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When you are helping someone settle, put the technique in their hands rather than your own. They tap themselves, they set the pressure, they stop when they want to · Inshirah

Areas › Your body › Grounding and settling

A minuteUnder stressBody basedYour body

When you are helping someone settle, put the technique in their hands rather than your own. They tap themselves, they set the pressure, they stop when they want to.

Being touched by someone else, even kindly and with permission, asks a lot of a person whose body has been handled badly before. Self-administered versions sidestep all of that and leave the control where it belongs. It protects you too, over a long working week. Show it on your own body and let them copy, rather than reaching across.

Qur’an and Sunnah

He shaped you, formed you well (Quran 40:64). The body they are working with is their own and is spoken of with dignity, which is a fair reason to leave them in charge of it.

غافر

ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلۡأَرۡضَ قَرَارࣰ ا وَٱلسَّمَآءَ بِنَآءࣰ وَصَوَّرَكُمۡ فَأَحۡسَنَ صُوَرَكُمۡ وَرَزَقَكُم مِّنَ ٱلطَّيِّبَٰتِۚ ذَٰلِكُمُ ٱللَّهُ رَبُّكُمۡۖ فَتَبَارَكَ ٱللَّهُ رَبُّ ٱلۡعَٰلَمِينَ

It is God who has given you the earth for a dwelling place and the heavens for a canopy. He shaped you, formed you well, and provided you with good things. Such is God your Lord, so glory be to Him, the Lord of the Worlds

Qur’an 40:64read it in the library

Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.

What the research says

In a randomised trial, brief mindfulness meditation after a stressor raised heart rate variability in ordinary participants but not in people high in maladaptive perfectionism. Settling practices do not land the same way for everyone. That is a good general reason to offer rather than apply, and to watch what actually happens with the person in front of you.

Azam MA, Katz J, Fashler SR, Changoor T, Azargive S, Ritvo P. (2015). Heart rate variability is enhanced in controls but not maladaptive perfectionists during brief mindfulness meditation following stress-induction: A stratified-randomized trial.. International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology doi

Strength of evidence: long taught, never tested. Widely used and long taught. No trial has established that it works.

Why it works

Keeping their own hands on the job means they never have to trust yours.

Near this one

Before you walk into a room with someone, ask what you are carrying in with you, and what you are likely to leave behind when you go.

A minuteGrounding and settling

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.

Five minutesGrounding and settling

If the even square does not touch it, stretch the shape: in for six, hold for four, out for six, hold for four.

Five minutesGrounding and settling

Where to go next

Another course here · 38 minutesNights that will not settleSix short lessons on nights that will not settle. It separates short sleep from broken sleep from late sleep from unrefreshing sleep, because they…Everything in this areaBody