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

72 practices

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If you went blank or floppy while something terrible was happening, that was your body conserving you. It is the oldest survival setting you have, not a failure of nerve.

This response gets chosen when fighting and running are both off the table, and it is built to spend as little as possible until the danger passes.…

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

Coming up out of numbness usually feels worse before it feels better. Restlessness, irritation and a jumpy stomach are often the way up rather than a relapse.

The route out of collapse tends to run through activation instead of around it. That is why a short walk, some tidying or an errand often works…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 20:25One line of research

Safety comes in through three doors: your body, the place you are in, and the people around you. If one is shut, try another.

This matters most when you are on your own and the person you would ring is not there. You can still change the room, open a window, go outside, put…

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

When someone is frightened, your words may not reach them however sensible they are. Drop your voice, slow right down, and let the tone do the work.

In high alarm, hearing tips towards low rumbling sounds and away from the range the human voice sits in, so reassurance can genuinely fail to land.…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 7:205One line of research

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

Bringing the future closer

Feeling from the inside

Structure and routine

The cost of avoiding

Breaking the worry loop

Reading, numbers and learning differences

What you are actually defending

Growing empathy

Facing it a step at a time

Being seen and judged

Treatment and medication

Remembering to do it

Making it stick

When you use something to cope

Obsessions and compulsions

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Tolerate distress

When anger turns to harm

Shame

Self-compassion

When you go numb

Posture and how you carry yourself

Question the thought

Living with uncertainty

Anger, alcohol and the body

Use your strengths

Rest and pacing

Panic and the body

Letting it out safely

Whatever you did in the worst moment, your body chose it faster than thought. You did not decide it and then get it wrong.

The selection happens deep in the brain, in a fraction of a second, before the part of you that weighs options gets a look in. People spend years…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 91:7One line of research

Being strong, trained or brave does not decide which way your body goes. People who could easily have fought have frozen instead.

This one matters for anyone whose sense of themselves was built on being capable: soldiers, police, door staff, athletes, older brothers. The shame…

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

The steadiness you are training shows up in more than your mood. Sleep, digestion and how quickly you come down after a fright tend to move together.

Worth knowing when progress on the thing you came for feels slow. People often notice they are sleeping better, or snapping less, before they notice…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 32:9One line of research

Body based practices sit alongside medication rather than replacing it. If you take something, you can do both.

They are worth having on the menu for people who cannot take medication, do not want to, or want something of their own to do as well. The skill you…

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

None of this needs explaining to work. A child who cannot say what happened can still be helped by breath, movement and sound.

That makes body based work useful right across the ages, and for anyone who finds talking hard, including people whose language is not the one the…

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

When someone cannot take in your reassurance while they are frightened, that is the receiver and not their willingness. Wait for the wave to pass and try again.

In high arousal, hearing shifts away from the band the human voice occupies, so kind words can genuinely arrive as noise. It is easy to read that as…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 20:46One line of research

Sound based work is aimed at a particular set of troubles: noise that feels too loud, voices that turn to mush, jumpiness, difficulty reading people. If that is you, it is worth asking about.

It gets chosen by what your system does rather than by a diagnosis, which is why the same programme is used with very different people, from toddlers…

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

Irritability, a hot face, itchiness, a mild earache or feeling slightly off balance are common while doing this. People often say it feels like getting off a long flight.

Knowing that in advance matters, because unexplained body sensations are easy to read as harm when your alarm system is already sensitive. Say what…

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

Most of the research on this programme was done with autistic children. For trauma, what exists is case reports and studies still under way.

That does not make it useless. It does mean you would be trying something promising rather than something established, and you deserve to know that…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 3:191One line of research

A healthy heart rate is not a metronome. The small variations between beats are a sign your body can still adjust to what is in front of it.

Heart rate variability is exactly that: how much the gaps between beats change. More of it generally goes with a system that can speed up when needed…

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

If your usual trouble is a racing heart, a crowded head and never quite coming down, slow paced breathing with a feedback device is the one to try first.

Part of the appeal is that you can watch it work. Five or ten minutes of breathing at the pace the app sets, with the trace on the screen smoothing…

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

Rest your attention in the middle of your chest, let your breath slow as though it were moving in and out through there, and bring to mind something you feel warmly about.

A hand on your chest can help you find the place. The feeling does not have to be big: gratitude for something small, or the ordinary fondness you…

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

Slow breathing on its own does less than slow breathing with a warm feeling attached and something showing you how you are doing.

That is the difference between the deep breathing most people have tried and found underwhelming, and this. The feedback matters because otherwise…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 2:152One line of research

If you try to call up a good feeling and nothing arrives, you are in ordinary company. That blankness is common after a long stretch of hard years, and it is workable.

It helps to do this part with someone else at first, because another person will notice the flicker you dismissed. Look for what is reliably there…

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

Keep the explanation short when you offer this to someone. It is a way of breathing that gets your heart to send your brain a message to settle. Would you like to try it?

Long technical framings cost more than they buy. They ask a person to take in a great deal before they have felt anything, and the offer of a choice…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 7:205One line of research

Practise this when you are calm and again when you are wound up. The second one is what makes it available in the moment you need it.

Skills learned in one state can be strangely hard to find in another, which is why people say they forgot to use it. Do the first round with someone…

Five minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 33:41One line of research