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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1974 practices

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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

Deep rest needs a dose like anything else. If a long daily relaxation is leaving you flatter each week rather than steadier, make it shorter.

Someone can start a forty day programme of long guided rest with the best intentions and find that by the second week they are sinking instead of…

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

If you are the person who steadies every room, ask yourself when a room last steadied you.

Some people are very good at this because they were handed the job at six years old, in a house where somebody had to keep everyone level. It becomes…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 28:73One line of research

Real rest, closeness and unhurried prayer all ask for the same thing: being still while feeling safe. That is harder than it sounds if stillness has ever been dangerous.

It is why some people cope beautifully in a crisis and find a quiet evening unbearable, and why intimacy and slow worship are often the last things…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 78:10One line of research

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

Shame and stigma

Making it stick

Breathing

Structure and routine

Treatment and medication

What worry does

Feeling from the inside

Tolerate distress

Being seen and judged

What you are actually defending

Growing empathy

Remembering to do it

When you use something to cope

Reading, numbers and learning differences

Fondness and admiration

Breaking the worry loop

Obsessions and compulsions

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Facing it a step at a time

Posture and how you carry yourself

Anger, alcohol and the body

When anger turns to harm

Shared spiritual life

Gratitude

Living with uncertainty

Meaning after harm

Letting it out safely

When you go numb

Your worth is not conditional

Notice the pattern and flex

Affection and touch

Ride the urge

Rituals of connection

Panic and the body

Your window of tolerance

Get it out of your head

Find meaning

Face it gently

Care for yourself in loss

The cost of avoiding

Patience and trust

Validate yourself and others

Listening and understanding

If you cannot feel your own state yet, a device that shows it on a screen can stand in until you can.

Ear clips and phone apps that display your heart rhythm turn something invisible into a light changing colour, and for people who have spent years…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 2:260One line of research

If a practice feels like homework you are failing at, turn it into a game. Some feedback tools do this for you, bringing colour and birdsong to a grey screen as your heart rhythm settles.

Trying hard to relax is a trap. The effort keeps you keyed up, and then you have one more thing to be bad at. Play sidesteps that entirely. It is the…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 16:78One line of research

You do not need other people to reach a settled state. Breath, a slow walk somewhere green, a cat asleep on your lap: all of them get you there.

The name social engagement system makes it sound as though company is the only door, which is bleak if you are isolated, and worse if people are the…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 2:22One line of research

There is a listening programme that filters music into the range of the human voice, given in short sittings that add up to a few hours, to make speech easier for the body to take in.

It is delivered by a trained provider rather than downloaded and run at home, usually in small doses with a pause if things stir up. If you have…

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

This is given in small doses with pauses built in, and the pace is meant to bend around you. Ask for less if you need less.

There are shorter and longer versions, and versions without a human voice for people who find singing in a particular language hard to hear. A…

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

If your usual trouble is going blank, feeling unreal or watching yourself from a distance, this is the kind of work that tends to reach that.

When you are numb, techniques that ask you to notice what you feel in your body have very little to work with, because the noticing is the part that…

LongerYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 2:248One line of research

Neurofeedback reads your brain's electrical activity through sensors on your scalp and turns it into a game. Nothing goes into your head.

You might watch a plane that flies smoothly when your brain produces the pattern being encouraged and wobbles when it does not. Nobody tells you how…

LongerYour nervous systemMedical and treatmentQur’an 91:7One line of research

The screen tells you nothing and asks you nothing. The plane simply flies better or worse, and the adjusting happens on its own.

That suits people who cannot easily put what they feel into words, which includes a great many children and a great many adults after trauma. There…

LongerYour nervous systemMedical and treatmentQur’an 16:78One line of research

Some people end up fully flipped, awake until three in the morning and unable to surface until evening. That is genuinely hard to reset, and not for want of trying.

Ordinary sleep advice is not built for this. What tends to be needed is help with timing: light at the right hour, a plan to move the whole cycle in…

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

Trauma sleeplessness usually has two layers: night itself carries meaning, and the body's clock has moved. Both need attention.

If bad things happened at night, lying in the dark listening to every sound is not a bad habit, it is vigilance doing its job. Sleep advice alone…

LongerYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 39:42One line of research

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Practices

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