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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451 practices

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Pulling away from people sits upstream of a good deal: low mood, social fear, and the slow shrinking of where someone is willing to go. Whatever the eventual label, getting a person back into contact is rarely wasted work.

You do not need the diagnosis settled before you start. One regular arrangement with one person, at a fixed time, somewhere easy to reach, does work…

Twenty minutesWhat worry doesCBTQur’an 2:186One line of research

Giving up certainty is a loss, and it is fair to treat it as one. People do grieve the version of themselves who knew exactly what was going on.

The same piece of work gets called several things: getting used to uncertainty in small doses, learning to sit with confusion, or grieving the loss…

Five minutesWhat you are actually defendingMindfulnessQur’an 3:154One line of research

A small child works out how to feel about itself by looking at its parents' faces. If that face was missing, or busy, the looking does not stop, it just moves on to teachers, coaches, friends and strangers.

It is part of why being disrespected can feel so much larger than the moment deserves. Some of that old search is still running. The work is slow and…

Twenty minutesWhat you are actually defendingCoreQur’an 50:16One line of research

The thought that nobody at the party will want to talk to you is chemistry, not a report about the world. You do not have to disprove it. You only have to notice where it came from.

Arguing with an anxious thought while the alarm is still ringing is heavy work and it rarely goes well. Reclassifying it is lighter: this is what my…

A minuteBreaking the worry loop

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

Tolerate distress

The moment before you snap

Get started

Structure and routine

Remembering to do it

When you use something to cope

Exercise, food and other supports

When everything feels flat

Bringing the future closer

Food, caffeine and fuel

Making it stick

Letting it out safely

Growing empathy

When anger turns to harm

Practising under provocation

Facing it a step at a time

Self-compassion

What you are actually defending

Feeling from the inside

Emotions as signals

Anger, alcohol and the body

Living with uncertainty

Getting assessed and diagnosed

Question the thought

Rest and pacing

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Being seen and judged

Use your strengths

CBT

Qur’an 50:16

One line of research

Three moves, in this order: notice what is happening, settle the body, then put your attention somewhere useful. Short enough to remember when you are already going.

Elaborate plans fall apart at exactly the moment you need them, so it is worth having something this small. Notice covers naming it as anxiety rather…

Five minutesBreaking the worry loopCBTQur’an 2:45One line of research

Slow breathing and loosening your muscles are not decoration. A body that is braced keeps telling the mind there is something to brace for, so unbracing it takes away part of the evidence.

If this sounds like soft advice, try it as a technical one instead: long slow breaths out, shoulders down, jaw unclenched, and give it a few minutes…

Five minutesBreaking the worry loopCBTQur’an 20:130One line of research

Settling the body only goes so far for some people, and there is energy left over afterwards. That leftover needs somewhere to go, or it goes back into the worry.

This matters most if you run hot: the driven ones, the ones who cannot leave a thought alone. You do the breathing, you are still humming, and you…

Five minutesBreaking the worry loopCBTQur’an 11:114One line of research

Asking again and again whether it will be alright, and being told yes, buys a few seconds of calm and guarantees the next round of asking. The kindness in the answer is what keeps it going.

You can hear it in the shape of the question: the same one, worded slightly differently, asked of the same person. If you are the one being asked,…

Five minutesBreaking the worry loopCBTQur’an 6:59One line of research

A hammering heart during anxiety is the body doing what it does when it is braced, not a sign that it is being damaged. For a lot of people that single piece of information is the thing that finally lets the panic drop.

The fear of the sensation is usually the bigger half of the problem: the heart races, you read it as something going badly wrong, and the fear feeds…

Five minutesBreaking the worry loopCBTQur’an 39:42One line of research

Sourness, shutting down, snapping at everyone: these are as often worry as they are attitude. The person is not giving you a hard time, they are having one.

This matters because of what happens next. Read it as rudeness and the house responds with punishment, which adds to the load that produced the…

Five minutesBreaking the worry loopCBTQur’an 41:36One line of research

When you help someone rethink a frightening thought, go slowly and stay honest. A cheerful line swapped in for a scared one tends to get refused, and fairly so.

The aim is not a brighter thought but a truer one that is also bearable. Something in the shape of "this is going to feel horrible and I can get…

Five minutesBreaking the worry loopCBTQur’an 3:159One line of research

Sometimes there really is evidence for the fear. Say so. The balance comes from the other column being fuller, not from pretending the first column is empty.

Children are being bullied, are laughed at, do get things wrong in front of everyone. If you wave that away, they learn the exercise is fixed and…

Twenty minutesBreaking the worry loopCBTQur’an 53:28One line of research

Not every kind of quiet is calm. Settled feels warm and present. Shut down feels flat, far away and oddly fine.

Learning the difference in your own body is worth the trouble, because the two states need opposite things. If you are settled, stay there. If you…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 89:27One line of research

Before picking a calming technique, work out which way you are off. Revved up and shut down need opposite things.

Wound up: slow the out breath, lower the lights, less input. Shut down: more input, movement, sound, a change of room. The common mistake is running…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 3:191One line of research

Calm can feel unsafe if you have not had much of it. Take it in small amounts and let it be strange at first.

Grounding exercises sometimes leave people more agitated rather than less, and then they decide they are doing it wrong. Often the truth is that…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 48:4One line of research

When you are far from settled, aim for the next step rather than for calm. Rattled is a real improvement on numb.

There is a rough order to these states: shut down at the bottom, revved up in the middle, settled and connected at the top. Coming back tends to…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 20:25One line of research

Freezing is not something you decided on. It is what was left once the other options had gone.

A mouse does not try to charm a cat. It runs, and if it is caught it goes limp, and none of that is a considered plan. People ask themselves for…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 91:7One line of research

Before you close your eyes for anything calming, spend a minute looking round the room. Let your eyes land wherever they want to.

Closing your eyes too early is one reason relaxation exercises backfire. If your body has not registered that the room is fine, going inward means…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 67:23One line of research

Breath reaches the settling machinery faster than reasoning does, because it works on a part of the brainstem that does not wait for your opinion.

That is why arguing yourself out of a panic rarely works while six slow breaths often do something. It also explains why breath practice can feel…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 50:16One line of research

Cold water on your face, particularly at the hairline and around the lips, sets off a reflex that slows the heart. It is one of the few things fast enough to interrupt real panic.

A splash at the sink, a few minutes outside in cold air, or a bowl of cold water if you have one to hand. There is a quieter version for when you…

A minuteYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 20:46One line of research