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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716 practices

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Plenty of people quietly believe that thinking about something bad makes it more likely to happen. It has a name, it is a known part of this condition, and having the belief does not make you dangerous.

Hearing that it is a documented feature tends to do more than any argument about probability, because arguing about odds is a game the doubt plays…

Five minutesObsessions and compulsionsCBTQur’an 114:5One line of research

If you are stuck on whether having a thought makes you a bad person, that question is a symptom and not a case waiting to be settled. Name it as scrupulosity and let it stand unanswered.

Debating your moral standing is where this gets its fuel, and every reassurance you win, from a friend, an imam, a search at midnight, buys less time…

Five minutesObsessions and compulsionsCBTQur’an 39:53One line of research

If stopping the ritual is out of reach for now, do it differently every time. Different order, different hand, different room, as long as it is never the same twice.

Compulsions take a lot of their grip from exactness, and disturbing the shape loosens that grip while you are still allowed to do the thing. It also…

Five minutesObsessions and compulsionsCBTQur’an 17:110One line of research

If the urge to arrange has to go somewhere, point it at something that can actually be finished. A kitchen drawer ends. A desk you keep re-sorting never does.

The ending is the part that matters. Finishing leaves you with something real to have done, which competes with the small relief that compulsive…

Twenty minutesObsessions and compulsionsCBTQur’an 7:31

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

The fear underneath anger

Tolerate distress

The cost of avoiding

Moving your body

Obsessions and compulsions

What worry does

Reading, numbers and learning differences

Feeling from the inside

Emotions as signals

Breathing

When you use something to cope

Breaking the worry loop

Being seen and judged

Treatment and medication

Practising under provocation

Bringing the future closer

Structure and routine

Growing empathy

Exercise, food and other supports

Remembering to do it

Question the thought

Posture and how you carry yourself

When you go numb

Making it stick

When anger turns to harm

Letting it out safely

Self-compassion

Facing it a step at a time

Living with uncertainty

What you are actually defending

Rest and pacing

Panic and the body

Anger, alcohol and the body

Use your strengths

Righteous anger and perfectionism

One line of research

If this has been going on for years, medication is often part of what helps, and it usually needs a longer run at it than people expect. Starting low and building up slowly is the normal way of doing it.

The slow build is there to keep side effects bearable through the first few weeks, which is where most people quietly give up. It helps to agree with…

LongerObsessions and compulsionsCBTQur’an 4:28One line of research

If every step you try keeps not working, however small you make it, that is information rather than failure. A more intensive programme is the next thing to look at, and it should be put to you as an option.

The whole point of shrinking the steps is to find one that moves. When nothing moves at any size, staying in the same weekly arrangement out of…

LongerObsessions and compulsionsCBTQur’an 2:45One line of research

Weight across the body settles a lot of people and sends some of them to sleep quickly. It is a preference though, not a remedy, and for others it feels like being closed in.

If you try it, watch what actually happens rather than what is supposed to happen. Some people have wanted pressure, small dark spaces and being…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 25:47One line of research

Keep something to eat and drink within reach for hard conversations. Handing someone a biscuit and a glass of water often settles a room faster than any instruction does.

Part of why it works is that nobody has to be told how. A person too wound up to follow a breathing exercise can still take a sip and chew. Sharing…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:57One line of research

Being told you are too sensitive is usually someone else's comfort talking. Feeling things strongly is not the problem to solve; what to do once the feeling has arrived is.

Both halves have to be said together. Validation on its own leaves a person flooded with permission and no handles. Teaching control on its own joins…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 13:28One line of research

Peripheral biofeedback, the sort that tracks skin conductance and heart rate rather than brainwaves, has more behind it than neurofeedback does. You practise letting the body drop into a calmer state while a monitor shows you it happening.

Once that state is familiar, pair it with a distinctive scent used only for this. After enough repetitions the smell starts pulling the state along…

Twenty minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 13:28One line of research

When omega levels are low, everything about ADHD tends to get louder: attention, mood swings, holding things in mind. Low omega does not cause ADHD, but it can be sitting on top of it.

Think of it as one more layer to lift off rather than the thing underneath. Specialist labs can measure levels if it seems worth checking, and…

Twenty minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 23:21One line of research

One woman's ADHD symptoms climbed and her thinking slowed as each B12 injection wore off, then settled again after the next one. The deficiency came down one side of her family and the ADHD down the other.

The two lived in the same person without either causing the other. What made it findable was the timing, because difficulties that follow a cycle are…

Twenty minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 23:21One line of research

The speed is why these work and also what they cost. Relief that lands within the half hour is the most teachable kind there is, and what it teaches is to reach for it sooner next time.

How fast a drug comes on drives that learning more than how long it hangs around afterwards. Better to name it out loud with someone than leave them…

A minutePanic and the bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 13:28One line of research

What frightens a body is usually not how hard a thing is, it is having no way out. So put movement as an offer. If it feels alright, you might try lifting your arms.

The wording is doing quiet work here. Lift your arms, and see what happens if you lift your arms, are the same physical event, but only one of them…

A minutePosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 2:239One line of research

Whatever a person walks in carrying belongs in the practice. The ache in the hip, the irritation, tears that arrive for no reason, the part that thinks all of this is nonsense.

Complex trauma teaches people to leave pieces of themselves at the door, and a yoga mat is an easy place to carry on doing exactly that, particularly…

A minutePosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 82:7One line of research

When attention has nowhere to settle, give it something. A fixed point on the floor, the breath, the shape your hands are making, or the plain feel of the position you are in.

Which one you choose matters more than people expect. Focusing on the breath turns attention inward, and inward is the wrong direction for anyone…

A minutePosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 22:26One line of research

Find the place that is always tight, your jaw, your shoulders, the top of your back. Take it over deliberately. Squeeze it harder than it holds itself, then let it go.

Do that a few times and something changes. The holding stops being weather that happens to you and becomes something you are doing, which means it is…

Five minutesPosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 22:77One line of research

Keeping your eyes open holds you in the room while you feel what is going on inside. One channel on where you actually are, one on yourself.

Closed eyes are the default in most classes and they are not always kind. When a lot is stirring, letting the eyes stay soft but open, so the light…

Five minutesPosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 15:98One line of research

Grounding and relaxing are two different prescriptions. A squat with your back against a wall puts you back into your legs. Deep guided rest takes you downwards. Reach for whichever one is missing.

When someone has gone numb or absent, often from the waist down, weight bearing work in the legs gives the body something loud and unmistakable to…

Five minutesPosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 17:37One line of research

Your body treats an insult with the same urgency as a threat to your safety, and the two are not the same at all. Saying that to yourself plainly, while it is happening, takes some of the false emergency out of it.

Have a short line ready and use it while the heat is still rising. Nothing here is actually being taken from me. It will not make the sting vanish…

A minutePractising under provocationCBTQur’an 3:186One line of research