Your exhale is a brake pedal. Most people don’t know this. When you inhale, your heart speeds up slightly. When you exhale, it slows down. This is called respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and it’s been happening your whole life without your permission or awareness. Today you’re going to use it on purpose. Here’s the practice: breathe …

DBT’s Check the Facts skill helps you figure out if your emotion fits the situation — or if it’s responding to an interpretation instead of reality.

Neuroscience has a very fancy term for something your kindergarten teacher already knew: name it to tame it. Dr. Dan Siegel coined the phrase. The research behind it is solid: when you put a name to an emotion, activity in the amygdala — the brain’s alarm system — decreases. The emotion doesn’t disappear. But it …