Daily Practices for Emotional Health

Skill integrationDaily practiceDaily skill maintenance

If you want to embed skills as a daily nursing practice rather than just a crisis response.

Make daily micro-practices for emotional health visible so that stabilization is anchored not just in crises, but in routine and self-care.

When does this fit?

If you want to build an everyday life that regularly nourishes emotional stability instead of just reacting to crises.

Priority in the path

This node is more about preparation, stabilization, or later deepening around prepare for stress.

What this is about

Daily Practices for Emotional Health is a McKay Workbook framework for building a sustainable daily routine that supports emotional regulation across all skill modules. It integrates mindfulness practice, physical care (exercise, sleep, nutrition), pleasurable activities, mastery activities, and social connection into a coherent daily structure.

The premise is identical to DBT's PLEASE skills and ABC framework: emotional health is not achieved in moments of crisis but through the accumulated effect of daily choices that either increase or decrease vulnerability to emotional dysregulation. The framework translates the skills into concrete daily commitments that can be tracked and maintained.

Further reading McKay Workbook — Ch. 7

Step by step

Work through the steps at your own pace. For written exercises, you can use paper or a notebook.

Choose a reasonably regular time of day for practice.
Begin with a brief mindfulness exercise, such as mindful breathing or Wise Mind.
Add a familiar relaxation exercise, then observe thoughts or feelings without judgment.
Form a helpful, supportive self-statement.
Plan a concrete action for today or tomorrow connected to your values or a solvable problem.

Next step

DBT Diary

To keep track of daily skill use, record your practice across the week in the DBT diary.

View resource

Explore and apply

These nodes deliberately lead into a second DBT module space when the current content must be carried across modules.

Skill bundleEmotion Regulation

ABC PLEASE Skills

Background

When positive emotions, self-efficacy and physical stabilization have to be built together.

Maintaining emotional health in everyday life is the theme of the ABC PLEASE block - daily practices for emotional health are emotion regulation as a way of life.

Also in: Distress Tolerance

Open entry

Observing, understanding and practising

Daily practice brings several tasks together: the DBT diary records skill use, and cognitive rehearsal prepares responses to difficult situations. The How skills describe the mindful attitude; Wise Mind integrates emotion and reason.

Tool