{"id":66014,"date":"2026-07-04T10:32:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T02:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=66014"},"modified":"2026-07-04T10:32:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T02:32:58","slug":"what-is-urge-surfing-and-how-does-it-help-beat-addiction-and-break-bad-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=66014","title":{"rendered":"What is \u2018urge surfing\u2019 and how does it help beat addiction and break bad habits?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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How many times have you promised not to check your socials again or pour another drink \u2013 only to do exactly that minutes later?<\/p>\n

A technique known as \u201curge surfing\u201d asks us to do something surprisingly simple instead: notice the craving, stay with the discomfort \u2013 and let it rise and fall like a wave rather than satisfying it.<\/p>\n

The approach has been around for years, but it is finding life beyond addiction clinics in conversations about all kinds of compulsive behaviours.<\/p>\n

Its roots lie in the work of the late relapse-prevention pioneer Alan Marlatt and psychologist Sarah Bowen, who incorporated it into Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP).<\/p>\n

Marlatt and a client \u201cwho was a smoker and also a surfer<\/span>\u201d coined the term, Bowen says. The two \u201ctogether came up with this metaphor of staying with an urge until it passes\u201d.<\/div>\n

When Bowen and Marlatt began working at the University of Washington\u2019s Addictive Behaviours Research Centre in the US, \u201cwe took that metaphor and sort of breathed life into it and made it into an actual practice rather than just a useful metaphor to understand a concept\u201d, says Bowen.<\/p>\n

She describes it as a form of exposure and response prevention: exposing oneself to something triggering, noticing the conditioned reaction and learning that another response is possible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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