Between One Thing

Before the week is over, notice this: not every reset requires an hour, a weekend away, or a perfectly clear schedule. Sometimes the smallest pauses change the way the rest of the day unfolds. Today's edition is about making room for those moments.

Today’s Quick Overview:

🔬 Science Spotlight: What shapes our choices behind the scenes…
🗣️ Therapist Corner: Practical tools for emotional overwhelm…
📰 Mental Health News: The promise and pitfalls of mental health technology…
🫂 Community Voices: Breaking free from the comparison trap…

Everything shifted at once. Your brain's confusion makes total sense.

Did naming the disorientation help? Sometimes just saying "yeah, this is actually a lot" is enough to stop fighting yourself.

Normal fatigue after a hard stretch isn't failure to recover. It's just recovery doing what recovery does. How long does genuine restoration typically take for you?

The Recovery Lag

Most coping strategies focus on managing acute distress, but the post-stress reset takes time. This guide covers how to manage energy and focus during that transition, so you don't mistake normal fatigue for a failure to recover.

Building Your Distress Tolerance Kit: Sustainable Coping for the Long Term

Julie Callahan, LCMHCS, RPTS

IMPROVE the Moment: When You Need to Cope and Stay Present

IMPROVE the Moment skills help you make difficult situations more manageable while staying engaged with what you're experiencing. Unlike ACCEPTS, which redirects attention, IMPROVE the Moment helps you stay present while also building capacity.

I: Imagery

Visualize a peaceful place or imagine successfully coping with the situation. Before attending a stressful appointment, a person imagines relaxing on a beach. This creates a sense of calm without leaving the present moment.

M: Meaning

Look for lessons or opportunities for growth. Consider how challenges build resilience. A person views a setback as an opportunity to learn and develop new skills.

P: Prayer

Connect with spiritual beliefs or personal values. Seek guidance, strength, or comfort. Someone experiencing grief prays or reflects on personal beliefs for support.

R: Relaxation

Practice deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, or mindfulness exercises. A person takes slow, deep breaths before entering a stressful meeting.

O: One Thing in the Moment

Focus only on the present task. Avoid multitasking or worrying about future events. A student focuses solely on completing one homework assignment rather than worrying about the entire semester.

V: Vacation

Take a brief break from stress. Engage in a calming activity. A person spends ten minutes listening to music and resting after a difficult conversation.

E: Encouragement

Use positive self-talk. Remind yourself of your strengths. A person tells themselves, "I can handle this one step at a time."

Ride the Wave: Observing Emotions Without Acting

Also called "emotion surfing" or "urge surfing," this skill involves observing emotions without attempting to suppress, avoid, or immediately act on them.

Notice the emotion. Name it. Observe where it's felt in your body. Allow it to exist. Watch it rise, peak, and eventually decrease.

A person feels a strong urge to send an angry text message. Instead of acting immediately, they observe their anger, notice the physical sensations, and wait until the emotion decreases before responding.

Another example: someone experiencing anxiety before a presentation notices the racing heart and nervous thoughts, allows the feelings to be present, and watches them gradually lessen.

The key reminder: emotions are temporary. Feelings naturally rise and fall. Avoiding acting on urges during emotional peaks allows the emotion to pass naturally.

Building Your Distress Tolerance Kit

A distress tolerance kit is a collection of items designed to help you cope during moments of intense emotional distress. Create one personalized to your senses.

Additional Helpful Items: Journal and pen, coping skills list, emergency contacts, positive affirmations

Assemble items that resonate with you. When you're in distress, having these tools accessible means you don't have to decide what to do—you already know what's available.

Putting It All Together

Over these editions, you've learned crisis tools (TIPP), decision-making skills (STOP + Radical Acceptance), distraction techniques (ACCEPTS), presence-based coping (IMPROVE + Ride the Wave), and now you have a personalized toolkit.

These aren't steps you follow linearly. They're options you access based on what you need in any given moment. Some days you need TIPP. Some days you need ACCEPTS. Some days you need to Ride the Wave and sit with what you're feeling.

The goal of distress tolerance isn't to never feel distress. It's to have tools available so distress doesn't control your choices. With practice, these skills become automatic—you don't have to think about which one to use. Your nervous system recognizes what it needs and reaches for the right tool.

