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.

What matches

265 practices

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Rest is not the prize waiting at the end of the work. It is part of what makes the work possible, and it does not have to be earned first.

Self control runs down over a day the way a battery does, and the thing that fills it back up is properly stopping. What that looks like is yours to…

Twenty minutesRest and pacingADHD skillsQur’an 10:67One line of research

If you carry a firm picture of how the world is supposed to work, the world will break it several times a day. No coping skill outpaces a supply of grievance that never runs out.

This is not a case for caring less about fairness. It is about telling apart an injustice you could act on from the general refusal of life to be…

Twenty minutesRighteous anger and perfectionismCoreQur’an 3:104One line of research

Someone who holds themselves to an exact standard will often hear a gentle correction as an attack. With them the useful thing is timing: build some trust before you offer the other way of seeing it.

The reframe you have ready is probably right and probably too early. Consistency matters enormously to this person, so an alternative view is not…

Twenty minutesRighteous anger and perfectionismCoreQur’an 16:125One line of research

Anger runs on the word should, and should is a word about debt. Write out what you believe this person owes you, then mark which of those they ever actually agreed to.

Most lists come out in two parts. There are the real agreements, said out loud and accepted, and there are the ones you assumed any decent person…

Twenty minutesRighteous anger and perfectionismCoreQur’an 4:58

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

When anger turns to harm

The fear underneath anger

When everything feels flat

Growing empathy

Rituals of connection

Righteous anger and perfectionism

Repair after rupture

Grounding and settling

Your sense of time

Knowing your partner

Making it stick

Structure and routine

Reading, numbers and learning differences

Anger, alcohol and the body

Feeling from the inside

Equanimity and perspective

When you use something to cope

Cool the body first

Answering bids

Obsessions and compulsions

Posture and how you carry yourself

Practising under provocation

Tolerate distress

Treatment and medication

Remembering to do it

Choosing your response

Care for yourself in loss

Keep the bond

Listen to the body

Rest and pacing

Facing it a step at a time

Safety and grounding

One line of research

Anger sticks around because it works, at least in the short run. Before trying to put it down, be honest about what it has been buying you.

Usually it is some form of leverage: people move faster, back down, stop asking. Sometimes it is plainer than that, a way to feel like something…

Twenty minutesRighteous anger and perfectionismCoreQur’an 9:105One line of research

Once this week, sit together unhurried and share one feeling and one reassurance.

Not logistics. How are we really, and what do you need from me. A regular heart to heart.

Twenty minutesRituals of connectionEmotionally focusedQur’an 30:21One line of research

Mark one milestone together this month, however small, rather than letting it pass.

The anniversary, the finished project, the hard season survived. Pause and honour it.

Twenty minutesRituals of connectionGottmanQur’an 14:7One line of research

Share one meal today with nothing else happening, no screen, no rush.

Undivided attention over something ordinary is a small daily ritual of belonging.

Twenty minutesRituals of connectionCoreQur’an 4:19One line of research

Keep a weekly date, just the two of you, to keep learning each other with open questions.

A regular two hours together, asking about dreams and hopes, keeps your map of each other current.

Twenty minutesRituals of connectionGottmanQur’an 25:74One line of research

Build one place or time in your day that reliably feels safe, and return to it when you need steadying.

Healing needs a floor to stand on. A predictable pocket of safety is that floor; protect it.

Twenty minutesSafety and groundingTrauma informedQur’an 6:82Long taught, never tested

There is a rough benchmark for homework: about ten minutes a night per school year, so a child in their first year does ten minutes and a final year student tops out near two hours.

It helps to have the number before a school meeting, because "this is too much" sounds like an opinion while a benchmark sounds like a standard. Some…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionMedical and treatmentQur’an 2:286One line of research

A rule that holds in your house and nowhere else is not really a rule. Children locate the unrestricted house within about a week.

So the awkward job is the useful one: a short message to the parents of the two or three friends your child spends most weekends with, agreeing…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionMedical and treatmentQur’an 4:140One line of research

Sitting with one long unrewarding task has got harder for almost everyone. If you are planning work for yourself, or setting it for someone else, build the variety in rather than hoping for stamina.

In practice that means breaking a long stretch into shorter ones with something marking the end of each, changing what the work looks like part way…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 24:37One line of research

Things posted in ten seconds have got young people excluded from school, and worse. It is worth asking about online conduct in the same routine way you would ask about anything else that could go badly.

Ask what has been posted, what has been sent, what someone would not want read out. Not as an inspection and not as a lecture about permanence, but…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionCoreQur’an 23:3One line of research

A whole evening can go into recording an evening. It is worth asking, with no scolding in it, whether you were there for the thing you now have a photograph of.

This lands better than a rule about hours, because it is about something you would miss rather than something you are doing wrong. Try leaving the…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionCoreQur’an 28:77One line of research

An alarm that marks the end of a session rather than the start. A written list of what these apps give you and what they cost. The phone's own usage figures. An agreement that an hour of scrolling gets matched with an hour of something else. Pick whichever you would actually do.

The choosing is part of why any of it works. A limit handed down gets tested and beaten, while one somebody picked themselves tends to survive a bad…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 17:110One line of research

Most parents setting rules about an app have never scrolled it for ten minutes. The rules are usually reasonable and the picture underneath them is missing.

This is not really about being permissive. If you do not know that the feed is chosen for you, that one worried search brings a fortnight of similar…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 17:36One line of research

Ask your child to show you their feed and explain it to you. You are asking to be taught rather than to inspect, and from the other side those feel nothing like each other.

Something shifts when the young person is the one who knows more. They slow down, they explain who these people are, they tell you which bits are…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 24:31One line of research

If you want a way back in with a teenager who has gone quiet, ask them to show you the game. Not to assess it. Just to be shown something they are good at.

It works because it asks almost nothing of them. No eye contact, no explaining how they feel, no returning to whatever the last argument was about.…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionCBTQur’an 31:19One line of research

For a week, jot down what was going on just before you picked up the phone, what you were thinking while you scrolled, and how you felt when you put it down. Nothing cleverer than that.

What usually surfaces is not that screens are bad but that two or three specific things are: one account, one time of day, one mood you always reach…

Twenty minutesScreens and attentionADHD skillsQur’an 20:131One line of research