Your body

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…

Speech has a beat inside it. When a child cannot hold a steady rhythm, that often sits alongside difficulty with reading and with the flow of talking, so time spent clapping or tapping a beat together is doing something real.

You need nothing for this. Clap a slow pattern, ask them to clap it back, then keep it running while you both count or walk in time to it.…

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…

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…

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…

Once a shape feels safe, it becomes somewhere to explore from. The question stops being am I doing this right and turns into how does my body want to move now.

Stay in an easy position long enough for it to go slightly dull. Dull is the sign that the ground under you is steady. From there, small experiments:…

Picture a cat getting up from a nap. One side lengthens and reaches while the other side curls in, then they swap over. Do that. Add breath and sound if you want them.

After a minute of copying the animal, drop the instructions and let your body carry on however it likes. That is the reason for starting here:…

Take a shape that asks something of you, warrior or mountain, eyes open, the middle of your body switched on. Then, without coming out of it, drop your attention inside and let the pose hold you instead.

Two things get practised in one position. First the doing: strong legs, clear gaze, a body that is ready. Then the yielding: still there, still…

Half watching a programme while half answering emails is the worst of both. The work takes twice as long and the evening gives you nothing back.

Pick one and let it be the whole thing. If it is work, work, and you will usually finish earlier than you expected. If it is rest, shut the laptop,…

If light touch makes you squirm but firm deep pressure feels wonderful, that is worth knowing about yourself. It is the same preference behind weighted blankets and a very tight hug.

Once you know it, you can arrange for it: a heavier duvet, a firm rather than gentle massage, sitting with your back against something solid,…

If several medications have failed, ask whether anyone else in the family had the same experience. A pattern of non response runs in some families.

It is a question that rarely gets asked and can save a year. If a parent or sibling went through the same list without success and then responded to…

The study most often quoted for magnetic stimulation in attention difficulties had eight people in it, and half of those on the dummy treatment improved too.

That dummy half is the interesting number. It tells you how much improvement can come from attention, hope and being taken seriously, before any…

Lead with what has evidence behind it. Save the thinly supported options for when the person brings them up themselves.

Mentioning something is a form of recommending it, whatever hedges you attach, and families will spend money and hope accordingly. If they raise it,…

If something is safe, affordable and it helps you, the fact that the effect may be mostly expectation is not a reason to stop.

The test worth applying is practical: is it safe, can I afford it, is it taking the place of something that works better, and would that money and…

You are not trying to get calm here. You are trying to find out what is actually going on in you, and whatever turns up is the useful part.

If a practice becomes something you can pass or fail, it will quietly join the list of things you are bad at. So drop the target. Ask what you notice…

Find the soft place just under and behind your jaw, near your ears, and rest your fingers there. Then open and close your mouth slowly, slide the jaw forwards and back, and draw your chin gently towards your throat.

Jaws get held all day, often by the same hunched screen posture that pushes the head forward. Go slowly enough that nothing clicks or hurts. You may…

If you carry everything in your neck, that is not a separate problem from feeling on edge. The nerve that settles you passes right between the muscles that are gripping.

The ones you can feel most easily run from behind each ear down towards the collarbone, with more just behind them along the side. Rest a warm hand…

Do not put a clock on any of this. Stay with each position until your body asks for a deeper breath or produces a yawn, then move on.

Timing by the clock turns the practice into another task to be completed. Waiting for a signal teaches you what your own signs of release actually…

After the throat, go straight to the chest. Most people feel the two loosen together, and noticing that link teaches you something about your own wiring.

Sigh the throat open, then put both hands on your breastbone and let the breath drop lower. If you have ever had a lump in your throat and a…

Rest both hands on your chest, feel it lift and fall, and let the breath go low enough that your belly moves too. If someone you love turns up in your mind while you do it, let them stay.

Gratitude works here as well, as long as it is specific and true: one thing from today rather than a list you are supposed to produce. Pets count,…