Julie Callahan is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Supervisor and Registered Play Therapist Supervisor, and owner of JLC Counseling and Consulting in Charlotte, NC. She has spent nearly thirty years working with children—first as a Montessori educator, then as a School Counselor, and now as a Clinical Mental Health Counselor. She has taught, supported, and advocated for kids ages two through twenty-three and has walked beside families navigating a wide variety of challenges: anxiety, big emotions, learning differences, neurodivergence, school struggles, family stress, and the growing pains of adolescence. Learn more at jlccounselingandconsulting.com.

The Decision You Think You Made Might Not Have Happened the Way You Think

Read the Study

The research: A 2026 article in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience challenges a foundational assumption about how the brain works. What we experience as deciding emerges from sensory, motor, and bodily processes interacting continuously with the environment. There's no neural structure that functions as a decider. What we call decisions are more like a label we put on behavior than a cause of it.

Why it matters: This research helps explain the persistent gap between intent and behavioral execution. When clients fail to follow through on lifestyle modifications or therapeutic goals, clinicians often attribute the issue to a lack of willpower or poor commitment.

However, if behavior is the product of real-time environmental and physiological conditions rather than isolated conscious choices, willpower is rarely the decisive variable. Systemic factors, such as fatigue, sensory overload, visual prompts, and baseline routines, exert far more control over immediate outcomes than conscious intention.

Try it today:

I can let the space between two breaths be enough for right now, because the rest I need today doesn't always require an hour or a perfect set of circumstances. Sometimes it just requires a moment of genuine stillness in the middle of whatever is happening.

Think of one small pause that made a difference in a hard day, a breath you took before responding, a moment you stepped outside, a minute where you stopped and let yourself simply be still, and what that tiny pocket of rest actually gave you.

It's okay if the only rest available to you today fits between two breaths. That's not a consolation prize. That's a real thing, genuinely available right now, that can change the quality of what comes next even if it changes nothing about the circumstances.

Pause completely for 30 seconds between tasks. Use that moment solely to step back from your workload before starting the next item. Observe whether taking a clean transition improves your focus.

"I've Been Keeping Score, and I Still Feel Behind"

Shared by Shawn

I got a promotion last month: better title, decent salary bump, exactly what I’d been working toward for the past two years. For about a week, I felt proud.

Then I was scrolling on LinkedIn and saw that a former classmate just got promoted to director. Different industry, different company, but it immediately knocked the wind out of me. Whatever satisfaction I had about my own news evaporated in seconds.

This happens to me constantly. My friend buys a house, and I’m picking apart my apartment. Someone announces an engagement or a major trip, and I start picking apart my own timeline. Logically, I know comparing myself to everyone else’s highlights is a trap. But knowing that hasn't stopped me from doing it.

Last month, my therapist asked me what milestone would actually make me feel like I was "doing enough." I couldn't answer her. The bar just keeps moving, and the moment I reach a goal, I'm already looking at who's ahead of me. I'm working on turning off this mental tally, but it's a hard habit to unlearn.

Share Your Story

Have a mental health journey you'd like to share with our community? Reply back to this email. All submissions are anonymized and edited for length with your approval before publication. Each published story receives a $10 donation to the mental health charity of your choice.

Evening Reset: Notice, Write, Settle

Music works because of the rests. Without those deliberate silences between phrases, the notes collapse into noise, running together until nothing stands out. Your days work the same way. The brief pauses between tasks aren't empty time or lost output, they give shape and momentum to everything else you do.

Where did you catch a moment of genuine rest today? Where did you feel the urge to pause, but pushed through anyway?

Close your notebook and ask yourself:

Book: Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff

Read: Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff

Psychologist Kristin Neff explores how self-criticism often gets in the way of personal growth, while self-compassion builds lasting resilience. The book focuses on three main principles: offering yourself kindness during difficult moments, recognizing that struggling is a shared human experience, and practicing mindfulness to stay grounded in hard feelings without getting swept away by them. Grounded in research, Neff shows that treating yourself thoughtfully after a setback actually helps you take accountability and move forward with greater confidence. It offers practical tools and exercises that make it a thoughtful, down-to-earth resource for anyone working through self-doubt.

The rest you need is often smaller than you think and closer than you believe. Sometimes it fits between two breaths.

"Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths." — Etty Hillesum

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Coming Monday: The stress hormone that heals, with research showing CRH regulates brain repair rather than causing damage, challenging the narrative that stress hormones are always harmful and suggesting dysregulation is the actual problem.

Researched and edited by Natasha. Designed with love by Kaye.

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*The Daily Wellness shares educational content only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice and diagnosis. Please consult a licensed provider for personalized care.