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.

What matches

1345 practices

Narrow these down

Short sessions spread over days beat one long night. The settling of what you learned happens after you stop, and a short night undoes a good deal of the day's work.

A perfectionist will not cut their hours to be kinder to themselves, but they will cut them to get a better mark. So argue it on those terms.…

LongerBreaking the worry loopCBTQur’an 25:47One line of research

You were shaped with care. On a day you feel worthless, that is a feeling, not a fact.

Feeling worthless is weather, not the ground. The ground is that you were made well.

A minuteYour worth is not conditionalDBT skillsQur’an 95:4One line of research

Stop measuring your inside against other people's outside. Run your own race.

Comparison is a game rigged to make you lose. Turn your eyes back to your own path.

A minuteYour worth is not conditionalDBT skillsQur’an 4:32One line of research

Your worth is not your output. A bad day at work does not lower your value as a person.

You are not a scoreboard. Performance rises and falls; your worth is not pinned to it.

Five minutesYour worth is not conditionalDBT skillsQur’an 17:70One line of research

Most of the traffic on the nerve joining your gut, heart and lungs to your brain is heading upwards. When your stomach turns or your chest tightens, your body is reporting in.

It helps to treat those sensations as messages rather than faults to be got rid of. Next time your stomach drops before a difficult phone call, try…

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

Practising under provocation

Feelings and focus

Shame and stigma

Making it stick

Treatment and medication

Cool the body first

What worry does

Being seen and judged

Breathing

Growing empathy

Remembering to do it

When you use something to cope

Feeling from the inside

What you are actually defending

Reading, numbers and learning differences

Fondness and admiration

Obsessions and compulsions

Tolerate distress

Answering bids

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Staying regulated in conflict

Shared spiritual life

Breaking the worry loop

Facing it a step at a time

Emotions as signals

Question the thought

Anger, alcohol and the body

Posture and how you carry yourself

Shame

Notice the pattern and flex

When you go numb

Your worth is not conditional

Living with uncertainty

When anger turns to harm

Get it out of your head

Find meaning

Care for yourself in loss

Safety and grounding

Rebuilding trust

The cost of avoiding

Listening and understanding

Panic and the body

Affection and touch

Listen to the body

Your window of tolerance

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 50:16One line of research

Not every kind of quiet is calm. Settled feels warm and present. Shut down feels flat, far away and oddly fine.

Learning the difference in your own body is worth the trouble, because the two states need opposite things. If you are settled, stay there. If you…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 89:27One line of research

Try saying it plainly, out loud if you can: my body did what it needed to do, and I am still here.

Say the specific version rather than the general one. My body went still so it would be over sooner. My body kept quiet so it would not be noticed.…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 94:1One line of research

You can tell you are settled by small signs: your breath sits low in your belly, feelings arrive in waves rather than floods, and you can think and feel at the same time.

Other markers: your voice has some tune in it, you can take in new information, you can read what is happening on someone else's face. Knowing your…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 48:4One line of research

Aim low on purpose. Not the best day of your life. I like my cat. I got here on time.

Big positive memories tend to backfire: they are hard to reach on a bad day, and for some people feeling good at all starts a wait for the other shoe…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 30:23One line of research

You will stop doing this once you feel better. Write it on your list of things that help, so it is there next time instead of forgotten.

Adherence fades the same way it does with exercise, and the fading is not a character flaw. The trouble is that when you next need it you will be in…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 32:9One line of research

A gut feeling is a real signal rather than a turn of phrase. The chemicals that carry emotion in your brain are also at work in your heart and your gut.

This matters most if you grew up being told your read on a situation was wrong. Noticing the sensation, naming it, then checking it against what you…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 91:7One line of research

The calm and connected part of this system speaks through your face, your voice, your ears and your heart. That is why those are the places to work.

A softer face, a slower voice, unhurried breathing and something friendly to look at are not decoration. They are the reachable end of the circuit…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 23:78One line of research

Stand on one foot for half a minute, a hand on a chair if you need it, and put all your attention into the foot on the floor.

You will find it is never still. There is a constant small negotiation towards the toes, the heel, one side and back again, and every so often you…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 3:191One line of research

There are small signs that somebody has come back into connection: light in the eyes, a bit of music in the voice, a smile that arrives by itself.

They are easy to see once you know to look, and they are just as useful in reverse. If you are with someone difficult and your own voice has gone…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 23:78One line of research

Before you close your eyes for anything calming, spend a minute looking round the room. Let your eyes land wherever they want to.

Closing your eyes too early is one reason relaxation exercises backfire. If your body has not registered that the room is fine, going inward means…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 67:23One line of research

Breath does not always calm. For some people it opens the door to feeling, for others it puts a little distance in. Find out which it does for you today.

The instruction to breathe deeply gets handed out as though it settles everyone. Plenty of people find that attention to their breath brings the…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 7:205One line of research

Your heart speeds up slightly on every breath in and slows on every breath out. Sit quietly with a hand on your chest and you can feel it.

This is why lengthening the out breath calms you and lengthening the in breath wakes you up. It also means you carry a working control that needs no…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 25:47One line of research

Whatever happens in a session, the change gets built in the other hours. Choose things you can do at a bus stop with nothing in your hands.

There are roughly 167 waking hours a week outside an appointment, and that is where a practice either becomes yours or quietly disappears. Elaborate…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 3:191One line of research

If you went blank or floppy while something terrible was happening, that was your body conserving you. It is the oldest survival setting you have, not a failure of nerve.

This response gets chosen when fighting and running are both off the table, and it is built to spend as little as possible until the danger passes.…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 2:286One line of research

Whatever you did in the worst moment, your body chose it faster than thought. You did not decide it and then get it wrong.

The selection happens deep in the brain, in a fraction of a second, before the part of you that weighs options gets a look in. People spend years…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 91:7One line of research

If you need someone now

Practices

What matches