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Areas › Your body › Your nervous system
The wager is that whatever has hold of you will lose interest in something that seems already dead, and that when it does you will get up and go. It is not a decision and it is not weakness, though it leaves a particular kind of shame behind, the sort that says I did nothing. You did something. Your body placed the only bet it had left.
'God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear' (Quran 2:286). What your body did at its limit was within what it could bear, which is part of why you are still here.
البقرة
لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا وُسۡعَهَاۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَيۡهَا مَا ٱكۡتَسَبَتۡۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوۡ أَخۡطَأۡنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَيۡنَآ إِصۡرࣰ ا كَمَا حَمَلۡتَهُۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآۚ أَنتَ مَوۡلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرۡنَا عَلَى ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلۡكَٰفِرِينَ
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear: each gains whatever good it has done, and suffers its bad- ‘ Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes. Lord, do not burden us as You burdened those before us. Lord, do not burden us with more than we have strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Protector, so help us against the disbelievers.’
Qur’an 2:286read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta analysis of laboratory social stressors and emotion inductions found that how a person appraises a situation, and which emotion they feel, predicts their cortisol and immune response. Interpretation shapes physiology, not only the other way round. So the story you tell about your own freeze is more than a comfort, though those were short laboratory inductions rather than long histories of shame.
Denson TF, Spanovic M, Miller N. (2009). Cognitive appraisals and emotions predict cortisol and immune responses: a meta-analysis of acute laboratory social stressors and emotion inductions.. Psychological bulletin doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Calling collapse a strategy changes what you conclude about yourself, and what you conclude feeds straight back into your body.
None of this makes thinking useless. Making sense of what happened, and changing what you concluded about yourself, does work that no breathing exercise touches.
Breathe in, then push the air out gently against a closed throat, or against lightly pinched nostrils, for a couple of seconds.
Long stress does not have one look. Some people end up permanently switched on. Others end up flat, heavy and hopeless. The two need opposite things.