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

40 practices

Narrow these down

A handful of old alarms account for most sudden anger: threat to life or limb, insult, harm coming near your family, someone in your space, rivalry over a partner, and being trapped.

Having the short list in your head means you can name which one just went off rather than sitting in a fog of it. Insult belongs on the list because…

Five minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 106:4One line of research

Two questions worth carrying about with you. Can you take an insult and leave it unanswered? Can you stay frightened without turning it into a row?

Both put the strength where it actually is. Not answering is usually read as losing, and it takes far more out of you than replying does. Ask them of…

Five minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 41:30One line of research

If anger runs on the fear system, then the things that settle fear are worth trying on anger: staying in the room a bit longer, letting your body come down before you speak, going back over the story you told yourself about what was happening.

Most anger advice is about clamping down, and clamping down on something frightened rarely holds for long. Treating it as fear gives you gentler…

Twenty minutesThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 20:68One line of research

Triggers come in different kinds. Some are about life and limb, some are things you learned to dread such as criticism or being shown up, and some are abstractions like unfairness. What helps depends on which kind you are dealing with.

Real danger needs a plan and usually other people, not a breathing exercise. A learned dread tends to ease by going near it more often in small doses…

Twenty minutesThe fear underneath anger

There is more about anger than the practices: the anger area has the themes and the courses too.

Core

Qur’an 20:112

One line of research

If anger is fear in armour, then what works on fear is what works on anger: go towards the thing in small doses, stay a little longer each time, and let your body collect evidence.

That is a different project from clamping down, and it moves in a different direction. The situations you have quietly organised your life around…

LongerThe fear underneath angerCoreQur’an 13:28One line of research

Put your small interruption right before the moment you already know is hard. If it is the drive home, do it as you get into the car.

Anger tends to be patterned rather than random: the same commute, the same meeting, the same hour of the evening, the same name coming up on the…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 3:186One line of research

Your body gets up in the morning and your mind often does not. Half a day can go by in a sort of waking dream, and whatever meets you in it gets the sleepwalker's answer.

So make waking the moment you decide something, before the day has handed you anything to react to. Thirty seconds on the edge of the bed will do:…

A minuteChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 24:22One line of research

If you are on autopilot, the part of you that would notice is asleep as well. So do not count on waking yourself in the moment, arrange for something outside you to do the waking.

That might be a practice kept at fixed times, a phrase agreed with someone at home, a note left where you will genuinely see it, or a plain if this…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 29:45One line of research

Hardly any of us were taught how to acquire a habit. You can know which one you want, agree it is a good idea, and still have no procedure, which is a different problem from not caring.

A procedure is boring and specific: one behaviour, one cue that sets it off, one time of day, and some way of noticing whether it happened. If you…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 42:43One line of research

Change seems to need three things at once: a reason, a method, and enough freedom in the moment to use the method. When you stall, work out which one is missing before trying harder at all of them.

A reason on its own leaves you with a wish. A method on its own leaves you with something you never reach for. Freedom is the one that gets skipped,…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 7:199One line of research

Draw a small circle on three separate scraps of paper without thinking about it. Then look: same size, same spot on the page, same direction of stroke, same starting point, nearly every time.

It is worth actually doing rather than reading about, because the evidence is yours and it is hard to argue with. Nobody chose those four things,…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 25:63One line of research

Choosing has two halves: seeing that there is more than one thing you could do, and then actually taking one. Failing at either looks identical from outside and needs quite different work.

Some people genuinely cannot picture a second option in the moment, and the job there is building a menu in calmer hours. Others can list four…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 16:126One line of research

If you are helping someone set up a practice like this, ask them for ideas before you offer yours. Keep a few in your back pocket for when they run dry.

What people invent for themselves fits their actual life, and they are far more likely to do it. Have suggestions ready anyway, because a brainstorm…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 3:159One line of research

Offer a practice as a question rather than an instruction. What do you think it would be like to wake yourself up once a day? That is a very different sentence from you should.

People argue with instructions, particularly people who were sent rather than came. A question leaves them to make the case, and the case they make…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 16:125One line of research

You are not stuck with the temper you have had so far. Reactions are learnt, which is unglamorous news and also the hopeful kind.

People say things like "I have always been this way" as though it settles the matter, when what it usually describes is a lot of practice. Look for…

Five minutesChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 41:35One line of research

Changing how you react is two jobs, not one: loosening the old response and building the new one. Most people only do the second and then wonder why the old one keeps winning.

The new response is usually fine in calm conditions and then vanishes the moment your pulse is up, because the old one is still there, faster and far…

LongerChoosing your responseCoreQur’an 29:45One line of research

Your body will mobilise whether you like it or not. What happens next is trainable, and that part is genuinely yours.

After a lot of talk about how fast the alarm system is, the other half deserves saying plainly. People do learn to sit through a surge without acting…

Five minutesCool the body firstCoreQur’an 20:130One line of research

Change the question you ask yourself. Not how badly do I want to stay calm, but what have I actually practised for the moment it starts.

Wanting is not a plan. Decide in advance the words you will use, the room you will step into, the person you will ring afterwards. Rehearsed things…

Five minutesEquanimity and perspectiveCoreQur’an 25:62One line of research

Behind calm that looks superhuman there are usually decades of dull practice. The practice is the part worth copying, not the headline.

Setting your worst moment against somebody else's lifetime of training only produces despair. Ask instead what that person did on an ordinary…

Five minutesEquanimity and perspectiveCoreQur’an 53:39One line of research

This kind of change is slow, and saying so at the start is a kindness. A goal you can actually reach beats a promise that turns the first bad week into proof of failure.

If you are helping someone, name the timescale honestly and say out loud that lapses come with it. If it is your own work, write down what a…

LongerEquanimity and perspectiveCoreQur’an 2:286One line of research