Accumulate positive experiences

Deliberately do things that generate positive emotion — building a reservoir that distress draws from.

Why it works

Positive emotions do more than feel good: they broaden attention and thinking, build psychological resources over time, and counteract the narrowing and depletion that negative emotion brings. In DBT, accumulating positives builds an emotional buffer — the more you draw from, the less likely that a single bad event will drain you to zero.

How to do it

1. Short-term: each day, do at least one thing you genuinely enjoy, without multitasking through it.
2. Long-term: work toward goals that reflect your values — purpose is a slow-burning positive accumulator.
3. Build a list of activities that reliably produce positive emotion for you, not what should work.
4. Schedule them — positive events do not spontaneously fill a life; they are made to happen.

Evidence

Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory proposes that positive emotions expand attention and build psychological resources. The theory has observational and experimental support, though some specific claims are under ongoing scrutiny. A controlled experiment by Fredrickson and Branigan directly demonstrates the broadening effect — induced positive emotion measurably widened the scope of attention and thought-action repertoires. (observational)

Broaden-and-build is well cited but some aspects (e.g., specific positivity ratios) have failed to replicate. The core idea — that positive emotion builds resilience — has reasonable support.

Sources

• Fredrickson (2001), "The role of positive emotions in positive psychology," American Psychologist
• Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226.
• Fredrickson, B. L., & Branigan, C. (2005). Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought-action repertoires. Cognition and Emotion, 19(3), 313–332.

Common mistake

Doing enjoyable things while simultaneously feeling guilty for not being more productive — the divided attention prevents positive emotion from actually registering.