Urge Surfing: What It Is, Benefits, & How to Practice

What Are Urges?

Urges are strong impulses or desires to “do” something to relieve distress and gain immediate gratification.¹ Urges are most often associated with recovery from substance use, eating disorders, or other compulsive behaviors. However, everyone deals with urges to some extent when they desire pleasure from a certain behavior. For example, feeling the urge to eat a sweet treat and experiencing happiness from doing so.

Urges tend to develop when someone has been conditioned to expect pleasure or relief from a certain behavior.¹ For example, someone addicted to a substance continues to expect the same benefits as their first time using. Urges can be so strong that they manifest into physical and emotional forms like feeling restless, headaches, or irritability.

Here are some facts about urges:¹

• Urges rarely last longer than 30 minutes if they are not “fed”
• Urges generally peak around 20-30 minutes in
• Trying to suppress urges generally makes them intensify
• Distraction is a form of coping that sometimes worsens urges
• It is common for urges to feel unbearable until they subside
• Most urges will peak and subside

What Is Urge Surfing?

Urge surfing is a mindfulness-based technique developed in the 1980s by an addictions specialist, Dr. Alan Marlatt.¹ Urge surfing asks the person to wait out their unhealthy urge and instead mindfully observe the urge. Although originally intended for use in addiction recovery, urge surfing has been expanded for use with eating disorders, mood disorders, and other compulsive behaviors.^{1, 2}

Marsha Linehan, the founder of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), also incorporated urge surfing into her theory of emotions. DBT therapists often use urge surfing with clients who have trouble with distress tolerance and emotion regulation.

Metaphors of Water to Understand Urge Surfing

Water metaphors are helpful to visualizing and understanding how to urge surf, especially when sharing the practice with kids or teens. Ocean waves, riptides, waterfalls, and rivers are some of the common water metaphors used to practice visualizing, incorporating, and developing insights around urge surfing.

Here are some metaphors of water that can help to understand urge surfing:

• Ocean wave: Imagine that ocean waves represent each intense urge. Waves generally build, peak, and fall to the shore. Similarly, you can observe your urges peak and fall and “ride out the wave” without getting “swept away.”
• Riptide: Most experienced swimmers know that the best way to handle riptides is not to fight them, but to swim parallel to the shoreline, allowing the tide to run its course. If you fight riptides by swimming against them, you will become exhausted and overwhelmed. Similarly, the idea behind urge surfing is to allow the urge to run its course without fighting against the intensity.
• Waterfall: Similar to how it would be useless to try and block the amount of water pouring from a waterfall, it is ineffective to try and suppress urges. Urge surfing, in contrast, asks you to walk behind the waterfall and observe the impulses, urges, and sensations without getting involved and “drenched” in distress.
• River: Rivers can carry strong currents of water long distances, which makes them useful for sports like white water kayaking. Similar to how kayakers often use the force of the river to carry them through scary rapids, you can use the practice of urge surfing to carry you through the distress of impulses.

Benefits of Urge Surfing

Urge surfing provides a variety of benefits when used routinely as a coping skill. Continuing to use urge surfing over time helps to manage impulses and cravings, which often contributes to enhancing self-control. Over time, you might also notice that you are developing new insights into your physical and emotional states.

For example, you might learn to recognize what people, places, and situations trigger your urges. You might also begin to recognize the warning signs of urges beginning to develop, such as patterns in certain bodily sensations or thoughts. Over time, the overall benefit of urge surfing is developing deeper insights and trust in your ability to handle distressing situations.

Urge Surfing Vs. Fight the Urge

Experts indicate that fighting urges often only leads to more intense and frequent distress.^{1, 2} Urge surfing helps your brain recognize and integrate new patterns for handling urges, helping you to effectively “press pause” between experiencing an urge, and acting on it. Since fighting urges often leads to more distress, urge surfing is more beneficial as a long-term solution to unwanted behaviors. Research indicates that mindfulness strategies like urge surfing help people learn to ‘let go’ because the observational stance used during urge surfing encourages individuals to acknowledge the temporary nature of experiences.³

When to Use Urge Surfing

Urge surfing is helpful for a variety of disorders and unwanted behaviors. Traditionally, urge surfing was used solely for addictions to substances, but expanded for use to other addictive behaviors, such as gambling and eating disorders. Mental health conditions, such as OCD, can also be situations where urge surfing may help someone develop a different relationship to their thoughts and uncomfortable sensations.

