Areas › Your body
Your body
You cannot think your way out of a body that is braced. This area starts there: the breath, the ground under you, moving, eating, resting, and the small physical things that change how the rest of the day lands.
What works for this
Working from the body first
A body that has not slept, eaten or moved has less left over for holding itself steady. Changing the state you are in is often faster than changing the thoughts you are having, and it is more reliable when you are already worn out.
One move, today
A long slow out breath, longer than the in breath, three times. The out breath is the part that does the work.
What matches
9 practicesNotice one thing your body is telling you right now. Thirsty, needing the loo, shoulders up somewhere near your ears. That noticing is a skill and it does come back with use.
Long stretches of stress teach you to override the body's signals until you stop hearing them at all. Then hunger, tiredness and the early edge of…
When you are low, the thing most likely to help is the thing you have least appetite for. Make the first step small enough that appetite is not required.
Getting as far as the front door can be the whole task on a bad day. Standing up, putting your shoes on, then deciding, is a fair plan. Anyone…
A movement practice comes apart into pieces: the shapes, the breathing, the noticing. On a day when the whole thing is beyond you, take one piece.
Just the breathing, sitting where you already are, is a practice. So is one stretch held for a minute. Doing a fragment keeps the thread going, and…
Moving your body is not a pleasant extra alongside the proper treatment for low mood. It has been tested as a treatment in its own right and it holds up.
This matters most when you are already doing other things and still struggling. Walking, cycling, swimming, anything that lifts your heart rate for a…
If a movement class sounds like it comes with somebody else's beliefs attached, ask what actually happens in the room before ruling it out. Much of it can be done as plain movement.
Stretching, holding a shape, breathing steadily, none of that belongs to anyone. Teachers vary, and plenty will leave out the chanting or the framing…
You do not have to walk into a room full of strangers for this to work. The moving and the attention are the active parts, and both travel happily to your living room.
Group classes suit some people and cost others far more than they give. A video at home, a quiet corner, the same fifteen minutes, all of it counts.…
How often you move matters more than how hard. Pick something you would still do on a mediocre Tuesday.
Big efforts on good days followed by nothing for a fortnight tend to average out at very little. Three easy sessions a week that you actually keep…
Some of what you are carrying has not finished happening. Movement that soothes rather than pushes tends to suit that better than anything strenuous.
Advice built around a danger that has passed does not fit a person still meeting it weekly, whether that is racism, an unsafe household or work that…
If talking about it has not shifted things, a body based practice is worth trying next. It is not a consolation prize.
Some of what trauma leaves behind sits underneath words: the flinch, the going blank, the pull towards hurting yourself. Practices that work through…