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Areas › Your body › Your nervous system
The settled state is not the absence of things. It has a texture: clear, connected, reasonably hopeful, able to understand somebody and to feel understood. The best single test is that choice returns. When you are far from it, a thought arrives and you are already three steps into it. When you are back, there is a small gap where you decide. Notice the gap when it is there, so you know what you are aiming at.
For those close to God 'there is no fear, nor shall they grieve' (Quran 10:62). The settled state is described rather than demanded, which is a kinder way to hold it as a target.
يونس
أَلَآ إِنَّ أَوۡلِيَآءَ ٱللَّهِ لَا خَوۡفٌ عَلَيۡهِمۡ وَلَا هُمۡ يَحۡزَنُونَ
But for those who are on God’s side there is no fear, nor shall they grieve
Qur’an 10:62read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A systematic review of heart rate variability biofeedback describes it as teaching deliberate self regulation of a vagal response that has become dysregulated, and reports efficacy for anxiety, depression and stress, while noting that it is still not routinely offered. Regulation is treated there as a trainable capacity rather than a fixed trait. The review pools studies of varying quality, so read it as a supported direction rather than a settled dose.
Blase K, Vermetten E, Lehrer P, Gevirtz R. (2021). Neurophysiological Approach by Self-Control of Your Stress-Related Autonomic Nervous System with Depression, Stress and Anxiety Patients.. International journal of environmental research and public health doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Knowing what the good state actually feels like gives you something to recognise, and you cannot find your way back to a place you would not recognise.
Being strong, trained or brave does not decide which way your body goes. People who could easily have fought have frozen instead.
Slow breathing on its own does less than slow breathing with a warm feeling attached and something showing you how you are doing.
Digestion runs on the resting side of your nervous system, which is one reason long stress and gut trouble travel together so often.