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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874 practices

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Teaching a child to fight works better when it comes with a plain rule: you defend, you never start it. The rule is doing as much work as the training.

A child whose brakes are slow benefits from having the decision made in advance, out loud, many times over. Then it is not something to work out in…

Five minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:60One line of research

Do not stop dead. Give the end of anything energetic a few minutes of winding down, so the change of gear is a routine rather than a demand.

Stopping is a transition, and transitions are where things fall apart for a lot of people. A short unwinding phase, the same one every time, takes…

Five minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:239One line of research

A scheduled break does not break concentration. It is the unplanned wandering off that does that, and a known break tends to replace it.

Teachers usually expect movement breaks to shatter the lesson and find the opposite: children come back more easily because the break is part of the…

Five minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 62:10One line of research

A promising study can be very small. Thirteen teenagers, teachers doing the rating, and a fortnight of follow up is a good start and not a settled answer.

The clever part of that design is the follow up, because it asks whether anything survives after the classes stop, which is where a lot of attention…

Five minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 34:11One line of research

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

The moment before you snap

Food, caffeine and fuel

Choosing your response

When you use something to cope

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Growing empathy

When anger turns to harm

Reading, numbers and learning differences

Making it stick

When everything feels flat

Self-compassion

Emotions as signals

Facing it a step at a time

Anger, alcohol and the body

Tolerate distress

Use your strengths

Getting assessed and diagnosed

Obsessions and compulsions

Being seen and judged

Touch and bodywork

Help someone grieving

Shame

Rest and pacing

Question the thought

Practising under provocation

When nobody has checked whether a benefit lasts, that is not the same as finding out it does not. Following people up for a year costs money that most studies never had.

Two mistakes sit either side of this. One is reading a gap in the evidence as bad news. The other is assuming something lasts because a trial…

Five minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 53:40One line of research

The lift from a morning run does not last all day. It fades by the afternoon, which is information about when to move rather than a sign it failed.

People often notice they are sharp through the morning and gone by three. If your hardest hours are later, put some movement in before them: a walk…

Five minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 30:54One line of research

Move just before the difficult task, not after it as a reward. Five minutes of skipping, stairs or running on the spot, then sit down to the thing.

The window straight after moving is when focus is at its best, so that is the bit worth spending on whatever you have been dreading. For a child,…

Five minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 19:25One line of research

Almost nobody needs convincing that exercise helps. The gap is between knowing it and doing it, so spend your effort there.

More facts will not close that gap. What closes it is arranging things so the session happens with fewer decisions in the way: kit by the door, a…

Five minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 53:39One line of research

Chasing the big hit is a trap. Aim for the quieter satisfaction you can have most weeks, because that is the one that lasts.

If you are built to seek out intensity, exercise can turn into another place to chase it: further, faster, more extreme, until you are injured or…

Five minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 31:19One line of research

Start the movement slow enough that it is almost boring. Speed it up once it has gone smooth, and only then add the thinking part.

Throwing a beanbag back and forth, bouncing a ball, drumming on the table: pick something plain and let it become automatic before you make it…

Five minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 34:11One line of research

When somebody does not take up the movement you suggested, ask what got in the way before deciding they did not want to. Usually it is money, childcare, transport or time.

Cost, an awkward class time, nobody to watch the children, a room full of people you would have to make conversation with. None of that is…

Five minutesMoving your bodyBody basedQur’an 67:15One line of research

If you are the therapist, you do not need to become the movement teacher as well. Sending somebody to a person trained for it is the better version of helping.

The evidence is for movement alongside therapy, not for therapy with a few stretches added by someone who picked them up from a video. Handing it…

Five minutesMoving your bodyBody basedQur’an 28:26One line of research

Move earlier in the day if you can. Whatever it gives you is then available for the hours that follow, and the day has fewer chances to swallow it.

Evenings fill up with everything that got postponed, and the session is usually first to go. Morning does not have to mean dawn: before work, after…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 78:11One line of research

Put music on. A faster tempo pulls your pace up without you deciding to, and the same effort feels lighter when there is something to listen to.

Make a short list you genuinely like and save it for moving, so it does not turn into background. Podcasts and audiobooks do a similar job if music…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 16:16One line of research

Arrange to meet someone. A neighbour at the gate at eight, a friend expecting you, even an app counting a streak. Turning up for someone else is easier than turning up for yourself.

Benefits that arrive in six months are weak motivators. Something that pays out today works better: a person waiting, a number that goes up, a…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 20:77One line of research

Being outside gives your attention something to rest on rather than something to hold. That is why an hour outdoors leaves you clearer than an hour lying on the sofa.

Indoors, most of what you look at wants something from you. Outdoors, leaves moving, water, birds, the light changing, all of it holds you without…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 40:64One line of research

You do not need greenery for outside to help. Snow, grey sky, bare trees, a car park at dusk. Getting out still does something.

This matters if you live somewhere that is brown and frozen for half the year, or in a city with more concrete than park. Wrap up, go out for fifteen…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 106:2One line of research

No particular kind of movement wins. Balance work, martial arts, tai chi, swimming, all of it helps about as much, and what predicts the benefit is moving regularly at all.

This is good news, because it means you can stop researching and start doing. Pick whatever you have access to and will still be doing in a month. If…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 17:70One line of research

Learn a long sequence in small pieces and join them up afterwards. Nobody should be holding twelve steps in their head at once.

Take the first two moves until they are boring, then add the third. It feels slower and it is not, because the version learned this way stops falling…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 16:15One line of research

Doing the identical sequence every time is not boring for everyone. For some people the sameness is precisely what settles them.

Tai chi runs the same series again and again, and there is nothing to decide once you know it. It is a bit like having a programme on that you have…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:153One line of research