Things that help that nobody ever recommends.

Lying on the floor - directly on the floor in whatever position your body wants. The hardness and the flatness and the feeling of the ground doing the holding. Five minutes on the floor after a hard thing can do something that the couch cannot.

Doing the smallest possible version of the task - doing an amount so small it is almost insulting. Opening the document. Moving one thing. Sending the one sentence email. The smallest possible version sometimes becomes the whole thing and sometimes does not and either way something happened that was not happening before.

Changing rooms -just to be somewhere different. The executive function that was stalled in one room sometimes starts moving again in another one for reasons that are not entirely explainable but are entirely real.

Eating something before you assess whether anything is actually wrong. A remarkable percentage of what presents as a crisis is blood sugar and the crisis resolves with food in a way that is almost embarrassing in retrospect.

Saying the thing out loud to nobody - saying it out loud in a room by yourself. The thing that has been living in your head changes shape when it is in the air and the changed shape is often more manageable than the original.

Putting cold water on your face - just cold water on your face when the nervous system is running hot. It does something physiological that is real and immediate and available in any bathroom in the world.

Doing something with your hands that requires just enough attention to occupy the surface of the brain without demanding the deeper processing that is already overloaded. Folding laundry, organizing something small, a simple repetitive physical task. The surface occupation sometimes allows the deeper processing to move in a way that direct attention to it does not.

Canceling the thing - canceling it and accepting the mild social cost of the cancellation because the alternative is going to the thing in the state you are currently in and paying a much larger cost.

Wearing the comfortable clothes for the whole day including the part where you were going to change into real clothes for the video call. The video call is from the shoulders up. Nobody knows.

Rereading the book you have already read instead of starting the new one. The new one requires processing. The old one requires nothing and gives back anyway.

Telling one person the true thing instead of the managed version - one person. The weight of the thing changes when it is shared with someone who receives it without requiring you to minimize it.

Lowering the bar until it is on the ground and then doing the thing that clears it. The bar can go back up later. Right now the bar is on the ground and you stepped over it and that counts.

Going outside for less time than you think is worth going outside for. Five minutes outside is not nothing. It is five minutes outside and your nervous system knows the difference between inside and outside even when your brain is arguing that five minutes is not worth the effort of the shoes.

Doing nothing and calling it doing nothing instead of calling it failing to do something. The nothing that is chosen and named is different from the nothing that is happening to you while you wait to start. One is rest. The other is suffering. The naming is the difference.

Asking for the thing directly instead of hoping someone notices you need it. The direct ask feels more vulnerable and produces the thing more reliably and the trade is worth it almost every time.