Practices

If your attention has no filter, everything in the room arrives at once, and you are tired before the day's actual work begins. That is not laziness, it is a bill coming due.

Two things drain you at the same time: the unfiltered noise itself, and the effort of holding yourself together in spite of it. That is why the…

If you have spent thirty years being told you are careless, lazy or too much, no attention technique will touch that. Kindness practice, aimed at yourself, is the part that does.

It usually feels absurd at first, and slightly embarrassing, which is worth expecting rather than reading as a sign that it is not for you. Start…

Let the breath go along with the movement rather than counting it out. If you are guiding someone, do not set the pace of their breathing for them.

Being told exactly when to breathe in and out is unpleasant for more people than you would expect, and for anyone whose breath was held tight through…

Walk somewhere at a deliberately slower pace than normal. Stop now and then to look at something properly, and let your breathing settle into the pace.

Choosing to go slower is itself the exercise, because it is a small piece of holding back that you can actually feel. Ten minutes is plenty. Outdoors…

Attention problems often travel with anxiety or low mood, and those two eat working memory as well. Settling that layer can make everything else look quite different.

If you are anxious most of the day you will lose track of things, forget what you came into the room for and struggle to hold a plan, whether or not…