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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133 practices

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Before you go anywhere near the hard memory, you need to be able to stay in your own body while something difficult is happening in it. That capacity is part of the work, not a delay before it starts.

Phase based approaches put this first for a plain reason: people who cannot bear the arousal either drop out or push through and come away worse. If…

LongerTolerate distressDBT skillsQur’an 3:200One line of research

People who are sure they could never lie still for an hour tend to be asleep within ten minutes of getting on the table. Being unable to fidget seems to do it.

Worth saying in advance to anyone who is putting off booking. It is the same effect as a car journey knocking out a child who has not stopped moving…

LongerTouch and bodyworkMedical and treatmentQur’an 8:11One line of research

The diet evidence has drifted away from cutting particular things out and towards eating decently overall. That is easier on everyone at the table.

Removing additives or colourings helps a small number of children, and the trouble is that you cannot tell in advance who they are, so most families…

LongerTreatment and medicationMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:185One line of research

Think of ADHD as sitting at the centre of an onion. Poor sleep, sleep apnoea, low vitamin levels, allergy, ongoing pain, untreated anxiety or low mood all sit in layers around it, and each one makes the centre look worse than it is.

This explains something that otherwise looks strange: treatments that do nothing whatever for ADHD can still make a real difference, because they…

LongerTreatment and medicationMedical and treatment

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

Screens and attention

Anger, alcohol and the body

Grounding and settling

Cool the body first

Breathing

Being seen and judged

Feeling from the inside

Shame

Self-compassion

Breaking the worry loop

Rest and pacing

Question the thought

Practising under provocation

What you are actually defending

What worry does

What ADHD actually is

Living with uncertainty

Touch and bodywork

Tolerate distress

Obsessions and compulsions

Structure and routine

Qur’an 9:105

One line of research

Think of it the way you would think about diabetes. Something to manage with several things at once, most days, for as long as it is there.

That frame does a lot of quiet work. It says the treatment is ongoing rather than a course you finish, it explains why things slide back when…

LongerTreatment and medicationADHD skillsQur’an 2:185One line of research

The stack goes: understand it, medicate where that is right, change what the adults do, change what the day asks, and keep arguing the child's corner. Each layer does a job the others cannot.

None of them stands in for another, which is why swapping one out leaves a gap rather than a smaller plan. Medication does not reorganise a…

LongerTreatment and medicationADHD skillsQur’an 42:38One line of research

Behaviour work for ADHD is mostly about changing what the adults do. The child's behaviour shifts afterwards, as a consequence.

Consequences live in other people's responses, and a child who cannot yet hold a reward in mind across three days cannot supply them for themselves.…

LongerTreatment and medicationADHD skillsQur’an 16:127One line of research

A child's reputation is made in the classroom, mostly out of adult earshot, and it follows them from one year to the next. Teachers who work on how the class treats the child, and not only on the child, can move it.

The version that has been trialled has the teacher doing small deliberate things: pairing children with some thought, noticing this child out loud…

LongerTreatment and medicationCoreQur’an 24:61One line of research

The therapy that helps adult ADHD is not really about arguing with your thoughts. It is practical work on how your week is built, and it works because you are the one who can go and rebuild it.

Sessions tend to circle the same handful of things. Where the list lives, what the calendar actually does when you are not looking at it, how a large…

LongerTreatment and medicationCBTQur’an 2:286One line of research

The most convincing programme for teenagers does the obvious thing. It runs at school, twice a week, so nobody has to be driven anywhere: homework systems, organisation, some social practice and sport, in the place where the trouble actually happens.

By the teenage years the leverage parents had is thinning, and a clinic appointment is the first thing to fall off the week. Putting the help inside…

LongerTreatment and medicationMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:185One line of research

The trouble now is not that nothing works. It is that the things which work are spread unevenly, and whether a family gets any of them depends heavily on where they happen to live.

Medication travels reasonably well, since a prescriber can be found in most places. The psychological and behavioural work travels badly, because it…

LongerTreatment and medicationADHD skillsQur’an 16:69One line of research

Paying someone to help sort the house will not mend the marriage. It will remove one of the things you fight about most weeks, and that counts for more than it sounds.

Nobody should pretend this reaches anything deep. The point is arithmetic. A couple has a certain number of rows in them, and if the living room is…

LongerTreatment and medicationMedical and treatmentQur’an 94:5One line of research

An exam is a task with requirements. It is not a ruling on whether you are capable, however much it feels like one while you are sitting inside it.

Saying that once changes very little. The person this comes from took a long time to arrive at it, and that is worth knowing so you do not expect it…

LongerLiving with uncertaintyCBTQur’an 57:23One line of research

Look for something genuinely hard that sits on top of something you are already good at. Too easy and your attention wanders off. Too far beyond you and it just becomes another thing you failed at.

The narrow band in between is where you stay engaged without noticing you are trying. It is usually a bit further up than feels comfortable when you…

LongerUse your strengthsADHD skillsQur’an 12:55One line of research

For a lot of people with ADHD, making things is not a hobby but closer to an appetite. The itch to start something is always there, and when nothing is being made it does not go quietly.

Read that way, the restlessness that arrives when you have no project on is information rather than a character flaw. The same drive that gets called…

LongerUse your strengthsADHD skillsQur’an 21:80One line of research

When the right piece of work finally has you, you are entirely there. Hours go, nothing intrudes, and the difficulty that flattens you elsewhere is nowhere in the room.

That state is the same machinery as the hyperfocus that gets you into trouble, pointed at something worth doing. Worth noticing so you can go looking…

LongerUse your strengthsADHD skillsQur’an 34:10One line of research

Use the established rating scales and a proper developmental history rather than working from the impression someone makes in a first meeting. What you see in a room is a small and unrepresentative sample.

A structured set of questionnaires covering childhood, school, work and daily life turns vague instability into something countable, and it prompts…

LongerWhat ADHD actually isADHD skillsQur’an 16:43One line of research

Anger moves from person to person in a house, and so does steadiness. Working on your own reactions was never a private project.

You are one of the conditions everyone around you is responding to. When your fuse lengthens, the number of moments that turn into an incident drops…

LongerWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 59:10One line of research

Get the shouting and the slammed doors down first. The deeper questions about where all this came from will keep, and they are hard to think about while incidents are still happening weekly.

Starting at the practical end can feel shallow. It is really a sequence. Containment buys the quiet that anything slower needs, and plain measures…

LongerWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 7:154One line of research

The energy behind your anger is not waste. People who feel strongly about what is wrong are often the ones who end up changing something.

This matters because going flat is not a goal many people will accept, and they are right not to. Ask what your anger keeps insisting on, then find a…

LongerWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 42:39One line of research