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Areas › Your body › Moving your body
Any one of those on its own helps a little. Together they cover the arousal, the shapelessness of time, the need for a reward that arrives today rather than in June, and the slow build of thinking better of yourself. You could assemble the same four elsewhere, in a choir, a boxing gym, a scout troop. The bundle is the point, not the uniform.
Make coats of chain mail and measure the links well (Quran 34:11). Skilled physical work is given with care and instruction built into it, not left to enthusiasm alone.
سبأ
أَنِ ٱعۡمَلۡ سَٰبِغَٰتࣲ وَقَدِّرۡ فِي ٱلسَّرۡدِۖ وَٱعۡمَلُواْ صَٰلِحًاۖ إِنِّي بِمَا تَعۡمَلُونَ بَصِيرࣱ
saying, ‘Make coats of chain mail and measure the links well.’ ‘Do good, all of you, for I see everything you do.’
Qur’an 34:11read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A multicentre randomised trial found a structured bouldering psychotherapy programme reduced depression more than physical exercise on its own, which is evidence that adding structure and guidance to movement changes what you get out of it. It tested one specific programme, so it supports the idea of the bundle rather than proving which element carried it.
Karg N, Dorscht L, Kornhuber J, Luttenberger K. (2020). Bouldering psychotherapy is more effective in the treatment of depression than physical exercise alone: results of a multicentre randomised controlled intervention study.. BMC psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Several small supports stacked together carry more than any of them would separately.
Bolt the movement onto something you would want to do anyway. A game with a friend, a walk to somewhere with good coffee at the end, a route past the river.
When you reach a goal, stop and let yourself register it before moving on to the next one. Otherwise you collect achievements and never feel any of them.
Notice one thing your body is telling you right now. Thirsty, needing the loo, shoulders up somewhere near your ears. That noticing is a skill and it does come back with use.