Your body

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,…

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.…

To come down, move slowly and rhythmically: rock, sway, walk at half speed. To come up, move properly: jog on the spot, jump, dance fast, or carry something heavy.

Heavy work is the interesting one, because it settles as well as it lifts. Carrying the shopping in one trip, shifting furniture, pushing hard…

Instead of breathing deeply in general, pick the place that feels tight, the front of the ribs, the chest, one shoulder, and send the breath there.

You are not really moving air into your shoulder, but putting your attention there while you breathe does two things: you start to feel that area in…

Moving first does not only help you concentrate. It takes some of the heat out of being stuck, which is often the thing that ends the task.

For a lot of people the problem is not the maths, it is what happens inside them when the maths does not come immediately. That surge of frustration…

Hours of nothing, then panic, then three hours locked onto the wrong task, then dread, then a promise that tomorrow will be different. If that is your day, it is a known pattern and not a character flaw.

People post this shape as a joke and clinicians recognise it as an accurate description. Seeing it written down is often the moment something…

When you are low, the thing most likely to help is the thing you have least appetite for. Make the first step small enough that appetite is not required.

Getting as far as the front door can be the whole task on a bad day. Standing up, putting your shoes on, then deciding, is a fair plan. Anyone…

A movement practice comes apart into pieces: the shapes, the breathing, the noticing. On a day when the whole thing is beyond you, take one piece.

Just the breathing, sitting where you already are, is a practice. So is one stretch held for a minute. Doing a fragment keeps the thread going, and…

If a child is climbing the walls, green space helps most, a walk down a busy street helps a bit, and staying in the room helps least. Any of the three beats none.

The research on this puts them in that order rather than saying only a forest will do. A park, a scruffy playing field, the bit of grass behind the…

Slow movement practices seem to help mood, sleep and the general hum of stress. Bringing that background level down often does more for your concentration than trying to concentrate harder.

Running on a constant stress signal wears down exactly the part of you that plans, waits and holds a thought. So lowering the load is not a soft…