Practices

In muscle relaxation you are usually told to let go slowly. If slow leaves you fidgeting, let go all at once. The version you will keep doing is the better version.

The standard sequence is to tense a muscle group, hold it, then release gradually, and for some people that long release is unbearable to sit…

Your eyes are an input too. A photo of someone who loves you and a plain soft coloured wall will settle you; a busy bright screen will lift you.

Hardly anyone thinks to arrange what is in front of them, and it is one of the easier things to change. Put a picture where you actually sit. Turn…

Once a day, run through five things in order: how your mind is, what your body feels, how the breathing is going, what the emotional weather is, and how much energy you have. Curious, not marking yourself.

The order matters more than the answers do. Without a set path, checking in with yourself slides easily into chewing over the same worry, and you…

The same check-in can take two minutes or fifteen. Match the length to the day you are actually having, not to the version you were taught.

A long deep look inward is not always the better one. On a day when you are already far from yourself, going deeper can take you further out rather…

Finish a check-in by asking what actually brought you here. Not the task in front of you, the thing underneath it that you want.

Noticing how you are can leave you sitting in it. One more question turns it outward: what am I hoping for, what am I moving towards. It might be…

Take the spine through all six of its movements: forward, back, bending to each side, turning to each side. Standing or sitting, it takes under five minutes.

Doing the whole set matters more than doing any one of them beautifully. Left to ourselves we skip the direction that feels stiff or guarded, and…

Posture does not only show what you feel, it decides what you can feel. Anger is very hard to reach with a collapsed chest, and grief is hard to reach when you are held rigidly upright.

If a feeling seems to be nowhere at all, look at the shape you are sitting in before deciding it is absent. Let the chest open a little, or let a…

Once a movement is familiar, drop the pattern. Let it curve and wander towards wherever your body seems to want it, rather than doing it correctly.

Following instructions well is a skill many people learned early, sometimes because it was not safe to do anything else. A practice made entirely of…

Instead of breathing deeply in general, pick the place that feels tight, the front of the ribs, the chest, one shoulder, and send the breath there.

You are not really moving air into your shoulder, but putting your attention there while you breathe does two things: you start to feel that area in…

After movement, take a moment on five things: the quality of your mind, of the sensation in your body, of your breathing, of your mood, and of your energy.

Doing this after moving rather than before gives you something to notice, since the body has just changed. Over time it builds a vocabulary. People…

End a check-in with a question rather than a summary: what do I need in order to be properly here today?

Noticing your state can leave you stuck in reporting on yourself. The need question turns it into something you can act on, and the answer is often…

If sitting still with your eyes closed has never worked, do it moving. Walking, washing up, gardening: the exercise is the same, and there is something to hold on to.

Sitting meditation asks for the hardest possible version of the task, sustained inward attention with nothing outside to grip. Attach attention to…

If your child is learning to settle, learn it alongside them rather than supervising. Parents who practise report less stress of their own and less flying off the handle.

Attention difficulties run in families, so the adult in the room is often working with much the same wiring at the end of a longer day. Practising…

If your imagination runs away with you, use it rather than fight it. Guided imagery gives a vivid mind somewhere to go.

Being able to disappear into a scene is a real ability, even when it has mostly got you into trouble at school and in meetings. A recording that…

Left, right, left, right. Walking, swimming, drumming and rowing all give the body the same steady side to side rhythm that the seated techniques are copying.

If tapping your own shoulders feels odd, or you would rather not do anything that looks like a technique, go for a walk instead and let the rhythm do…