Practices

Every practice in the library, in one list. Narrow it by how long you have, who it is written for, and where you are right now.

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159 practices

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Imagine yourself some years from now, well past this, and let that version of you say something to you about today. Write down whatever arrives.

It sounds like a party trick and it usually is not. The future you tends to speak in a tone you cannot yet manage towards yourself, less panicked and…

Five minutesQuestion the thoughtCBTQur’an 2:269One line of research

A belief about yourself comes with a feeling somewhere in the body, an emotion, and a set of things you then do or avoid. Argue only with the words and the rest of it carries on exactly as before.

This is the gap behind I know it is not true but I do not feel it. Next time you catch the belief, note where it sits physically, what emotion turned…

Twenty minutesQuestion the thoughtCBTQur’an 3:191One line of research

A belief you have carried since childhood will not fall over because you asked it a good question this afternoon. You are planting something, not winning an argument.

The temptation, once a thought starts to look flimsy, is to press harder, and pressing usually makes the belief dig in. Leave the question where it…

LongerQuestion the thoughtCBTQur’an 20:114One line of research

When you wave off what your child is into, they rarely hear a comment about gaming. They hear something about themselves.

At that age a good part of who someone is gets built out of what they love, so a shrug at the thing usually lands as a shrug at the person. You do…

A minuteScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 3:14One line of research

Looking for a whole subject rather than a single practice? Start from the nine areas.

You are already off your phone somewhere. In lessons, at work, in the pool, driving. That is worth more than it sounds.

It quietly disproves the sentence people say most often about this, that they can never put it down. They already do, most days, for hours at a time.…

Five minutesScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 24:37One line of research

For one week note three things each time: how you felt before you opened it, how it felt while you were in it, and how you feel twenty minutes after putting it down.

Most people find the before and the after are not the same, and that the middle was better than either. Usually one or two apps come out fine and one…

Five minutesScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 3:191One line of research

Sometimes the scrolling is not really about the scrolling. It is about the coursework, or the conversation, or the thing you have not let yourself think about since March.

You can usually tell by what happens when the phone goes. If the hours quietly move into something else equally absorbing and equally pointless, the…

Five minutesScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 62:11One line of research

Nobody is asking you to want less of a lift. The ask is to take some of it from somewhere that does not leave you flat afterwards.

Put that way most people will engage, because it is not a demand to become a calmer sort of person. Cold water, music that actually moves you,…

Five minutesScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 62:10One line of research

If the phone was giving you company, an evening class in something practical will not cover it. Match what you put in its place to what it was actually providing.

Subtracting an hour and leaving the hour empty is the version that collapses by Thursday. If it was company, the replacement has people in it. If it…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 28:77One line of research

Write down three to five things you actually enjoy, small ones, and do one of them a day. That is the whole instruction.

They have to be yours rather than the ones that sound impressive. Sitting in the garden with tea counts. Ten minutes on the guitar counts. Keep the…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 33:35One line of research

Most parents setting rules about an app have never scrolled it for ten minutes. The rules are usually reasonable and the picture underneath them is missing.

This is not really about being permissive. If you do not know that the feed is chosen for you, that one worried search brings a fortnight of similar…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 17:36One line of research

If you are going to keep a record of the rough moments, name it in your own words. A hassle log gets filled in. A frustration inventory gathers dust.

The language you actually use in your head is the language that keeps a habit alive. Write the entries the same way: he was hassling me, she went…

Five minutesThe moment before you snapCBTQur’an 17:53One line of research

Writing down what happened puts a little distance between you and it. Later you are not inside the row any more, you are a person reading about one.

Two things come out of a few weeks of this. You get data: the same time of day, the same person, the same bad night behind it. And you get practice…

Five minutesThe moment before you snapCBTQur’an 7:201One line of research

Most of us rehearse the crushing line we wish we had said. Try spending that same time writing what you would actually like to say next time, and keep it short enough to remember.

Take one real episode from the past week and write two things: what happened, and one sentence you would rather have used. Something like I am…

Twenty minutesThe moment before you snapCBTQur’an 41:34One line of research

If mindfulness is going to help with ADHD, the version with a chance is small and spread out. A few seconds of noticing, several times a day, rather than one long sitting you come to dread.

A forty five minute block asks you to get settled in one place and then somehow carry that into the afternoon, and the carrying is exactly what tends…

A minuteTreatment and medicationCBTQur’an 22:78One line of research

If therapy for ADHD did little for your thirteen year old, that is not a sign they were not trying. The self monitoring it leans on is still being built at that age, and it builds later in ADHD than in most.

The practical reading is about timing rather than willingness. Younger teenagers usually do better when the adults around them change the setup at…

Five minutesTreatment and medicationCBTQur’an 65:3One line of research

Mindfulness for adult ADHD is promising and thinly researched at the same time. If it helps you, that is worth having. It is simply not yet in the same bracket as medication or practical therapy.

There are only a handful of studies, mostly small, and few of them set mindfulness against another active treatment rather than against not much.…

Twenty minutesTreatment and medicationCBTQur’an 17:36One line of research

The therapy that helps adult ADHD is not really about arguing with your thoughts. It is practical work on how your week is built, and it works because you are the one who can go and rebuild it.

Sessions tend to circle the same handful of things. Where the list lives, what the calendar actually does when you are not looking at it, how a large…

LongerTreatment and medicationCBTQur’an 2:286One line of research

Listen for the condition you have attached to acting: I will apply once I know I will get it, I will go once I know I will like it. If that condition could never actually be met, it is not caution, it is a door you have quietly locked.

From the inside it rarely feels like avoidance. It feels sensible, even responsible, because who would go to all that trouble without knowing. The…

Five minutesLiving with uncertaintyCBTQur’an 31:34One line of research

A no is usually information about fit rather than a report on your worth. Some of them have to happen before you can tell which places are right for you.

This is a real reframe rather than a comforting one, because a rejection does carry usable information: about what they were after, about what you…

Five minutesLiving with uncertaintyCBTQur’an 2:216One line of research