Urge Surfing: Learning to stay with the wave

Since it's El Niño season, let's take a few seconds to visualize an ocean wave swelling, getting bigger and bigger, and then eventually returning back to the rest of the water...

Just like a wave in the vast waters, sometimes there are moments when an urge feels almost bigger than us. This includes simple everyday things, like the need to check your phone, to dissociate while socializing, to numb out big emotions by eating, doom scrolling, online shopping, overworking, or escaping.

Sometimes the urge is emotional rather than behavioral: the urge to fix everything immediately, to seek reassurance, to shut down, or to run away from discomfort.

Most of us assume that when an urge appears, we have only two choices: suppress it or act on it.

But psychology and mindfulness-based therapies offer a third option: urge surfing.

What Is Urge Surfing?

The concept of urge surfing was developed by psychologist G. Alan Marlatt in the 1980s as part of relapse prevention frameworks for addictive behaviors. Drawing from mindfulness principles and cognitive-behavioral approaches, urge surfing teaches individuals to observe cravings and internal impulses as temporary experiences that rise, peak, and eventually subside—rather than reacting to them automatically.

The idea is simple: An urge is temporary. Even though it may feel intense, urgent, or overwhelming, it does not stay at its peak forever. Like an ocean wave, it builds, crests, and falls.

What often keeps unhealthy patterns going is not the urge itself—but our automatic reaction to it.

Think of it this way: we feel discomfort → we react immediately → the brain learns that reacting brings relief.

Over time, this loop becomes deeply conditioned. Urge surfing interrupts that cycle by teaching us to pause long enough to observe what is happening internally without immediately obeying it.

Photo courtesy of The Mindful Society Global Institute

Why This Skill Matters Beyond Addiction

Although urge surfing is often discussed in the context of addiction recovery, it applies to everyday life more than most people realize. Many of our daily behaviors are driven by automatic impulses, and to add to my examples earlier, here are some more serious, potentially relationship damaging ones:

• Reacting defensively during conflict

• Procrastinating when overwhelmed

• Checking or seeking messages from our loved ones repeatedly for reassurance

• Shutting down emotionally when uncomfortable feelings arise

In many cases, the issue is not the presence of the urge itself, but our relationship to it.

Learning to stay present with discomfort—even briefly—helps create a gap between impulse and action. And within that gap is where emotional regulation, discernment, and healthier choices begin.

How to Spot an Urge

One of the most important parts of urge surfing is learning to recognize urges before they completely take over. Urges often appear in the body first.

You might notice tightness in the chest, restlessness in the hands or legs, a racing mind, shallow breathing, feeling heat in the face or tension in the jaw, or simply a strong feeling of "I need to do something right now."

Sometimes, there's a mental narrative attached to it, and the most common ones are these:

• "I can't handle this."

• "I need relief immediately!"

• "I will feel better if I just..."

• "I have to fix this NOW!"

The goal is not to remove the urge or to judge ourselves for having it. It's simply part of being a human being, and it's just our brain doing its job: solving problems (that may or may not be there).

The practice becomes noticing that the urge is here.

"There's a wave that's getting bigger and bigger... and I can wait for it to subside."

How to Practice Urge Surfing

You do not need to wait for a major emotional crisis to practice this skill. In fact, it is often better to start with smaller, everyday urges.

Here is a simple framework:

Pause.

Before reacting, stop for a moment. Even one full cycle of the breath done consciously can create space and distance.

Name the urge.

Silently acknowledge what is happening. Naming the experience helps engage awareness rather than automatic behavior. It can be as simple as these statements:

• “I’m noticing the urge to check my phone.”

• “I’m noticing the urge to shut down.”

• “I’m noticing the urge to react.”

Observe the Body

Instead of focusing on the story, focus on sensation. Where do you feel the urge? Describing the physical manifestation of the emotion or the urge can buy you more time before responding or reacting to it:

• “I feel my chest tightening."

• “I feel my hands getting shaky and clammy."

• “I feel my face and ears getting warm."

• "I feel tension in my stomach." (This is how I experience urges!)

Breathe through the wave

Imagine the urge as a wave: It rises. It peaks. It eases up. And eventually, it falls.

Stay with it long enough to realize that it is not permanent.

Choose your response deliberately

Remember, urge surfing is not about not acting. In fact, it is about regaining choice, knowing thhat you have the agency to choose how to respond. With my clients, I always term this as the ability to exercise free will.

Sometimes after the wave passes, you may still decide to do the thing—but from a calmer, more conscious place rather than from emotional compulsion. That difference matters.

The Goal Is Not Perfect Control

You will not surf every urge perfectly, and that is okay. Just knowing that you did try and still chose to respond to the situation in a certain way is already big points in self-awareness.

Sometimes, we will still react before realizing what happened, and sometimes the wave will still feel bigger and stronger than us.

But it does not mean the practice has failed.

Just like any skill, it requires repetition. Each moment of awareness strngthens your ability to pause next time. And over time, urge surfing can help cultivate better emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and more intentional decision-making.

Tl;dr: Urge surfing is about allowing the feeling to exist without immediately reacting to it. (And just to clarify, it is not the same as suppression, which says, "I shouldn't feel this." That difference needed to be said!)

Many waves feel overwhelming in the moment. But not every wave has to drown us.

The ask is that we simply learn how to stay afloat.

Stay cool and hydrated out there!