11/04/2025
As we “fall back” and lose an hour of daylight, many students (and adults) start to feel the seasonal shift that consists of lower energy, changes in mood, and shorter tempers.
This is the perfect time to fall back on your DBT skills especially mindfulness.
In STEPS-A and STEPS-E, we teach students that mindfulness and gratitude aren’t just abstract ideas, they’re body-based skills.
✨ Mindfulness helps us notice what’s happening right now to include the sensations in our body that signal emotion.
💛 Gratitude helps us redirect attention from what’s missing to what’s working, grounding us when emotions start to take over.
Try this in class or at home:
🧩 Ask students to name one thing that made them smile or helped them feel calm this week.
🧩 Then, guide them to notice what they felt in their body at that moment warmth, relaxation, tension releasing and help them name the emotion that went with it.
Teaching students to connect body sensations to emotion words is the first step in building self-awareness and emotional regulation.
📚 Learn more about how DBT STEPS-E and STEPS-A teach emotional balance across all grade levels → https://www.dbtinschools.com/all-training-opportunities
