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

1974 practices

Narrow these down

Certain situations take you apart every single time. The reunion, that one relative, the friend who makes remarks. You are allowed to simply not go.

This is not cowardice, it is arranging your life around what you already know about yourself. Much the same logic as not keeping the biscuits in the…

Five minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 6:68One line of research

Some of what you believe about yourself is not a distortion. Things really did go wrong, often for years. What can be argued with is the conclusion you drew from them, that this is simply what you are.

Try separating the record from the verdict. The record might be missed deadlines, jobs that ended badly, friendships that faded. The verdict is 'so I…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusCBTQur’an 39:53One line of research

A reward that is far off has almost no weight in ADHD. Tying the task to something you actually care about gives you a reason that does not depend on the payoff arriving soon.

So instead of 'I should file these', try 'I want to be someone my family can rely on, and this is part of that'. The other half of this approach is…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusCBTQur’an 12:86One line of research

Fear tends to make its case as caution. Try not to let it quietly shrink what you are willing to attempt, because the shrinking rarely stops on its own.

If you have been criticised often enough, staying out of things stops feeling like a choice and starts feeling like plain good sense. The way back is…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 3:139One 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

Worry does two things at once. It makes the problem bigger than it is and it makes you smaller than you are. The second half is the one that usually goes unchallenged.

After years of being told you get things wrong, a low estimate of yourself does not feel like a distortion, it feels like the evidence. So argue with…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusCBTQur’an 2:286One line of research

Sometimes the answer is not a better system. It is doing less, including giving up something you love, because what it costs you has stopped being affordable.

Scouts on a Tuesday, the second job, the committee. Losing one of these is a real loss and it is worth grieving rather than pretending you never…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 2:286One line of research

When you cannot skip it, shorten it. Come for the meal and skip the drinks afterwards. Two hours of you at your best is worth more to everyone than five hours ending badly.

Decide the leaving time before you arrive and say it out loud on the way in, so that it is a plan rather than a walkout. Booking something afterwards…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 25:63One line of research

Connection does not have to be human. A dog will not judge how your week went, and it will get you out of the door twice a day whether you feel like it or not.

If people currently feel exhausting or risky, an animal is often the easiest place to begin. Part of the good is the company and part of it is the…

LongerFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 48:4One line of research

You can be connected to a thing as well as to a person. A cause, a project, something you are making. On the days people feel like too much, it is still there.

This works best when it asks something of you regularly: a rehearsal, a shift, a chapter a week. The obligation is the useful part, more than the…

LongerFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 7:199One line of research

If you tell people that company is part of their treatment, it is worth noticing whether it is part of yours. Sitting in a training room with colleagues is the same medicine, taken by you.

There is a quiet loss of credibility in prescribing connection from a life that has none in it. It also flattens something that ought to be flat. You…

LongerFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 25:63One line of research

There is a difference between being calm because your partner manages you and being able to steady yourself. The first works right up until the person is not there.

Plenty of adults with ADHD have got by on outside regulation without ever noticing it: a spouse who makes the difficult phone calls, a deadline that…

LongerFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 16:127One line of research

If you are permanently behind, short of sleep and scrambling, that is not the backdrop to your short fuse. A good deal of the time it is the cause of it.

This is what makes the dull organisational work worth doing, because it buys you something you actually want. A morning that is not a panic leaves…

LongerFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 94:1One line of research

Sleep, food and moving your body will not cure ADHD, and they do change how much of yourself you have available. Aim for good enough here rather than excellent.

The gain shows up in the margin more than in the symptoms. Rested, you have a bit of room before you snap. Short of sleep, you arrive at the evening…

LongerFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 8:11One line of research

You cannot ask anyone to work harder on your difficulty than you are working on it yourself. That is the condition attached to every adjustment you ask for.

It is what keeps help from curdling into supervision. If your partner is holding the calendar, softening the tone and steering round your worst…

LongerFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 16:127One line of research

Ask gently: what has this loss awakened in me, about what matters and how I want to live?

Not to justify the loss, but to let it change you. Grief often clarifies what is truly worth your time.

Five minutesFind meaningGriefQur’an 67:2One line of research

Let the loss remind you that this life is short, and let that soften what you were gripping too tightly.

Remembering death is not morbid; it puts small worries in their place and returns you to what lasts.

Five minutesFind meaningGriefQur’an 3:185One line of research

Tell your spouse plainly today that they matter to you, and why.

Not assumed, said. You matter to me, here is one reason. The heart needs to hear it.

A minuteFondness and admirationEmotionally focusedQur’an 25:74Seen more than once

Tell your spouse one thing you respect about who they are, not something they did.

Your patience, your honesty, the way you are with people. Admire the person, not the task.

A minuteFondness and admirationGottmanQur’an 49:13Seen more than once

Recall out loud a moment you were proud of your spouse, and tell them so.

That thing you did last year, I still think about it. Bring the good memory into today.

A minuteFondness and admirationGottmanQur’an 25:74One line of research

Scan today for one thing your spouse did right, and say it before the day ends.

The mind drifts to what is wrong. Deliberately catch what is right, then name it.

A minuteFondness and admirationGottmanQur’an 99:7Seen more than once