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Areas › Your body › Touch and bodywork
Gratitude works here as well, as long as it is specific and true: one thing from today rather than a list you are supposed to produce. Pets count, and for many people they arrive faster than any human does. Nothing needs forcing. If no warm feeling comes, the slow low breathing is still doing its work.
'He created spouses from among yourselves for you to live with in tranquillity: He ordained love and kindness between you' (Quran 30:21). Tranquillity is named as the purpose of closeness, so bringing a loved face to mind while your hands rest on your chest is not sentimental filler.
الروم
وَمِنۡ ءَايَٰتِهِۦٓ أَنۡ خَلَقَ لَكُم مِّنۡ أَنفُسِكُمۡ أَزۡوَٰجࣰ ا لِّتَسۡكُنُوٓاْ إِلَيۡهَا وَجَعَلَ بَيۡنَكُم مَّوَدَّةࣰ وَرَحۡمَةًۚ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَأٓيَٰتࣲ لِّقَوۡمࣲ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ
Another of His signs is that He created spouses from among yourselves for you to live with in tranquillity: He ordained love and kindness between you. There truly are signs in this for those who reflect
Qur’an 30:21read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a randomised trial, couples given oxytocin by nasal spray before a difficult conversation communicated more positively and had lower cortisol afterwards. Closeness and physiological calming really are linked, though that was a drug given in a laboratory rather than someone thinking warmly about their partner. Take it as support for the pathway rather than for this exercise.
Ditzen B, Schaer M, Gabriel B, Bodenmann G, Ehlert U, Heinrichs M. (2009). Intranasal oxytocin increases positive communication and reduces cortisol levels during couple conflict.. Biological psychiatry doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Slow breathing low in the body steadies the heart's rhythm, and doing it while someone dear is in mind ties that calm to a person.
Regular massage has been studied with restless, distractible children and teenagers, and their teachers noticed the difference in class as well as the young people noticing it in themselves.
Most people are already doing something for themselves outside your room: herbs, a chiropractor, breathing videos, a weekly massage. Ask, plainly and without a raised eyebrow.
You are not trying to get calm here. You are trying to find out what is actually going on in you, and whatever turns up is the useful part.