Urge surfing can be particularly beneficial for:

Urge Surfing for Eating Disorder Recovery

Urge surfing has been adapted for use with eating disorder recovery. It might look like observing the urge to “control, correct, or fix” food or eating practices, without engaging in eating-disordered behaviors.² Some common food-aversive responses, or responses to food that could prompt someone to restrict, might include nausea, bloating, or urges to purge.²

Through urge surfing for eating disorder recovery, the person would be encouraged to observe these thoughts, feelings, and sensations, without restriction.² The goal is not necessarily for the person to enjoy their meal, but for them to practice not avoiding uncomfortable thoughts or sensations that happen when eating.²

Urge Surfing for Addiction Recovery

Urge surfing originated in use for addiction recovery through Dr. Alan Marlatt and the Response Prevention Model.¹ The RP Model teaches people to expect and recognize urges as a “normal” response to being conditioned to derive pleasure from alcohol or other substances.¹

Through expecting urges, people can better prepare to use urge surfing to become an observer of their substance urge, rather than an impulsive participant. Urge surfing is a main intervention used to help with relapse prevention and cravings. The goal is for someone to recognize the temporary nature of urge sensations and not be “swept away” by the “wave.”¹

Urge Surfing for OCD Compulsions

Urge surfing can be used to manage OCD compulsions when it is paired with response prevention. When used this way, a person might experience an obsessive trigger, recognize the urge, and choose not to engage in their habitual compulsions. Through repeated urge surfing and response prevention, the person develops new insights and ability to tolerate distress of obsessions without reacting.

One study indicated how urge surfing relates to ‘not reacting’ in mindfulness-based strategies.³ When used for OCD, urge surfing indicates the choice not to engage in ritualistic behaviors. Mindfulness makes urge surfing possible by making the unconscious more conscious and intentionally withholding ritualistic behaviors.³

Urge Surfing for Gambling

Using urge surfing techniques can help prevent cravings from transitioning into gambling episodes.⁴ One study based on the relapse prevention model found that urge surfing was effective for moderating gambling behavior when used with other mindfulness and urge-curbing activities.⁴ The same study found significant reductions in the severity and frequency of cravings when using urge-surfing and similar activities to cope.⁴

6 Steps to Urge Surfing

General urge surfing strategies usually include a combination of mindfulness techniques. You may need to experiment with different urge surfing strategies to see what works best for you. Most strategies begin with recognizing and acknowledging the urge fully, without trying to suppress or alter it. Then, use mindful breathing or body scanning to develop a more nonjudgmental stance toward the urge.

Here are 6 steps for how to practice urge surfing:

1. Recognizing the Urge

Urges tend to do the most damage when they are unconscious processes. This is because a person becomes unconsciously conditioned to respond with their unwanted habit, such as an addictive behavior, each time they are presented with an urge. Identifying and recognizing urges when they happen allows you to turn an unconscious process into a conscious one. Through this insight, you can begin to develop a sense of what people, places, and situations might tend to trigger your urges.

Here are some tips for how to recognize an urge:

• If you are in one of your known trigger situations, observe some of your thoughts as they flow through your mind.
• Do a body scan once you become aware of an urge.
• See if you can locate where in your body you feel the urge.
• Focus your attention on the body part where you feel the urge.

2. Fully Acknowledge the Urge

After you recognize the urge, it’s important to acknowledge it fully. Using mindfulness to acknowledge the present moment might be an applicable strategy for acknowledging the urge as it is, without trying to change it. Research indicates that mindful observation results in perceptual changes at the sensory level, often leading to the individual’s ability to separate sensory perceptions from their sense of self.³

3. Use Mindful Breathing

Using mindful breathing means paying attention to the breath. Mindful breathing is not using any special strategy, but rather focusing on how you are breathing without trying to change it intentionally.

