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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Put a word to it while it is happening. Saying quietly that this is anger and it is climbing gives you something to hold that the bare feeling does not.

Naming is not explaining and it is not excusing. It is a plain description: heat, chest, wanting to say something cutting. Often the intensity drops…

A minuteWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 91:8One line of research

When anger comes it takes the whole body with it: heart, hands, voice, attention. The system would rather do too much than too little.

That preference made sense where missing a real threat was fatal and an unnecessary fight was survivable. It is why the response feels so total and…

A minuteWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 7:150One line of research

Under threat your thinking narrows to two boxes: with me or against me, safe or dangerous. It is fast and crude, and you can catch it happening.

The giveaway words are always, never, everyone, typical, exactly like last time. Hearing yourself use them is a sign of the narrowing rather than a…

A minuteWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 5:8One line of research

Most anger episodes are over within minutes, which is no comfort at all. Nearly everything irreversible happens in the first few seconds.

The punch, the sentence you cannot take back, the resignation, the message sent. The threat reading is finished in about half a second while the part…

A minuteWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 68:48One 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

Listen for the shoulds. When anger is writing the sentence the words go absolute: always, never, obviously, and a great deal of no.

Alongside that, the greys vanish and everything feels unusually clear. That clarity is convincing and it is the least trustworthy part of the whole…

A minuteWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 5:8One line of research

Nobody should tell you your anger is always useless. In a prison, a war, or a house where someone is dangerous, it is doing a job.

Advice that ignores where you actually live is easy to dismiss, and rightly so. The aim is not to strip the response out but to get it calibrated:…

Five minutesWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 42:41One line of research

Anger that shows up when you are running late, when plans change, or when somebody will not do it your way is usually anxiety in a louder coat.

The pattern is easy to see once you look for it. Things are fine while everything goes to plan, and the temper arrives the moment the plan does not…

Five minutesWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 70:19One line of research

Anger built on suspicion sits along a long line. At one end is sensible wariness that has kept people safe, and at the far end is a threat that is not there at all.

The useful question is where on that line a particular worry sits, asked honestly rather than settled in advance. Ordinary caution can simply be…

Five minutesWhat anger actually isCoreQur’an 5:8One line of research

Your alarm learned from something real, then started answering to things that merely resemble it. A rustle in the grass gets the same jolt as the animal that first taught you to run.

It helps to say to yourself, that was the sound, not the thing. The response is not stupid. It was built from a real event and it spread to whatever…

A minuteWhat worry doesCBTQur’an 17:11One line of research

When the alarm takes over, the reasoning part of you goes quiet for a while. That is not you losing your mind. It comes back on its own.

People often frighten themselves twice: once with whatever set them off, and again with the sense that they have lost control of their own head.…

A minuteWhat worry doesCBTQur’an 4:28One line of research

You do not have to win the argument in your head before your body is allowed to settle. The two run on separate tracks and you can work on either.

Plenty of people stay locked in the thinking, sure that once the question is finally answered the shaking will stop. It rarely happens in that order.…

Five minutesWhat worry doesCBTQur’an 2:156One line of research

There is a difference between being disappointed with how things are and having given up on how things will be. The second needs a different level of care.

Disappointment still has a future attached to it: this is bad, and later might not be. Hopelessness has closed that off. If you hear someone move…

Five minutesWhat worry doesCBTQur’an 39:53One line of research

For some people the racing heart arrives before any thought at all, and the frightening explanation follows the sensation. If that is you, there is no thought to catch, so start with the body.

Build the physical steadying first, at a quiet time when nothing is happening, so that something is ready to reach for when it does. Slow breathing…

Five minutesWhat worry doesCBTQur’an 12:86One line of research

Once the surge is up it takes something like a quarter of an hour to drop, and nothing sensible said inside that window will land. Give it the time first.

This is the point where a parent, a partner or a friend reaches for reasons, and the reasons make it worse. Keep your words few, stay nearby, offer…

Twenty minutesWhat worry doesCBTQur’an 13:28One line of research

Not understanding what is happening frightens a person before it angers them. If you flare up when a situation is unclear, you are meeting something very old in yourself rather than a fault you invented.

Watch the order of it next time. First the blank, the not knowing what this means or where it is going, then a tightening in the chest or jaw, then…

A minuteWhat you are actually defendingMindfulnessQur’an 17:36One 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 loopCBTQur’an 50:16One 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

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