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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2485 practices

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When you have gone flat and far away, chew something noisy or blow something: pretzels, raw carrot, bubbles, a slow puff at a candle flame. It lifts you without tipping you into panic.

Collapse does not respond to calming, since you are already too far down for that. What helps is work for the jaw and a long active out breath, both…

A minuteGrounding and settlingBody basedQur’an 9:118Long taught, never tested

On a video call, two things still work well: touching your own face gently, and rocking. Both are yours to do, and both are visible enough to be done together.

Distance takes away most of what one person can offer another physically, so it helps to know what survives it. A hand resting on your cheek, fingers…

A minuteGrounding and settlingBody basedQur’an 2:186Long taught, never tested

If talking about feelings has always felt foreign or a bit embarrassing, treat this as a once a day checklist instead. Five boxes, no discussion, nothing to perform.

Plenty of people who go blank at how are you feeling can tell you straight away whether their shoulders are tight or their breathing is shallow.…

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

Before you walk into a room with someone, ask what you are carrying in with you, and what you are likely to leave behind when you go.

State travels ahead of words. A hard conversation an hour ago, a bad night, a piece of news you have not dealt with: any of it will be in the room…

A minuteGrounding and settlingBody basedQur’an 50:16Long taught, never tested

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

Reading, numbers and learning differences

Structure and routine

What worry does

Making it stick

Treatment and medication

Emotions as signals

Being seen and judged

Feeling from the inside

When you use something to cope

Tolerate distress

Facing it a step at a time

Breaking the worry loop

Remembering to do it

What you are actually defending

Shame

Obsessions and compulsions

Righteous anger and perfectionism

When anger turns to harm

Posture and how you carry yourself

Self-compassion

Anger, alcohol and the body

Living with uncertainty

Letting it out safely

Ask who you are today and what body you are living in today, and let the answer be different from yesterday's. You are more fluid than solid.

Hard experience tends to freeze a person into a description: the damaged one, the difficult one, the one who cannot cope. Asking the question daily…

A minuteGrounding and settlingBody basedQur’an 89:27Long taught, never tested

Whenever you offer a standing practice, offer the seated version in the same breath, and mean it. Say plainly that people should look after their own bodies and change anything that does not suit them.

Say it before you begin, not afterwards, so that nobody has to interrupt to ask. If you cannot see the people you are guiding, say that too, and say…

A minuteGrounding and settlingBody basedQur’an 65:7Long taught, never tested

When you sit down to breathe, notice your pelvis. Tucked hard under or tipped hard forward both squeeze the breath; somewhere in the middle lets the diaphragm move.

Rock gently forward and back a few times and stop where the breath feels easiest, rather than aiming for a posture that looks correct. You will…

A minuteGrounding and settlingBody basedQur’an 2:22Long taught, never tested

Before twisting, draw your belly gently in towards your spine. It looks after your lower back, and it is worth feeling for its own sake: you steady the middle before you turn towards anything.

The physical version is simple. A light drawing in of the abdomen, not a clench, held while you rotate and released as you come back. The felt…

A minuteGrounding and settlingBody basedQur’an 16:15Long taught, never tested

Offer any movement in three sizes: small, medium and full. Let people take the one that fits today, and let them change their mind halfway through.

For a twist that might be a simple reach, or a reach with the other hand placed behind, or loose swinging arms. The three sizes do quiet work. They…

A minuteGrounding and settlingBody basedQur’an 65:7Long taught, never tested

Learn one plain standing position and keep coming back to it: feet under hips, hips under shoulders, ears above shoulders, chin drawn back a little, arms hanging.

The point is not that this posture is correct. It is that having one shape you return to gives you something to measure by, so you can tell that…

A minuteGrounding and settlingBody basedQur’an 2:22Long taught, never tested

When you offer someone a practice, ask them to tell you if it did nothing, and mean it. Say out loud that plenty of these do not land.

People agree that things helped for all sorts of reasons: not wanting to seem difficult, not wanting to disappoint you, having learned long ago that…

A minuteGrounding and settlingBody basedQur’an 16:53Long taught, never tested

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

The benefit of a settling practice is cumulative. A fortnight of it now and then does little; the people who get most out of it are the ones who kept going for years.

This cuts both ways, and both are worth knowing. Two weeks of daily practice with no obvious result is not proof that it will not work for you. And…

Five minutesGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 33:41Long taught, never tested

Your mind wandering off during meditation is not you failing at it. Noticing that it went, and coming back, is the whole exercise.

People with restless attention often try meditation, find their head full of noise, decide they are uniquely bad at it and never go back. Nobody…

Five minutesGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 50:16Long taught, never tested

Think of your thoughts as traffic on a road. Practice thins the traffic. It does not close the road, and nobody has ever managed to close it.

This is a more useful target than clearing your mind, because you can tell whether it is happening. Some days it is bumper to bumper and the practice…

Five minutesGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 13:28Long taught, never tested

Practise with the noise on, at least some of the time. The quiet room is not where you are going to need the skill.

A calm that only exists in a silent house is not much use in an open plan office or a kitchen at teatime. Once you can settle in the quiet, do a…

Five minutesGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 2:153Long taught, never tested

Once a day, go from head to feet and notice what is there. A good deal of what you find will be plain need: thirsty, hungry, needing the loo, needing to stand up.

When you get absorbed in something these signals go unheard for hours, and then you wonder why you feel dreadful by four o'clock. The scan is dull,…

Five minutesGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 106:4Long taught, never tested

Brain imaging does show that practice changes something. Be careful with anyone who tells you a great deal more than that.

It genuinely helps to know that sitting and breathing is not nothing, particularly if you have been told your whole life to just try harder. It also…

Five minutesGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 2:255Long taught, never tested

Five minutes chosen for the state you are actually in beats twenty minutes of open sitting. Pick the one labelled stressed, or cannot sleep, or about to walk into work.

Two things end a practice early: it was longer than the attention you had that day, and you had to decide what to do before you could start. Short…

Five minutesGrounding and settlingMindfulnessQur’an 33:41Long 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