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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294 practices

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Hours of nothing, then panic, then three hours locked onto the wrong task, then dread, then a promise that tomorrow will be different. If that is your day, it is a known pattern and not a character flaw.

People post this shape as a joke and clinicians recognise it as an accurate description. Seeing it written down is often the moment something…

Five minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 19:23One line of research

When you are low, the thing most likely to help is the thing you have least appetite for. Make the first step small enough that appetite is not required.

Getting as far as the front door can be the whole task on a bad day. Standing up, putting your shoes on, then deciding, is a fair plan. Anyone…

Five minutesMoving your bodyBody basedQur’an 19:25One line of research

A movement practice comes apart into pieces: the shapes, the breathing, the noticing. On a day when the whole thing is beyond you, take one piece.

Just the breathing, sitting where you already are, is a practice. So is one stretch held for a minute. Doing a fragment keeps the thread going, and…

Five minutesMoving your bodyBody basedQur’an 2:239One line of research

If a child is climbing the walls, green space helps most, a walk down a busy street helps a bit, and staying in the room helps least. Any of the three beats none.

The research on this puts them in that order rather than saying only a forest will do. A park, a scruffy playing field, the bit of grass behind the…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 29:20One line of research

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

Shame and stigma

Tolerate distress

Letting it out safely

The fear underneath anger

When everything feels flat

Food, caffeine and fuel

Posture and how you carry yourself

Get started

When anger turns to harm

Growing empathy

Emotions as signals

Being seen and judged

Question the thought

Exercise, food and other supports

Obsessions and compulsions

Getting assessed and diagnosed

Structure and routine

Your sense of time

Reading, numbers and learning differences

Practising under provocation

Self-compassion

Making it stick

Anger, alcohol and the body

What ADHD actually is

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Rest and pacing

Remembering to do it

Panic and the body

Facing it a step at a time

When you use something to cope

What you are actually defending

Slow movement practices seem to help mood, sleep and the general hum of stress. Bringing that background level down often does more for your concentration than trying to concentrate harder.

Running on a constant stress signal wears down exactly the part of you that plans, waits and holds a thought. So lowering the load is not a soft…

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

Some of what you are carrying has not finished happening. Movement that soothes rather than pushes tends to suit that better than anything strenuous.

Advice built around a danger that has passed does not fit a person still meeting it weekly, whether that is racism, an unsafe household or work that…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyBody basedQur’an 2:153One line of research

If talking about it has not shifted things, a body based practice is worth trying next. It is not a consolation prize.

Some of what trauma leaves behind sits underneath words: the flinch, the going blank, the pull towards hurting yourself. Practices that work through…

LongerMoving your bodyBody basedQur’an 2:60One line of research

Try not to talk the worry through in detail, even with someone kind. Going over the specifics feels like sorting it out, and it is closer to watering it.

Mental review and asking for reassurance are the same move in different clothes. Both give a short drop in distress and a stronger pull next time.…

A minuteObsessions and compulsionsCBTQur’an 13:28One line of research

Fears of doing something terrible, of hurting an animal or a person, are not treated by moving closer to the act. Nobody should be walking you up a ladder towards the thing you are terrified of doing.

These thoughts sit at the far end from wanting. They horrify you, which is exactly why they stick to you. The work goes on what you have decided the…

Five minutesObsessions and compulsionsCBTQur’an 33:5One line of research

If you are stuck on whether having a thought makes you a bad person, that question is a symptom and not a case waiting to be settled. Name it as scrupulosity and let it stand unanswered.

Debating your moral standing is where this gets its fuel, and every reassurance you win, from a friend, an imam, a search at midnight, buys less time…

Five minutesObsessions and compulsionsCBTQur’an 39:53One line of research

Keep something to eat and drink within reach for hard conversations. Handing someone a biscuit and a glass of water often settles a room faster than any instruction does.

Part of why it works is that nobody has to be told how. A person too wound up to follow a breathing exercise can still take a sip and chew. Sharing…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:57One line of research

Being told you are too sensitive is usually someone else's comfort talking. Feeling things strongly is not the problem to solve; what to do once the feeling has arrived is.

Both halves have to be said together. Validation on its own leaves a person flooded with permission and no handles. Teaching control on its own joins…

Five minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 13:28One line of research

Peripheral biofeedback, the sort that tracks skin conductance and heart rate rather than brainwaves, has more behind it than neurofeedback does. You practise letting the body drop into a calmer state while a monitor shows you it happening.

Once that state is familiar, pair it with a distinctive scent used only for this. After enough repetitions the smell starts pulling the state along…

Twenty minutesExercise, food and other supportsMedical and treatmentQur’an 13:28One line of research

The speed is why these work and also what they cost. Relief that lands within the half hour is the most teachable kind there is, and what it teaches is to reach for it sooner next time.

How fast a drug comes on drives that learning more than how long it hangs around afterwards. Better to name it out loud with someone than leave them…

A minutePanic and the bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 13:28One line of research

When attention has nowhere to settle, give it something. A fixed point on the floor, the breath, the shape your hands are making, or the plain feel of the position you are in.

Which one you choose matters more than people expect. Focusing on the breath turns attention inward, and inward is the wrong direction for anyone…

A minutePosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 22:26One line of research

Find the place that is always tight, your jaw, your shoulders, the top of your back. Take it over deliberately. Squeeze it harder than it holds itself, then let it go.

Do that a few times and something changes. The holding stops being weather that happens to you and becomes something you are doing, which means it is…

Five minutesPosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 22:77One line of research

Keeping your eyes open holds you in the room while you feel what is going on inside. One channel on where you actually are, one on yourself.

Closed eyes are the default in most classes and they are not always kind. When a lot is stirring, letting the eyes stay soft but open, so the light…

Five minutesPosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 15:98One line of research

Grounding and relaxing are two different prescriptions. A squat with your back against a wall puts you back into your legs. Deep guided rest takes you downwards. Reach for whichever one is missing.

When someone has gone numb or absent, often from the waist down, weight bearing work in the legs gives the body something loud and unmistakable to…

Five minutesPosture and how you carry yourselfBody basedQur’an 17:37One line of research

Your body treats an insult with the same urgency as a threat to your safety, and the two are not the same at all. Saying that to yourself plainly, while it is happening, takes some of the false emergency out of it.

Have a short line ready and use it while the heat is still rising. Nothing here is actually being taken from me. It will not make the sting vanish…

A minutePractising under provocationCBTQur’an 3:186One line of research

Ask how settled you are and you will usually say fine. Look at your breathing instead, since it is generally more honest than the answer you give.

Quick, shallow breathing high in the chest usually means the moment is not over yet, whatever you have just told someone. In a session a therapist…

A minutePractising under provocationCBTQur’an 2:153One line of research