IMPROVE the moment

Use Imagery, Meaning, Prayer, Relaxation, One thing, Vacation, and Encouragement to get through right now.

Why it works

When a crisis cannot be quickly resolved, suffering is reduced not by changing the facts but by changing your relationship to the moment — finding a sliver of meaning, a brief imaginative escape, or a moment of self-encouragement. Each IMPROVE skill targets a different lever: imagery provides a mental refuge, meaning reduces helplessness, relaxation lowers physiological activation, and one-thing-at-a-time prevents overwhelm from compounding.

How to do it

1. Imagery: picture a calming safe place in detail, or imagine getting through the crisis successfully.
2. Meaning: find any small way in which the difficulty serves a purpose or teaches something.
3. One thing in the moment: do only what is needed right now, not the whole problem at once.
4. Vacation: take a brief mental or physical break from the crisis — even 15 minutes counts.
5. Self-encouragement: speak to yourself as a supportive coach would: "You have gotten through hard things before."

Evidence

IMPROVE compiles skills from different evidence bases: guided imagery has clinical support for stress and anxiety; meaning-making is associated with resilience in hardship; self-encouragement aligns with self-compassion research. The bundle is a clinical teaching framework. (clinical)

Each component has its own evidence status — meaning-making is well studied, some IMPROVE elements are more intuitive than empirically trialed. Results vary by person and crisis.

Common mistake

Trying to apply all seven IMPROVE options at once, which becomes a new stressor. Pick one that is accessible right now and use it fully.