Your body

Thirst, hunger, the ache of having sat too long: these are not nagging, they are instructions. When self-care keeps failing, it is often because the instruction never arrived.

People who have been through a lot sometimes stop registering the signal at all, and then eating, sleeping and resting all go sideways. If that is…

If you are going to bring attention to your body, start with where your body is rather than what it feels. Feet on the floor, back against the chair, the weight of your hands in your lap.

Attention to the inside, the chest, the stomach, the throat, sits close to the emotional wiring and can open more than you meant to open. Position in…

Your nervous system decides whether a room is safe before you have had a single thought about it. Tone of voice, a face, the way someone walks in: it reads all of that and answers underneath your awareness.

This is why you can leave a perfectly pleasant meeting wrung out, or take against someone who has done nothing you could point to. The reading is…

The reading happens without you, but you can catch up to it. Naming what your body has already concluded, out loud or in your head, is most of the work.

Something like: my shoulders came up when he walked in. That is all it needs to be. You are not deciding yet whether it was fair, you are bringing a…

An alarm system can be wrong in two directions. It can scream in a safe room, and it can stay silent somewhere it should not.

Most talk about trauma assumes the first: too much alarm, too often. But some people come out of hard years with the volume turned right down,…

One question does a lot of work: is what my body is doing right now a fair match for what is actually in front of me? Ask it plainly, and let the answer be either yes or no.

The point is not to talk yourself out of the feeling. The signal is information and it deserves a hearing. But you can hold it up against the room…

When someone is distressed, moving too fast to settle them can land as a message that their distress is not welcome here. Let them set the speed.

Offering a breath, a blanket, a change of subject: all of it can help, and all of it can arrive as a shutting down if it comes before the person has…

Keep a short list of things that settle you, and choose from it by how you actually are, not by which one you like best. Wound up and racing needs something different from flat and switched off.

When you are speeding, the things that help slow you down: a long out breath, cold water on the face, attention to your feet and hands, pushing…

If your body is braced to run and there is nowhere to run to, try running in extreme slow motion. One knee lifting over several seconds, then the other.

The urge to bolt does not disappear when you sit on it, it just stays in the muscles as shaking, tightness or ache. Doing the movement so slowly that…

Picture something that could hold what you cannot deal with today. A box, a safe, a chest with a lid. You choose the size, what it is made of and where it is kept.

The details matter more than they sound: deciding what holds it, and knowing you can open it again, is what makes this different from pushing…

If the even square does not touch it, stretch the shape: in for six, hold for four, out for six, hold for four.

Having a second version matters more than which numbers you use. When one pattern does nothing, people usually conclude that breathing techniques do…

Some people find it helps to tap lightly on points around the face and hands while saying out loud what they are feeling and that they accept feeling it. It is easy to try and hard to be sure about.

The full method comes with a sequence of points and a set number of rounds, and free manuals for it are everywhere. What it puts together is rhythmic…

Rolling or throwing a ball back and forth with someone is more useful than it looks when one of you has gone blank. It gives the body a job and the two of you a rhythm at the same time.

It works over a video call as well: ask them to fetch a ball from another room and bounce it while you talk. Say what you are doing and why, so it…

When you have collapsed rather than escalated, more calming will only take you further down. What helps is gentle rousing: rhythm, weight, sound, movement.

A weighted blanket, rocking, drumming your hands on your thighs, singing or chanting something you know by heart, running on the spot for twenty…

Slide your right hand under your left arm so it rests at the side of your chest, and lay your left hand on your right shoulder. Then just sit, and notice whatever happens between your hands.

There is nothing to do beyond holding the position and waiting. Most people find a long breath arrives on its own after a while, sometimes a slight…

If turning attention inward makes you feel more unreal rather than less, stop turning it inward. Go outward instead: what you can see, what you are grateful for, where you are and what day it is.

The usual advice to notice what is happening in your body assumes there is an inside that feels solid enough to visit. When it feels empty or fake,…

When you are wound up and when you are flat, you need opposite things. Sweet tastes, soft light, slow rocking and steady weight bring you down; sharp smells, crunchy food, bright images and quick movement bring you up.

Before reaching for anything, work out which way you actually need to go. Racing, jaw tight, heart going: choose from the settling side. Foggy,…

Your eyes are an input too. A photo of someone who loves you and a plain soft coloured wall will settle you; a busy bright screen will lift you.

Hardly anyone thinks to arrange what is in front of them, and it is one of the easier things to change. Put a picture where you actually sit. Turn…

Sound that repeats slowly, waves, rain, steady recitation, brings you down. Fast, loud, unpredictable music, or whistling, brings you up.

Have both ready before you need them, one playlist for each direction. Whistling is worth knowing about because it does two jobs at once, lifting you…

Steady pressure suits both directions. A weighted blanket, a firm squeeze of your own hands, lotion rubbed in with real pressure, bare feet pressed into the floor.

This is the one thing on the list that works whether you are wound up or gone flat, which makes it a good default when you cannot tell which you are.…