The Anchor Practice

There is something paradoxical about the role of routine in difficult times. When life is in upheaval, the temptation is to let everything go — to match the chaos outside with a kind of suspended internal state. But this is precisely the moment when small, consistent practices matter most. Not grand gestures of self-improvement, but modest, repeatable anchors that tell your nervous system: we are still here, we are still doing this, we are still moving through the day.

The Anchor Practice is a guide to building these anchors. Drawing on research in habit formation, circadian rhythm, and the psychology of control and predictability, it shows you how to design a small set of daily practices that create genuine stability without requiring motivation you don't have. The emphasis is on simplicity, realism, and sustainability. These are not aspirational wellness routines. They are practices designed for people who are barely keeping it together.

The book covers the science of why routine has such a powerful stabilising effect on the nervous system, how to identify the anchors most likely to work for your particular circumstances, and how to maintain them through the inevitable days when everything falls apart. It also addresses sleep — the most fundamentally important anchor of all — with specific protocols for the disrupted sleep that almost always accompanies major life change.

The experience of showing up for yourself consistently, even in a small way, every day — that is the foundation on which all the other work of recovery is built.