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
- Imagery: picture a calming safe place in detail, or imagine getting through the crisis successfully.
- Meaning: find any small way in which the difficulty serves a purpose or teaches something.
- One thing in the moment: do only what is needed right now, not the whole problem at once.
- Vacation: take a brief mental or physical break from the crisis — even 15 minutes counts.
- 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.
Practice this with IX Coach
7 days free, then $40/month (~$1.30/day).
More practices for Distress Tolerance Skills, Made Practical
- TIPP — change your body chemistry fast
Use Temperature, Intense exercise, Paced breathing, and Progressive muscle relaxation to drop overwhelm from the body up.
- ACCEPTS — structured distraction from crisis
Use Activities, Contributing, Comparisons, Emotions, Pushing away, Thoughts, and Sensations to redirect attention during a crisis.
- Pros and cons before acting on an urge
List the pros and cons of acting on the crisis urge before you do it — to give the decision back to your wiser self.
- Radical acceptance in a crisis
Fully acknowledge that this is happening right now — stopping the war with reality to free energy for getting through.
- Self-soothe through the five senses
Deliberately comfort yourself through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch while the crisis peaks.
- Turning the mind toward acceptance
Actively choose acceptance — not once, but each time the mind rebels — treating it as a repeated practice, not a state.
Related concepts
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills, Made Practical
The four DBT skill sets, the mechanisms behind them, and an honest read on the evidence
- Radical Acceptance, Made Practical
Ending the second arrow — RAIN and the skills of accepting what is
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Made Practical
The core ACT processes, the mechanisms behind them, and an honest read on the evidence