Some questions you might ask yourself include:

• What is the quality of my breathing?
• Are my breaths long or short? Shallow or deep?
• Where do I feel my breath in my body?
• Can I trace my breath as it flows through my body?
• How does my inhale differ from my exhale?

4. Become Curious

Once you recognize and acknowledge the urge, you can become curious while using mindful breathing. Becoming curious is a strategy to help you develop a nonjudgmental and observational stance toward your urge. This will hopefully help switch your mindset from being distressed and involved with urges to observing them as they happen.

Some questions you might ask yourself include:

• Where do I feel this urge in my body?
• Is the sensation changing in any way or staying the same?
• If it is changing, what is changing about the sensation?
• What thoughts do I notice myself having?
• Is that thought changing in any way or staying the same?
• If it is changing, what is changing about the thought?

5. Return to the Breath

Breathing can be used as a helpful anchor when urge surfing, keeping you grounded in the present moment. When you notice that anxious or distressing thoughts are pulling you away from a nonjudgmental stance, return to your mindful breathing. Sometimes, it can be helpful to use the phrase “I notice” to observe your thoughts before returning to breathing. For example, “I notice that I am thinking about (urge) again, and now I will return to my breath.”

6. Repeat

Repeat steps 1-6 as many times as needed for the urge to pass. Research indicates that urges tend to take 30 minutes or less to pass. You might notice sometimes that the urge disappears quickly, and other times it needs several cycles of steps before it starts going away.

How to Overcome Challenges When Urge Surfing

Urge surfing can be difficult to get a hang of when you first start. Common challenges include inexperience with mindfulness, difficulty tolerating distress, or trying to surf too many urges simultaneously. Contraindication for urge surfing happens if a person has physical withdrawal symptoms that would be best served under medical supervision. Learning to develop healthy lifestyle habits can help you provide a good foundation for practicing urge surfing.

Here is how to overcome common challenges when urge surfing:

• Lack of experience with mindfulness: A gentle awareness of the present moment can be difficult to develop when you are used to urges coming quickly and spontaneously. Learning to practice mindfulness techniques when you are not experiencing urges can help you develop a stronger understanding without the pressure of impulses.
• Discomfort with unpleasant sensations: Learning to let go of control and let unpleasant sensations pass without “doing” anything is easier said than done! One way to confront discomfort with unpleasant sensations is to practice your tolerance for distress in smaller situations before confronting your typical urges.
• Trying to surf too many urges at once: It is important to pick one behavior at a time to use this strategy with. Sometimes, when confronting multiple urges at once, you may deplete emotion regulation resources needed to be able to urge surf effectively.
• Physical dependency on a substance: If you have a physical dependence to a substance that is causing actual symptoms of withdrawal, it is important to seek help from a medical professional. In this case, urge surfing is contraindicated and it is advised to have medical care while you detox.
• Using an all-or-nothing approach: Urges and the habits they are connected to are so deeply ingrained that sometimes slip-ups happen. One strategy not to call it quits on the whole day after a slip up, is to remind yourself that lapses happen and see it as an opportunity to reinforce better behaviors.
• Not having the physical or mental capacity to urge surf: If you haven’t eaten all day or haven’t had a good night’s rest for a few nights, urge surfing will be a lot more difficult. Use the mnemonic HALT to do a self-check and see if you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. If so, eating, and practicing emotion regulation may be best, seeking social support, or taking a nap before trying to urge surf.

When to Seek Professional Support

If urges are getting in the way of living daily life, such as impacting your ability to go to work, affecting relationships, or making it impossible to achieve personal goals, you may need to speak with a professional. Especially if your urges involve substances or eating-disordered behavior, it can be dangerous to practice urge surfing without a proper assessment from a medical professional.

An online therapist directory can help you find a therapist who is familiar with urges and impulses. An online therapy platform can help provide an accessible resource if you are unable to leave your room due to urges, and need virtual access to therapy.