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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155 practices

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Going limp is an old survival bet, not a failure of nerve. Some animals are alive only because they stopped moving.

The wager is that whatever has hold of you will lose interest in something that seems already dead, and that when it does you will get up and go. It…

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

The tools that slow things down mostly use your head: naming what is happening, standing back a little, putting the distress at arm's length for now.

Explaining to yourself what your body is doing. Watching a thought rather than arguing with it. Asking whether the worst reading is the only reading.…

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

The tools that reach what words cannot are physical: feet on the floor, a long breath out, pushing hard against a wall, deliberately walking away from something.

Some of what happened is held below language, which is why the most articulate account of it can leave you unchanged. Movement that finishes…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 76:2One line of research

The unsettled pattern is not simply a smaller rhythm. It is a jagged one, swinging up and down without much order to it.

Which matches how it feels from inside: fine at eleven, flooded by half past, flat by two. If that is you, the aim is not to iron the swings out into…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 13:28One line of research

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

Some routes ask you to do something: breathing, moving, stretching. Others ask you to receive: music, warm water, somebody else's voice. Keep one of each, because which one you can manage depends on the day.

When you are shut down and heavy, an active practice can be more than you are able to start. When you are wired and watchful, lying still while…

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

When you cannot settle yourself, borrow somebody else's steadiness. Sitting near a calm person, even without talking, is a real thing to try.

Choose by effect rather than by closeness. Some people you love leave you more wound up than you started, and some people you barely know are easy to…

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

If you mostly run hot and jumpy, start with slow paced breathing. If you mostly go blank and far away, work that reaches you through sound and voice tends to get further.

The idea is to pick the tool that pulls against your usual tilt. Breathing practice puts the brake back on a system that has lost it. Sound and voice…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 23:78One line of research

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

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

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

When someone finally reaches somewhere safe, do not be surprised if they fall apart rather than bloom. Stay close through that part.

People who have lived on high alert often start grieving once the danger stops, and it can look like going backwards: more tears, more fear about the…

LongerYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 106:4One line of research