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Areas › Your body › Grounding and settling
Twenty or thirty seconds is enough to feel something shift, and most people find the breath falls into step with the tapping on its own. Warmth in the chest is a common report. Because your own hands are doing it, nobody is touching you and you can stop at any point, which matters a great deal if being touched is part of what went wrong.
It was He who made His tranquillity descend into the hearts of the believers (Quran 48:4). Calm is described as something that comes down and settles, which is roughly how this feels when it works.
الفتح
هُوَ ٱلَّذِيٓ أَنزَلَ ٱلسَّكِينَةَ فِي قُلُوبِ ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ لِيَزۡدَادُوٓاْ إِيمَٰنࣰ ا مَّعَ إِيمَٰنِهِمۡۗ وَلِلَّهِ جُنُودُ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضِۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ عَلِيمًا حَكِيمࣰ ا
It was He who made His tranquillity descend into the hearts of the believers, to add faith to their faith––the forces of the heavens and earth belong to God; He is all knowing and all wise––
Qur’an 48:4read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of very brief mindfulness training, from single sessions up to two weeks, found small reductions in negative feeling. Short practices are not worthless, and they are not transformative either. That is the right expectation to bring to something that takes half a minute.
Schumer MC, Lindsay EK, Creswell JD. (2018). Brief mindfulness training for negative affectivity: A systematic review and meta-analysis.. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: long taught, never tested. Widely used and long taught. No trial has established that it works.
Slow, even input from side to side gives the body a steady rhythm to settle around.
Picture something that could hold what you cannot deal with today. A box, a safe, a chest with a lid. You choose the size, what it is made of and where it is kept.
Your eyes are an input too. A photo of someone who loves you and a plain soft coloured wall will settle you; a busy bright screen will lift you.
Trace a square in the air with your finger while you breathe: in for four along the first side, hold for four, out for four, hold for four.