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

8 practices

Narrow these down

Very low vitamin D produces fatigue, low mood and a flatness that looks exactly like depression, and it is not part of routine bloods in most places. If you have never had it measured, it is a fair thing to ask for.

One clinician telling this story about himself had a level that was almost undetectable, and no antidepressant would have raised it, because what was…

Twenty minutesFood, caffeine and fuelMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:57One line of research

Before settling on depression as the whole story, ask for thyroid function and vitamin D to be checked. Both are common, both are cheap to test, and an underactive thyroid produces a picture that looks like depression from the outside.

An untreated thyroid problem also blunts how well antidepressants work, so missing it can mean months on a treatment that was never going to do the…

Twenty minutesFood, caffeine and fuelMedical and treatmentQur’an 16:69One line of research

Before settling on a purely psychological account of months of anxiety or broken sleep, it is worth having the ordinary bloods done. Low iron, low vitamin D or low magnesium can produce symptoms that look exactly like a mental health problem.

This is not about swapping therapy for supplements. It is about not spending a year working on something a blood test could have partly explained. If…

Twenty minutesFood, caffeine and fuelMedical and treatmentQur’an 80:24One line of research

Walk somewhere at a deliberately slower pace than normal. Stop now and then to look at something properly, and let your breathing settle into the pace.

Choosing to go slower is itself the exercise, because it is a small piece of holding back that you can actually feel. Ten minutes is plenty. Outdoors…

Twenty minutesGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 67:15Long taught, never tested

Movement gives you back some willingness, not just some focus. The problem is often not that you cannot concentrate but that you cannot make yourself care enough to start.

Those are two different difficulties and the second one is usually the more disabling in adult life. After moving, the same task tends to feel…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 9:105One line of research

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…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyBody basedQur’an 9:105One line of research

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.…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyBody basedQur’an 53:40One line of research

Being still is not the problem. The circuit that shuts you down under threat is the same one that lets you sleep deeply, digest, rest and curl up with someone you love.

So the aim is not to stay switched on. It is to be still and safe at the same time, which is a capacity you can rebuild rather than a symptom to…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 25:47One line of research

Learn this in order

Another course here · 38 minutesNights that will not settleSix short lessons on nights that will not settle. It separates short sleep from broken sleep from late sleep from unrefreshing sleep, because they…Everything in this areaBody