of school, friends, growing responsibilities, and a growing understanding of the uncertainty of the world around them, and it’s not surprising some teens have trouble managing their behavior.

Adults also grapple with impulsiveness, and it doesn’t inherently mean they need to just “grow up”. A mix of environmental and biological factors can lead to adults struggling with impulsivity too.

Impulsivity can escalate because of:

• Interpersonal conflict
• Boredom or frustration
• Feeling ignored or rejected
• Stress or burnout
• Anxiety about the future
• Schedule changes (like back-to-school time or starting a new job)
• Physical issues like illness, lack of sleep, skipping meals, too much caffeine, alcohol, or other substances

Impulsivity is also a common symptom of several mental health conditions, including:

• Anxiety and depression
• Borderline personality disorder (BPD)
• Eating disorders
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Bipolar disorder

Does DBT help with impulsivity?

Just because you struggle with impulsivity (and maybe have since you were young) doesn’t mean you’re stuck living a life full of disruptions and apologies. Teens and adults alike can learn to cope constructively with impulsivity, and the structured approach of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) can help.

DBT, as a form of intensive mental health treatment, uses four main pillars, including mindfulness, emotional regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance, to categorize coping skills you can learn to use in everyday life. These skills can help you cope with distress and dysregulation in constructive ways that give you back the opportunity to choose what you do, instead of allowing impulsivity to dictate your actions.

One of those DBT skills that can help the most with impulsivity is Alternate Rebellion.

How can Alternate Rebellion help with impulsivity?

An occasional impulsive choice is not a bad thing; we all have our moments! But when impulsivity is causing problems for you on a regular basis, it’s important to find outlets for your distress that don’t disrupt your life.

Alternate Rebellion is a DBT distress tolerance skill, designed to give you a sense of autonomy and a way to push back without the negative consequences in moments where you’d usually behave impulsively. It can feel like a relief to do something that isn’t necessarily considered “good”, but the relief is longer lasting when you choose to do something non-destructive that still feels rebellious.

In a distressing moment, Alternate Rebellion reminds you that you can choose to “act out” in a way that doesn’t damage relationships, erode your self-respect, and threaten your safety.

Choose your rebellion options before you’re distressed

What does rebellion look like? It’s different for everyone. It might be doing the opposite of what your friends expect of you, or finally saying “no” to a family member or supervisor who always asks too much. It might mean changing your appearance, or actually being quieter, less dramatic, maybe even boring for a change.

Rebellion options include:

• Cutting or dyeing your hair in a totally different style
• Paint your nails an unexpected color
• Draw on your hands or legs
• Dress in a way that feels more “you”, even if it’s not what other people approve of
• Speaking up and taking action about issues that matter to you
• Telling the truth, like “Today kind of sucks” instead of “I’m fine” when someone asks how you are
• Be as boring as possible
• Eating whatever you want for dinner
• Do the unexpected, like going outside to play when you’d usually be online or scrolling
• Scream as loud as you can while driving
• Create art that expresses exactly how you feel
• Run, skip, or otherwise move how you feel
• Rearrange things, or do them out of order
• Take up a hobby that is the opposite of what people expect of you

Create a plan so you can rebel on your own terms to relieve impulsivity

There are two times Alternate Rebellion is useful: when you are distressed, and when you aren’t.

In moments where impulsivity isn’t an issue, Alternate Rebellion can help you reclaim the feeling of choice in your day. It gives you more space to be authentically yourself, reminding you that choosing what you do in the moment is possible.

In impulsive moments, where you’d usually end up fighting, using, purging, or otherwise disrupting your life, it’s hard to take time to think of safe ways to rebel. Keeping a ready-made list of rebellion options to turn to can help you choose how you’ll relieve distress by redirecting your impulsivity. You’ll have practiced in less distressed moments, and can now use Alternate Rebellion to relieve your distress instead.

Mindfulness helps you recognize impulsiveness, Alternate Rebellion can help you release it

You’ll need to learn how to notice when you’re most likely to behave impulsively; you and your DBT therapist can work together to develop the mindfulness you need to recognize when your impulsiveness escalates, and to handle it with curiosity, not self-judgment.

In a moment where you’re ready to act on impulse, you can remind yourself, “Oh yeah, I want to do something impulsive, I should check my rebellion list!” and put into motion rebellion that relieves your emotional overwhelm in the moment.

Increasing distress tolerance is a foundational part of the comprehensive DBT programs offered at THIRA Health

When you’re feeling the urge to interrupt, to pick a fight, skip school, or even to break the law, you can use the Alternate Rebellion DBT skill to give yourself an outlet for how you’re feeling, without the negative impact on your life.

You can learn how to use distress tolerance, alongside mindfulness, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness, as part of the intensive mental health treatment options available at THIRA Health. We help teens and adults manage their impulsive behavior in ways that encourage self-understanding and self-management, to help you create a life worth living.

To learn more and get started, we invite you to contact our intake team today.