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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235 practices

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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

There is more about your body than the practices: the your body area has the themes and the courses too.

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

A hard walk or a run works a little like a small dose of something. Alertness up, mood up, for a while afterwards.

This is a useful way to think about it because it puts movement in the category of things that do something to you, rather than things you ought to…

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

Bolt the movement onto something you would want to do anyway. A game with a friend, a walk to somewhere with good coffee at the end, a route past the river.

People keep up a weekly game with a mate for forty years and never once call it exercise. The friendship is what they turn up for and the moving…

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

The best exercise is whichever one you go back to. Something you enjoy, outdoors if you can, with other people if that helps, and above all something you will do again on Thursday.

There is always a more efficient programme on paper. It does not matter if you stop after a fortnight. Judge any plan by whether you would still be…

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

Classes and clubs work mostly because somebody notices when you are not there. It is the being expected, more than the workout, that gets you out of the door.

A running club, a swimming group, a friend at the gate at seven. On the evening when you feel like nothing, an arrangement with another person…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 28:26One line of research

Moving your body and being with people you like are the two most reliable things for feeling well. Doing both at once is not a trick, it is just efficient.

Each of them changes how you feel through the body, and neither depends on you having a good week. A walk with a friend gets you both. If you can…

Twenty minutesMoving your bodyMedical and treatmentQur’an 22:46One line of research

Clumsy is not a description you can work with. Balance, core strength, shifting your weight, big movements, small ones, catching a ball, keeping a beat: those you can look at one at a time.

Break it down and you usually find a child is fine in four of those and struggling in two. That turns a vague sense that they are awkward into…

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