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.

Narrowed down

55 practices

Cool the body first On my own Clear all

How long you have

A minute 29 Five minutes 18 Twenty minutes 6 Longer 2

Who it is written for

Me 55 A practitioner 55 Someone I care about 41

Where you are right now

Struggling right now 26 Coping, mostly 18 Getting ready for something 11

On your own, or with someone · On my own

On my own 55 Involves someone else 7 Both of us together 3

Theme · Cool the body first

Your nervous system 108Medication and how it works 83 What anger actually is 83 The moment before you snap 76 Choosing your response 73 Get started 65 Systems for daily life 62 Grounding and settling 60 Equanimity and perspective 57 The fear underneath anger 57 Cool the body first 55 Touch and bodywork 52 Your sense of time 52 Food, caffeine and fuel 49 What ADHD actually is 49 Moving your body 48 Bringing the future closer 46 Exercise, food and other supports 44 When everything feels flat 44 Treatment and medication 43 Getting assessed and diagnosed 42 Feelings and focus 38 Staying regulated in conflict 36 Practising under provocation 36 Screens and attention 31 Shame and stigma 30 Making it stick 29 Breathing 28 Structure and routine 25 What worry does 24 Treatment and medication 24 Feeling from the inside 23 Tolerate distress 23 Being seen and judged 22 What you are actually defending 21 Remembering to do it 20 Growing empathy 20 When you use something to cope 19 Reading, numbers and learning differences 14 Obsessions and compulsions 13 Righteous anger and perfectionism 13 Fondness and admiration 13 Breaking the worry loop 13 Answering bids 13 Emotions as signals 12 Self-compassion 12 Question the thought 11 Facing it a step at a time 11 Knowing your partner 10 Shame 10 Use your strengths 9 Posture and how you carry yourself 8 Anger, alcohol and the body 8 Repair after rupture 8 Gratitude 7 When anger turns to harm 7 Shared spiritual life 7 When you go numb 4 Letting it out safely 4 Meaning after harm 4 Living with uncertainty 4 Calm the body 3 Name what you feel 3 Rebuilding trust 3 Rest and pacing 3 Safety and grounding 3 Act on your values 3 Let the wave come 3 Working with anger 3 Your worth is not conditional 3 Notice the pattern and flex 3 Get it out of your head 2 Hold a boundary 2 Work with your brain 2 Face it gently 2 Your window of tolerance 2 Keep the bond 2 Panic and the body 2 Find meaning 2 Listen to the body 2 Care for yourself in loss 2 Affection and touch 2 Rituals of connection 2 The cost of avoiding 2 Ride the urge 2 Patience and trust 2 Validate yourself and others 1 Listening and understanding 1

Approach

Body based 46 Core 5 Mindfulness 4

When

Under stress 30 Any ordinary day 19 After a row 6

Rather than noting each impulse in your head, touch a finger for each one. Thumb to index, thumb to middle, and on round the hand.

Watching impulses go past is harder to sustain than it sounds once you are stirred up, and a purely mental tally tends to slip away without you…

Five minutesCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 20:130

If one sigh helps, take another. Nothing says you have to wait for the hard part to be over first.

Waiting makes the sigh a report on something already finished. Repeating it while you are still in the middle turns it into an intervention instead.…

Five minutesCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 17:79

Slowing the breath seems to widen the gap in which you can still see your options. It does not make the anger go away, it gives you a moment inside it.

That is the honest size of the claim. You will not think your way out of a flare by breathing, but you may notice that there is more than one thing…

Five minutesCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 31:19

When one thing fills your view, everything around it stops registering. You can be staring hard and taking in almost nothing.

This is why an angry judgement can feel so sharp and turn out to be so poor. The person in front of you has become the whole picture, and the details…

Five minutesCool the body firstMindfulnessQur’an 10:67

Instead of shutting your eyes, let your gaze go soft and wide: the sky, the far wall, the space above someone's shoulder. Keep them open and let the focus loosen.

Closing your eyes in front of someone reads as walking out of the conversation, and it often makes things worse. A soft open gaze breaks the lock…

Five minutesCool the body firstMindfulnessQur’an 48:4

Find something with nothing in it to look at: sky, a blank wall, a ceiling, a stretch of grass. Do not concentrate on it. Let your attention spread out over it.

Hostile thinking needs something to grip, and it will use whatever the eyes hand it. An expanse with no features gives it nothing, so the replay…

Five minutesCool the body firstMindfulnessQur’an 40:61

If techniques and explanations are not for you, carry a bottle of water and drink it down whenever you feel yourself going up. That is the whole method.

Some people want something to do, not something to understand, and that is a perfectly reasonable way to be. A bottle in your bag or your van is a…

Five minutesCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 8:11

Anger numbs. If it is doing the work of a painkiller for you, it will be hard to put down while the pain underneath is still untreated.

Ask what tends to be there in the half hour before you flare: a bit of shame, feeling small, an old fear about being left. The anger often arrives to…

Twenty minutesCool the body firstCoreQur’an 94:1

If the irritability came in alongside a low patch, or a spell of racing thoughts and hardly any sleep, have the mood looked at rather than treating the temper on its own.

Irritability is part of depression, and it belongs to the mixed and elevated states of bipolar disorder too. Anger skills are still worth having, and…

Twenty minutesCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 78:9

Squeeze the hand, hold it for a few seconds, then let it go slowly. The letting go is where the calm is, and it works better once you have practised the long version.

Full muscle relaxation, working through the body group by group, takes about twenty minutes and is worth doing a handful of times. Once your body…

Twenty minutesCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 20:14

Shouting it out does not empty the tank. Going over it loudly, in your head or at somebody, tends to keep the anger topped up rather than draining it.

There is a difference between letting pressure out of the body and rehearsing the grievance. A walk, a swim, hard cleaning, prayer: all of that…

Twenty minutesCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 89:27

Anger leaves fuel in the body with nowhere to go. Spend it on something physical, without replaying the argument while you do.

This is not getting it off your chest. The target is the surplus energy, so stairs, a brisk walk, or a hard ten minutes of almost anything will do…

Twenty minutesCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 28:73

Movement can settle you or wind you further up, and the difference is mostly what your mind is doing while you move.

Pacing the kitchen while you build the case against someone keeps the whole system revved. The same twenty minutes spent counting breaths or noticing…

Twenty minutesCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 13:28

Automatic is not the enemy. An out of date automatic is. The aim is to practise the calmer response until it runs on its own, the way the old one already does.

At the start it feels artificial, and it should. You are choosing deliberately what the other response does for free. Give it enough repetitions and…

LongerCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 33:42

People who train regularly seem to be set off less easily, not because they care less but because a fitter body reads fewer situations as emergencies.

This one works on the scale of weeks, so it belongs in the ordinary part of your life rather than in the middle of a flare. Two or three sessions a…

LongerCool the body firstBody basedQur’an 33:42

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