A 5-Step Tool to Manage Cravings and Addiction: Urge Surfing

Discover how cravings impact addiction and learn a practical five-step mindfulness approach, Urge Surfing, to help you or your clients manage cravings, build resilience, and make healthier, intentional choices.

Cravings are a central aspect of addiction and play a critical role in influencing behavior. They are intense urges or impulses that drive individuals toward engaging in specific behaviors, often as a way to cope with discomfort or to seek pleasure. While cravings are a natural human experience, their role in addiction is more pronounced and complex, involving physical, psychological, and emotional dimensions.

“A mindful approach can help address cravings by fostering awareness, enhancing emotional regulation, and empowering intentional responses.”

To support you in integrating mindfulness into addiction care, we’ve collaborated with Dr. Farah Jindani, instructor of the Healing Trauma with Integrative Approaches course, to share a mindfulness-based practice: Urge Surfing. This method helps individuals "ride the wave" of cravings by observing them with curiosity and without judgment.

Urge Surfing enables individuals to recognize cravings as temporary and make intentional, healthier choices, fostering emotional regulation and long-term resilience. This approach provides a practical and empowering way to disrupt reactive patterns and cultivate well-being.

Contents:

1. Understanding Cravings and Their Impact on Addiction
2. What is Urge Surfing?
3. Guiding the Urge Surfing Practice: Five-Step Approach
4. Framing the Urge Surfing Practice for Clients

Understanding Cravings and Their Impact on Addiction

Cravings are intense urges or impulses that play a central role in the cycle of addiction. They stem from physical, emotional, and psychological factors, often as part of the brain's reward system seeking relief or pleasure. When triggered, cravings can feel overwhelming, leading individuals to engage in behaviors they know have negative consequences.

Addictive behaviors, though temporarily relieving, reinforce a harmful feedback loop. For instance, stress may trigger substance use, overeating, or gambling, providing short-term dopamine "hits," but over time, these patterns can undermine physical health, emotional well-being, and relationships.

While cravings are normal and universal, they become problematic when they disrupt lives. Recognizing them as temporary experiences that can be observed and managed with the right strategies is key to breaking the addiction cycle.

What is Urge Surfing?

Urge surfing is a mindfulness-based practice designed to help individuals manage cravings by "riding the wave" of an urge without acting on it. Rather than suppressing or avoiding the craving, the practice encourages observing it with curiosity and non-judgment.

The wave metaphor reflects the nature of cravings: they rise, peak, and eventually subside. Recognizing cravings as temporary reduces their power, fostering self-regulation and thoughtful responses over impulsive reactions.

Research supports the effectiveness of mindfulness practices like urge surfing in reducing impulsivity, enhancing emotional regulation, and promoting long-term recovery. By practicing urge surfing, clients can better tolerate discomfort and make healthier choices.

Framing the Urge Surfing Practice for Clients

To introduce urge surfing effectively, it’s essential to frame it as a supportive, nonjudgmental tool that meets clients where they are. Start by explaining that cravings are natural and arise for everyone, regardless of the specific behavior or substance.

Encourage clients to identify a current craving, such as a desire for a specific food or habitual behavior. This practice can be done as a reflection, but ultimately, the intention is to emphasize staying in the present moment rather than reflecting on past or hypothetical scenarios. Addressing real-time cravings helps interrupt the automatic cycle of urge and action that drives addictive behaviors.

Guiding the Urge Surfing Practice: 5-Step Approach

The urge surfing practice follows a structured, step-by-step framework:

1. Recognizing the Urge:
   Identify the craving as it arises. What is the urge for? Name it and bring awareness to its presence.
2. Locating the Sensation:
   Focus on where the craving manifests in the body. Is it a tightness in the chest? A tension in the shoulders? By tuning into physical sensations, clients begin to externalize the urge and reduce its intensity.
3. Describing the Urge:
   Use descriptive language to articulate the nature of the craving. Clients might rate its intensity on a scale of 1 to 10 or describe it using sensory terms like color, texture, or shape. This step demystifies the craving and fosters a sense of control.
4. Grounding in the Present:
   Engage in grounding techniques to anchor attention in the moment. This may include deep breathing (e.g. inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds) or sensory awareness exercises (e.g. naming five things you see, four things you feel, three things you hear). These techniques help clients stay with the craving as it ebbs and flows.
5. Riding the Wave:
   Visualize the craving as a wave that builds, peaks, and then subsides. Encourage clients to observe the wave without acting on it, knowing that it will pass. By practicing non-reactivity, clients build resilience and reduce impulsive behavior.

Making Adaptations

Adapting urge surfing to individual needs and contexts is essential for its effectiveness. Assess the client’s readiness and motivation; it may not suit those in the pre-contemplation stage or resistant to change. If the wave metaphor doesn’t resonate, offer alternatives like passing clouds or seasonal changes, ensuring the practice feels relevant and accessible. Adjustments can also include modifying the length or intensity of the practice. Normalize the process by acknowledging that sitting with discomfort can be challenging but is a powerful step toward self-awareness and change.

A Lifelong Tool for Managing Cravings

Urge surfing equips clients with a framework for sitting with discomfort, developing greater awareness, and building long-term resilience. As they practice, they will find that cravings become less powerful and that they are capable of making choices aligned with their goals and well-being.

One of the most impactful aspects of urge surfing is that it empowers clients to gain a sense of control over their cravings independently. While initial guidance is helpful, the ultimate goal is for clients to internalize the practice, using it as a lifelong tool for managing cravings and urges on their own.

Feel free to share this post with friends, family, or colleagues. Thanks for your ongoing interest and support!

Farah Jindani, Ph.D., is a clinician, educator, and researcher. She's renowned for her groundbreaking work at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and with Harvard University in integrative treatments, particularly using Kundalini yoga to address post-traumatic stress.

 Michael Apollo MHSc RP is the founder of the Mindful Society Global Institute. Prior to founding MSGI in 2014, he was the Program Director of Mindfulness at the University of Toronto. He is an educator, licensed clinician and certified facilitator in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.

References:

Bowen, S., & Marlatt, A. (2009). Surfing the urge: Brief mindfulness-based intervention for college student smokers. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 23(4), 666–671. 

Enkema MC, Hallgren KA, Neilson EC, Bowen S, Bird ER, Larimer ME. Disrupting the path to craving: Acting without awareness mediates the link between negative affect and craving. Psychol Addict Behav. 2020 Aug;34(5):620-627. 

Singh, N. N., Lancioni, G. E., Karazsia, B. T., Myers, R. E., Kim, E., Chan, J., Jackman, M. M., McPherson, C. L., & Janson, M. (2019). Surfing the urge: An informal mindfulness practice for the self-management of aggression by adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 12, 170–177. 

Disclaimer

The content in our blogs is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your health provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental health.