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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446 practices

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Two opposite things can both be true: I did my best, and I can do better. Hold both.

You do not have to choose one side of yourself. Wisdom often lives in holding both at once.

A minuteNotice the pattern and flexDBT skillsQur’an 42:40One line of research

When the words for feelings are not there, ask for a number instead. How much did the handwashing take over this week, one to ten, is a question someone can answer on a bad day.

A number asks far less of a person than a description, which matters when putting feelings into language is hard for them, and you still end up with…

A minuteObsessions and compulsionsCBTQur’an 2:286One line of research

Agree a short phrase to use at home. Saying I am having OCD worries tells a parent what is going on without handing them the worry to solve.

Once a parent hears the details they will nearly always try to help by answering, and answering is the thing that feeds it. A label gives them…

A minuteObsessions and compulsionsCBTQur’an 23:97One line of research

There is no brain scan, EEG trace or blood test that can tell you whether someone has ADHD. Anything sold as an objective biological test for it is promising more than the science can give.

Group differences do exist, including in the theta to beta balance, but a difference that appears when you average hundreds of people cannot identify…

A minuteExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:247One line of research

Balance difficulties do turn up more often in ADHD, by something like half again. That is a fact about company, not about cause, and it does not turn balance training into a treatment.

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

Getting assessed and diagnosed

Touch and bodywork

Grounding and settling

What ADHD actually is

Screens and attention

Moving your body

Breathing

Remembering to do it

When everything feels flat

Affection and touch

Feelings and focus

Shared spiritual life

The fear underneath anger

Equanimity and perspective

Treatment and medication

The cost of avoiding

Being seen and judged

Practising under provocation

Posture and how you carry yourself

Shame and stigma

What worry does

Self-compassion

Feeling from the inside

Emotions as signals

When you use something to cope

Your worth is not conditional

Facing it a step at a time

Rebuilding trust

What you are actually defending

Reading, numbers and learning differences

Notice the pattern and flex

Question the thought

Tolerate distress

Obsessions and compulsions

Keep the bond

Get it out of your head

Rituals of connection

Face it gently

Repair after rupture

Anger, alcohol and the body

Panic and the body

Shame

Breaking the worry loop

Plenty of things could sit behind a link like that. More falls and knocks, more risk taken, or genetics feeding both at once. Working on balance…

A minuteExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 17:12One line of research

Protocols that spin a child in a chair or tip them backwards and forwards to train balance do not improve ADHD. What they mainly produce is a dizzy child.

There is a cost beyond the wasted afternoons. Something unpleasant that was introduced as treatment teaches a child what treatment feels like, and…

A minuteExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 31:19One line of research

Try swapping the word picky for particular. A fair number of people with ADHD have more densely packed taste buds, so the bitterness in a sprout arrives at full volume.

That changes what is going on at the table. A child is not refusing in order to be difficult, they are tasting something stronger than you are.…

A minuteExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 80:24One line of research

The amount in a capsule can vary from bottle to bottle, and sometimes between capsules in the same bottle. Undeclared fillers have been found in them too.

This matters most when you are trying to work out whether something helps you. A good month followed by a flat one may be two different products…

A minuteExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 17:12One line of research

Kava can damage the liver at a high enough dose, badly enough that some countries have banned it. Herbal is not a synonym for gentle.

The unnerving part is how quiet liver damage is. Someone self medicating anxiety with kava can be accumulating harm and feel nothing at all until it…

A minuteExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 20:81One line of research

Vitamin C cannot really be stockpiled, since the excess leaves in your urine. A, D, E and K are stored in fat, so a large daily dose keeps adding to itself.

Vitamin D is where this bites at the moment, after a lot of people started taking big amounts on their own during the pandemic years. If you are…

A minuteExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 7:31One line of research

Omega supplements thin the blood, so they usually do not belong alongside warfarin. Bruising easily is often the first thing anyone notices.

One clinician worked out that her husband's bruising came from taking omegas on top of his Coumadin, and it settled once his doctor told him to stop.…

A minuteExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 73:20One line of research

If fish oil gives you those horrible repeats all afternoon, that is a fixable problem rather than a reason to stop. Keep the capsules in the freezer, ask about an enteric coated version, or try a flavoured liquid.

Sticking with something usually fails for small unglamorous reasons like this. Someone with a sensitive palate will not last four weeks with an…

A minuteExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 16:69One line of research

Drug names ending in pam or lam are almost always benzodiazepines. It is a quick way to pick the class out of somebody's medication list.

The ending tracks a shared chemical backbone, so the shortcut is not a coincidence. Keep a rough rule alongside it: this class suits sharp fear…

A minutePanic and the bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 27:10One line of research

What frightens a body is usually not how hard a thing is, it is having no way out. So put movement as an offer. If it feels alright, you might try lifting your arms.

The wording is doing quiet work here. Lift your arms, and see what happens if you lift your arms, are the same physical event, but only one of them…

A minutePosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 2:239One line of research

Whatever a person walks in carrying belongs in the practice. The ache in the hip, the irritation, tears that arrive for no reason, the part that thinks all of this is nonsense.

Complex trauma teaches people to leave pieces of themselves at the door, and a yoga mat is an easy place to carry on doing exactly that, particularly…

A minutePosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 82:7One line of research

When you start paying attention to your body, things wake up. More feeling, a deeper breath, memories arriving sideways. That is the practice working, not the practice going wrong.

Say this at the start, not afterwards. People who were not told tend to decide the movement made them worse and stop, when what actually happened is…

A minutePosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 17:109One line of research

You are not here for a longer hamstring. You are here for a nervous system that can change gear, work when work is needed and settle when it is not.

An ordinary class measures you against the shape, and that measuring is the same self driving that wore you out in the first place. The therapeutic…

A minutePosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 31:19One line of research

Before you practise something exposing with someone, say out loud what is not at risk. I will not think less of you, and nothing between us changes here.

It sounds obvious and it does a great deal of work. If the relationship really is on the line, then the discomfort is not symbolic and no amount of…

A minutePractising under provocationCBTQur’an 8:46One line of research

Call the practice whatever fits you. Stress inoculation, rolling with the punches, a Teflon mind, the art of not giving a damn: the name changes nothing about what you do, and a name you can stand makes you likelier to do it.

People come to this with different histories and some of them have been lectured before. If the language sounds like a self help poster to you, use…

A minutePractising under provocationCBTQur’an 29:69One line of research

Be careful with the language about growing a thicker skin. Before anyone is asked to mind less, someone has to check that what they are minding really is only a slight.

Where the insults are discrimination, bullying or the run up to abuse, telling a person to toughen up is telling them to distrust an accurate reading…

A minutePractising under provocationCBTQur’an 12:18One line of research