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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49 practices

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When a feeling pushes you to hide or lash out and it does not fit the facts, gently do the opposite.

Fear says withdraw; step forward. Anger says strike; soften. When the urge misfits reality, act against it.

A minuteAct on your valuesDBT skillsQur’an 23:96One line of research

Overwhelmed? Take two minutes: breathe out slowly, longer than you breathe in, and let the body lead.

You cannot think your way calm mid-storm, but you can breathe your way there. Slow exhales, then decide.

A minuteCalm the bodyMindfulnessQur’an 2:45One line of research

When emotion spikes hard, splash cold water on your face or hold something cold for a slow count.

A jolt of cold gives the racing body something concrete to settle around. Simple, and it works.

A minuteCalm the bodyMindfulnessQur’an 8:11One line of research

Scan your body, unclench the jaw, drop the shoulders, soften the hands. Let the tension out on each breath.

Emotion tightens the body; the body can loosen the emotion back. Release the grip one part at a time.

Five minutesCalm the bodyMindfulnessQur’an 89:27One line of research

Most people can tell you exactly why the thing is a bad idea. The trouble arrives later, when feeling is running high and all that reasoning is nowhere to be found.

So treat it as a doing problem rather than a knowing problem. Decisions made calmly and in advance travel into hard moments much better than…

Five minutesWhen you use something to cope

There is more about low mood and hard feelings than the practices: the low mood and hard feelings area has the themes and the courses too.

DBT skills

Qur’an 12:33

One line of research

With vaping the pull is often not the hit at all. It is knowing the thing is there in your pocket if you need it.

One fifteen year old described it exactly that way: the comfort was that she could, not that she did. If that is your pattern the work sits in two…

Five minutesWhen you use something to copeDBT skillsQur’an 2:268One line of research

Every feeling comes with something it wants you to do. Catching the move before you make it is most of the skill.

Anger wants to push, fear wants to get out of the room, sadness wants to curl up, shame wants to disappear. None of that is wrong, and the trouble is…

A minuteEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 21:87One line of research

Point at the body. 'Your hands went up just then', or 'you put your head in your hands', gives a feeling something solid to stand on.

Feelings argued about in the abstract go round and round. A gesture you both just watched is much harder to dispute, and it opens a door: what was…

A minuteEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 39:23One line of research

If the size of the feeling does not match the size of what just happened, it is probably carrying something older into the room.

Feeling has no real sense of when. An old injury arrives in the present body with all its original force, which is why a small remark can flatten…

Five minutesEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 12:84One line of research

Going deeper into a feeling only helps if it is being put in order at the same time. Depth without order is just flooding.

So as the feeling rises, keep laying it out: this is what happened, this is what my body did, this is what I was afraid it meant. If your chest is…

Twenty minutesEmotions as signalsEmotionally focusedQur’an 3:154One line of research

There is motion sitting inside the word emotion. Big feelings come out through the body, so if you cannot keep still while you are grieving, that is the feeling moving rather than something going wrong with you.

Think how strange it would be if someone heard they had come into a fortune and just said thank you and carried on with the morning. Joy gets up and…

A minuteLetting it out safelyGriefQur’an 12:84One line of research

Punching something to get the anger out is the piece of grief advice that gets argued over most, and the honest answer is that hitting rarely leaves a person calmer.

Plenty of good people will tell you a bag is better than a wall or a face, and there is something in that. What has not held up is the older idea…

Five minutesLetting it out safelyGriefQur’an 14:26One line of research

Give the anger a room rather than a target. Music up loud, walk fast, dance badly, shake your arms out until something in you settles.

Some children's grief centres keep a padded room where a child can go in and move however they need to, with nothing to hit and nothing to break.…

Twenty minutesLetting it out safelyGriefQur’an 10:12One line of research

Write the exact thing you are furious about on a paper plate, tape it to the wall, and throw wet cotton balls at it. It sounds childish, and it does more than swinging at nothing.

Half the good of it is in the writing. Vague anger has to become a sentence before it can go on the plate, and reading that sentence back usually…

Twenty minutesLetting it out safelyGriefQur’an 38:41One line of research

If a medicine leaves you wired, restless or with a pulse that will not settle, report it rather than tolerating it quietly.

The antidepressants that act on noradrenaline as well as serotonin can raise blood pressure and put nerves on edge, and with some of them that grows…

A minuteWhen everything feels flatMedical and treatmentQur’an 13:28One line of research

Try putting a sentence between you and the mood: this is what my brain is doing right now. It does not make me a bad person, and it does not mean I cannot cope. It just feels that way today.

Low mood does not arrive labelled as a mood. It arrives as facts about you, that you are useless, that nobody wants you around, and it is very hard…

A minuteWhen everything feels flatParts workQur’an 93:3One line of research

A medicine that lifts drive is not the same as one that settles anxiety, and for some people the energising kind makes the worry louder.

Bupropion is the clearest example: often good for flatness and lack of motivation, often unhelpful on its own when anxiety and a racing, sleepless…

Five minutesWhen everything feels flatMedical and treatmentQur’an 8:24One line of research

Put something in before you take something out. Removing the only way a person has of coping leaves them with nothing, which is not safer.

In practice this looks like smaller steps than a promise to stop: cutting the frequency, changing what is used, agreeing to wait ten minutes and do…

Five minutesWhen everything feels flatParts workQur’an 65:7One line of research

Six to eight weeks is what an antidepressant needs before it can be judged. The first fortnight will mostly tell you about side effects.

The transporter is blocked within hours, so the delay belongs to slower changes further down the line. In practice that means picking a date four to…

LongerWhen everything feels flatMedical and treatmentQur’an 12:110One line of research

When a feeling grips you, name it in one plain word: this is anger, this is fear, this is hurt.

Not a story about why. Just the name. Putting the feeling into a word loosens its hold.

A minuteName what you feelMindfulnessQur’an 3:119One line of research