Practices

For coming down, something sweet taken slowly tends to help more than anything you chew: sipped through a straw, or let dissolve on the tongue. Nobody around you can tell you are doing it.

Slow sucking soothes in a way that goes right back to the first weeks of life, and it is quiet enough to use in a meeting, on a bus, in a waiting…

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…

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…

Keep a short list of things that settle you, and choose from it by how you actually are, not by which one you like best. Wound up and racing needs something different from flat and switched off.

When you are speeding, the things that help slow you down: a long out breath, cold water on the face, attention to your feet and hands, pushing…

If your body is braced to run and there is nowhere to run to, try running in extreme slow motion. One knee lifting over several seconds, then the other.

The urge to bolt does not disappear when you sit on it, it just stays in the muscles as shaking, tightness or ache. Doing the movement so slowly that…

Picture something that could hold what you cannot deal with today. A box, a safe, a chest with a lid. You choose the size, what it is made of and where it is kept.

The details matter more than they sound: deciding what holds it, and knowing you can open it again, is what makes this different from pushing…

If the even square does not touch it, stretch the shape: in for six, hold for four, out for six, hold for four.

Having a second version matters more than which numbers you use. When one pattern does nothing, people usually conclude that breathing techniques do…

Some people find it helps to tap lightly on points around the face and hands while saying out loud what they are feeling and that they accept feeling it. It is easy to try and hard to be sure about.

The full method comes with a sequence of points and a set number of rounds, and free manuals for it are everywhere. What it puts together is rhythmic…

Rolling or throwing a ball back and forth with someone is more useful than it looks when one of you has gone blank. It gives the body a job and the two of you a rhythm at the same time.

It works over a video call as well: ask them to fetch a ball from another room and bounce it while you talk. Say what you are doing and why, so it…

When you have collapsed rather than escalated, more calming will only take you further down. What helps is gentle rousing: rhythm, weight, sound, movement.

A weighted blanket, rocking, drumming your hands on your thighs, singing or chanting something you know by heart, running on the spot for twenty…

Slide your right hand under your left arm so it rests at the side of your chest, and lay your left hand on your right shoulder. Then just sit, and notice whatever happens between your hands.

There is nothing to do beyond holding the position and waiting. Most people find a long breath arrives on its own after a while, sometimes a slight…

If turning attention inward makes you feel more unreal rather than less, stop turning it inward. Go outward instead: what you can see, what you are grateful for, where you are and what day it is.

The usual advice to notice what is happening in your body assumes there is an inside that feels solid enough to visit. When it feels empty or fake,…

When you are wound up and when you are flat, you need opposite things. Sweet tastes, soft light, slow rocking and steady weight bring you down; sharp smells, crunchy food, bright images and quick movement bring you up.

Before reaching for anything, work out which way you actually need to go. Racing, jaw tight, heart going: choose from the settling side. Foggy,…

Sound that repeats slowly, waves, rain, steady recitation, brings you down. Fast, loud, unpredictable music, or whistling, brings you up.

Have both ready before you need them, one playlist for each direction. Whistling is worth knowing about because it does two jobs at once, lifting you…

Steady pressure suits both directions. A weighted blanket, a firm squeeze of your own hands, lotion rubbed in with real pressure, bare feet pressed into the floor.

This is the one thing on the list that works whether you are wound up or gone flat, which makes it a good default when you cannot tell which you are.…

To come down, move slowly and rhythmically: rock, sway, walk at half speed. To come up, move properly: jog on the spot, jump, dance fast, or carry something heavy.

Heavy work is the interesting one, because it settles as well as it lifts. Carrying the shopping in one trip, shifting furniture, pushing hard…