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

14 practices

Your nervous system Twenty minutes Clear all

How long you have · Twenty minutes

A minute 25 Five minutes 73 Twenty minutes 14 Longer 8

Who it is written for

Me 14 A practitioner 14 Someone I care about 11 My husband or wife 1

Where you are right now

Coping, mostly 8 Struggling right now 4 Getting ready for something 2

On your own, or with someone

On my own 12 Both of us together 1 Involves someone else 1

Theme · Your nervous system

Systems for daily life 38 Medication and how it works 30 Moving your body 26 Treatment and medication 19 Screens and attention 18 Getting assessed and diagnosed 17 Get started 17 What ADHD actually is 17 Feelings and focus 16 The cost of avoiding 15 Your nervous system 14 Reading, numbers and learning differences 14 Food, caffeine and fuel 11 Your sense of time 10 Exercise, food and other supports 10 What anger actually is 10 Bringing the future closer 9 The moment before you snap 8 Touch and bodywork 8 Shared spiritual life 7 Shame 6 Grounding and settling 6 Emotions as signals 6 The fear underneath anger 6 Cool the body first 6 Tolerate distress 6 Breaking the worry loop 6 Facing it a step at a time 5 Remembering to do it 5 Shame and stigma 5 Breathing 5 When everything feels flat 5 Staying regulated in conflict 5 When you use something to cope 5 Being seen and judged 4 Choosing your response 4 Growing empathy 4 Repair after rupture 4 What worry does 4 Rituals of connection 4 Righteous anger and perfectionism 4 When anger turns to harm 4 Structure and routine 3 Equanimity and perspective 3 Rebuilding trust 3 Anger, alcohol and the body 3 Use your strengths 3 Knowing your partner 3 Making it stick 3 Practising under provocation 3 Obsessions and compulsions 2 Posture and how you carry yourself 2 Feeling from the inside 2 Letting it out safely 2 Answering bids 2 What you are actually defending 1 Listen to the body 1 Living with uncertainty 1 Care for yourself in loss 1 Treatment and medication 1 Safety and grounding 1 Question the thought 1 Rest and pacing 1 Keep the bond 1

When

Any ordinary day 11 Under stress 2 When apart 1

When you cannot settle yourself, borrow somebody else's steadiness. Sitting near a calm person, even without talking, is a real thing to try.

Choose by effect rather than by closeness. Some people you love leave you more wound up than you started, and some people you barely know are easy to…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 2:248

Connection settles people, but the right amount of it varies enormously. Some settle with a house full of family and some with one person and no talking at all.

If closeness costs you something, plan around that rather than pushing through. Shorter visits, sitting side by side instead of face to face, a walk…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 2:260

A regular sitting practice is training rather than a treat. What you practise when things are calm is what your body can find when they are not.

The state people describe in mindfulness and the state of feeling safe in your own body overlap almost completely. That is a good reason to keep the…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 33:41

Yoga, slow breathing with feedback, neurofeedback and listening programmes are all aiming at the same target. Pick the one you can actually get to and keep doing.

Because they share a mechanism, they are largely swappable. Cost, travel, waiting lists and whether you enjoy it are legitimate grounds for choosing…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 2:152

If you mostly run hot and jumpy, start with slow paced breathing. If you mostly go blank and far away, work that reaches you through sound and voice tends to get further.

The idea is to pick the tool that pulls against your usual tilt. Breathing practice puts the brake back on a system that has lost it. Sound and voice…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 23:78

If you understand your history perfectly and nothing has changed, you are not failing at this. Insight alone is pushing water uphill against the current of information coming from your body.

Articulate people get stuck here often, because talking is the thing they are best at. What tends to be missing is an actual experience of being safe…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 13:28

None of this makes thinking useless. Making sense of what happened, and changing what you concluded about yourself, does work that no breathing exercise touches.

The body work settles the alarm. The thinking work deals with the verdict you passed on yourself afterwards: that you are weak, that it was your…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 3:191

Being still is not the problem. The circuit that shuts you down under threat is the same one that lets you sleep deeply, digest, rest and curl up with someone you love.

So the aim is not to stay switched on. It is to be still and safe at the same time, which is a capacity you can rebuild rather than a symptom to…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 25:47

Deep rest needs a dose like anything else. If a long daily relaxation is leaving you flatter each week rather than steadier, make it shorter.

Someone can start a forty day programme of long guided rest with the best intentions and find that by the second week they are sinking instead of…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 25:47

If you are the person who steadies every room, ask yourself when a room last steadied you.

Some people are very good at this because they were handed the job at six years old, in a house where somebody had to keep everyone level. It becomes…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 28:73

Real rest, closeness and unhurried prayer all ask for the same thing: being still while feeling safe. That is harder than it sounds if stillness has ever been dangerous.

It is why some people cope beautifully in a crisis and find a quiet evening unbearable, and why intimacy and slow worship are often the last things…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 78:10

If you cannot feel your own state yet, a device that shows it on a screen can stand in until you can.

Ear clips and phone apps that display your heart rhythm turn something invisible into a light changing colour, and for people who have spent years…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 2:260

If a practice feels like homework you are failing at, turn it into a game. Some feedback tools do this for you, bringing colour and birdsong to a grey screen as your heart rhythm settles.

Trying hard to relax is a trap. The effort keeps you keyed up, and then you have one more thing to be bad at. Play sidesteps that entirely. It is the…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 16:78

You do not need other people to reach a settled state. Breath, a slow walk somewhere green, a cat asleep on your lap: all of them get you there.

The name social engagement system makes it sound as though company is the only door, which is bleak if you are isolated, and worse if people are the…

Twenty minutesYour nervous systemBody basedQur’an 2:22

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