 I've just finished putting together a course about how to support someone who is suicidal and there was just one point within that that I thought was really important and if you just learn only one thing that this is the thing that you needed to know and that is the one minute rule. So this is that in any moment of crisis we only ever have to focus on getting through one minute. Your our job either as the person who is struggling or as the person who is being supported is just to get through one more minute and when we make it that small and that simple it becomes a bit more manageable. So if we're at a point of suicidal crisis and we are at the point of wanting to end it all and to be dead and not be here anymore it can be really hard to think about how we're going to manage the next year the next month the next week or even the next day but if we think about just managing to get through the next minute that often feels just a bit more manageable and this matters because at those moments of overwhelm of crisis when our brain is kind of really firing off in a big way when it have access to our thinking speaking brain and what we need to do is to try to buy a little bit of time and just enable our brain to just begin to calm so it can become a bit more rational and to think through this problem and see if we can find some different ways forward so if we focus on getting through just the next minute and then after that we can think about the next minute and then the next and then the next so keep it as simple as you can. I think that the one minute rule is helpful both if we're struggling so if we are trying not to self harm or not to take kind of bigger actions not kill ourselves just getting through one more minute before we take that action is feels a bit more possible but also if we are in the role of support her and we might be freaking out about how are we going to manage how are we going to support this person again just taking it down to okay well how am I going to keep this person safe for one minute that feels more doable so remember the one minute rule you only ever have to get through the next minute you can worry about the minute after that next.