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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47 practices

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You are allowed to move. Wiggle your toes, rub one arm from shoulder to hand, put a palm on your chest. A body that is doing something is much easier to feel than one held still.

Sitting perfectly still and waiting for sensation is hard work if you are numb, and it often ends with the conclusion that you are broken at this.…

Five minutesFeeling from the insideMindfulnessQur’an 89:27One line of research

If you keep falling asleep whenever you sit quietly, take it as news rather than as a failed attempt. Your body is telling you how tired it is.

Welcome the first few times. Being tired enough to drop off the moment nobody needs anything from you is worth knowing about, and the honest response…

Five minutesFeeling from the insideMindfulnessQur’an 75:14One line of research

Sleeping until the middle of the afternoon, day after day, is usually not rest. It is closer to the body shutting down, and it tends to leave you flatter rather than restored.

The tell is how you feel on waking: real rest gives something back, while shutdown leaves the day already gone and you no better for it. Nudging the…

LongerFeeling from the insideMindfulnessQur’an 9:118One line of research

Four steps you can do in ten seconds in the middle of anything: stop, take one breath, look at what is actually happening, then carry on.

It fits inside an argument, a shopping queue, the second before you send a message you will regret. The value is not the breath itself, it is the…

A minuteGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 7:205Long taught, never tested

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

If your attention has no filter, everything in the room arrives at once, and you are tired before the day's actual work begins. That is not laziness, it is a bill coming due.

Two things drain you at the same time: the unfiltered noise itself, and the effort of holding yourself together in spite of it. That is why the…

Five minutesGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 28:73Long taught, never tested

If you have spent thirty years being told you are careless, lazy or too much, no attention technique will touch that. Kindness practice, aimed at yourself, is the part that does.

It usually feels absurd at first, and slightly embarrassing, which is worth expecting rather than reading as a sign that it is not for you. Start…

Five minutesGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 9:118Long taught, never tested

Walk somewhere at a deliberately slower pace than normal. Stop now and then to look at something properly, and let your breathing settle into the pace.

Choosing to go slower is itself the exercise, because it is a small piece of holding back that you can actually feel. Ten minutes is plenty. Outdoors…

Twenty minutesGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 67:15Long taught, never tested

Attention problems often travel with anxiety or low mood, and those two eat working memory as well. Settling that layer can make everything else look quite different.

If you are anxious most of the day you will lose track of things, forget what you came into the room for and struggle to hold a plan, whether or not…

LongerGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 9:118Long taught, never tested

Nobody sees the times you did not say the cutting thing, including you a week later. Put them somewhere you can look at: one sticky note on the wall for each.

Memory is unfair about this. The single evening you lost your temper stays vivid while thirty quiet successes disappear, and then it feels as though…

A minuteMaking it stickMindfulnessQur’an 53:40One line of research

If you held back at four o'clock and then snapped at seven, the holding back still happened. A later slip does not reach backwards and cancel it.

All or nothing scoring is the quickest route from one lapse to giving the whole thing up: I lost it, so none of it was working, so why bother. Count…

A minuteMaking it stickMindfulnessQur’an 18:24One line of research

The aim is not to stop feeling angry. It is to stretch the time between the feeling arriving and you doing anything about it, from no seconds to a few.

That target has the advantage of being honest and checkable. You can ask whether you got a moment this time that you did not get last time. The anger…

A minuteMaking it stickMindfulnessQur’an 3:186One line of research

This goes the way learning a bicycle went. You could not, then you could but only with all of your attention, then one day you rode without thinking about it. The middle bit is the ugly bit.

In that middle phase the skill works but it costs you everything to use, and it looks clumsy from the outside. That is where most people decide it is…

Five minutesMaking it stickMindfulnessQur’an 84:19One line of research

If the thought arrives that this is going too fast and you cannot keep up, that thought gets a dot like everything else. There is no version of this you can fail.

Fast minds are common and they are not a disqualification. When too much is going past to mark, mark that. The exercise is not a race against your…

A minuteThe moment before you snapMindfulnessQur’an 2:45One line of research

There is no accuracy to aim for here and nothing to beat. Every dot means you got back to the bank, and that is the entire scoring system.

People who are hard on themselves will turn anything into a test, and a test is the one thing that will wreck this. You are not aiming for a tidy…

A minuteThe moment before you snapMindfulnessQur’an 2:268One line of research

If the page is covered in dots, that is not a mind that failed to settle. That is the number of times you came back.

Nearly everyone assumes the aim is a quiet head and then quits when the head refuses. Change what you are counting. Quiet is not something you can…

A minuteThe moment before you snapMindfulnessQur’an 41:36One line of research

There was a moment when the urge came up and you watched it instead of acting. Notice that, mark the date if you can, because that is your proof it is possible.

People chasing this skill often think they have never managed it, when in fact they did it last Thursday in a car park and never counted it. Name the…

A minuteThe moment before you snapMindfulnessQur’an 12:24One line of research

That small press of your own finger does two jobs. It marks the thought, and it gives you a bit of contact with yourself while everything around you is loud.

Your own touch is easy to overlook as a comfort. A hand on your knee, a thumb pressed into a palm, arms folded across your chest: quiet things people…

A minuteThe moment before you snapMindfulnessQur’an 114:1One line of research

You can be in full control of what you do and still be burning inside. Calm is not the entry requirement.

People write themselves off because they still feel angry, as though the goal were to stop feeling it. The goal is narrower and much more reachable:…

A minuteThe moment before you snapMindfulnessQur’an 79:40One line of research

Scratching an itch makes it itch more. Acting on anger works the same way, and each round leaves you needing the next one.

The relief is real and it is very short, and then the thing comes back stronger. This is why letting rip does not empty the tank the way people…

A minuteThe moment before you snapMindfulnessQur’an 17:11One line of research

You can sit on a bench a few feet from a waterfall and be perfectly safe. Step in and you go over. Feeling something powerful is not the danger, and getting swept into it is.

This is why the aim is never to keep away from what upsets you. You can be right up close to a feeling, hearing it roar, and still be the one on the…

Five minutesThe moment before you snapMindfulnessQur’an 79:40One line of research